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Changes In Eli Whitney's Industrial Revolution

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The industrial revolution was a very important time in America. It was a period of social, industrial, and agricultural change. It began in the late 1700s. Britain’s industrial revolution happened before Americas because they had more natural resources to begin making machines. The first industry that began the revolution was the textile industry. All work in the textile industry was done by hand and was usually very time consuming and difficult. One invention that would change the textile industry and the history of the US forever was the cotton gin. The cotton gin, short for cotton engine, was invented by Eli Whitney. Whitney went to Yale and thought about becoming a lawyer. After he graduated, he got a job as a tutor on a plantation …show more content…

The problem with the cotton was that it was hard to separate the fibers from the seeds because the seeds are very sticky. Whitney came up with two versions of the cotton gin, a smaller one that could be hand cranked, and a larger one that could be harnessed to a horse or could be driven by water power. The cotton gin will have many positive and negative effects on the country. Before the cotton gin, the south mostly produced tobacco. The tobacco would do damage to the soil which made it hard to grow the crops. Cotton wasn’t a successful crop because all the difficulties it took to produce it. Afterwards, it became America’s most successful crop and the biggest export. The demand for cotton went up and so did the need for more plantations, and slaves. The price of slaves was very low before the cotton gin was invented, because there was less of a need for them (Nevins,82). So as the crops began to get more successful, they began to spread into the south west and bigger plantations were being built. The price and need for slaves then went up and It brought up the debate on whether or not slavery as right or wrong. With the growing number of plantations and slaves being use on them, and the debating about the issue, it would later help lead to the civil …show more content…

The first engines used in America were purchased from England. The first railroad built in the US was the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Construction started in July 1828 and it was built there because Baltimore was the 3rd largest state, and they didn’t have a canal for easy transportation. The railroad was built to help them compete with New York and the Erie Canal (“Early American Railroads”, web). There were more than 5 operating railroads by 1835 and would grow even more

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