We know that at the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, Huang Daopo, a famous textile technology innovator in China history, spread the cotton seeds of Li women in Yazhou to the mainland, which greatly promoted the renewal of textile technology in the mainland and the development of cotton planting.
Coincidentally. 1793, eli whitney of the United States also invented the cotton gin on his own land, a machine for separating cotton fibers from cottonseed.
Eli whitney comes from a poor family. He studied machinery with his father since he was a child, and he was quite talented in mechanical manufacturing. His experience in his youth laid the foundation for his invention of cotton gin in the future.
Whitney was eighteen or nineteen years old, and several years of mechanical manufacturing practice made him more and more aware of the importance of knowledge. As the days passed, Whitney found that she didn't have enough knowledge and wanted to learn more and more.
"No way. I must go to college to learn something real, and I will never make great progress by tinkering on my own. "
In this way, Whitney used her meager savings to enter Yale University in Connecticut. Three years later, Whitney graduated. He left Yale to teach in a middle school.
One summer vacation, Whitney boarded a ship from new york Port to Savannah and went out for a short trip. On this ship, he met a woman named Catherine. Green's rich widow. This Mrs Green is a planter, and her plantation is only a few miles away from Savannah.
During the small talk, Mrs. Green took a fancy to Whitney. Knowing that he is a middle school teacher, she happily invited him to be a tutor for her children. Whitney accepted Mrs. Green's employment. He quit his job as a middle school teacher and went to Mrs. Green's plantation to tutor her children.
At that time, the economy of the southern United States began to develop into plantations. Manor owners used a large number of slaves illegally trafficked from the African continent in this uncultivated land and planted cotton and other crops for them. Among them, cotton is the most important cash crop for manor owners. '
After living on the plantation for a long time, Whitney noticed that the slaves were particularly tired after each cotton harvest, especially their hands were swollen and painful. Whitney felt a little strange: why do these working hands get red and swollen during cotton harvesting, and even their nails fall off?
Driven by curiosity, Whitney, who had never done farm work, came to the field to ask the slaves here. It turned out that after cotton was harvested, cotton fibers and cottonseed had to be separated, and these jobs had to be done by slaves. Moreover, only one kind of cotton with short fiber and green cottonseed grows on the land here, and the hard cottonseed is firmly stuck in the cotton peach. In order to peel this small cottonseed, a black slave worked continuously for 10 hour, and only one catty of cotton could be peeled from three catties of cotton peaches.
Whitney, who was good at mechanical manufacturing in her teens, began to think: Why not design a machine to make cottonseed fall off from cotton peaches automatically and quickly?
Mrs. Green was very happy when she heard Whitney's idea: "Yes, it would be a great thing if someone could invent this machine for peeling cottonseed quickly!" " But ... who will invent it? "
"I'll try!" Whitney replied.
"You?" Mrs. Green had some accidents.
"Yes, I was engaged in machinery manufacturing before I went to college, and I believe I can do it. However, it needs your support, madam. "
"I fully support it!" Mrs. Green said happily.
Therefore, in addition to teaching children, Whitney spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. In order to understand the specific process of peeling cottonseed, he personally came to the cotton field, carefully observed the work of slaves and experienced this skill.
Through continuous exploration, Whitney skillfully mastered the method of peeling cottonseed. However, how to simulate the peeling action of hands? How to design this machine? He motioned for peeling, while thinking about what kind of mechanical device should be used to complete the work of the hand.
After many twists and turns, Whitney finally invented the machine in Mrs. Green's plantation. This is a device with simple structure, which uses a cylinder with fine hook teeth and a pair of rolling gear shafts to pull cotton out through a sieve when rolling. At the same time, a brush kept cleaning the drum. It is packed in a big wooden box with a feed inlet on the top, a cottonseed outlet on the bottom and a hand crank outside the box.
Whitney and Mrs. Green immediately conducted an experiment on the plantation. The results show that this simple mechanical device can improve the working efficiency by 50 times. Moreover, since then, slaves no longer have to peel cottonseed directly by hand-they just put cottonseed in the entrance and shake the handle outside the box, and they can easily and simply complete this processing procedure. Whitney named it "cotton gin"
Subsequently, Whitney's invention was patented. He partnered with others and began to produce more cotton gin. Later, he designed a marine machinery powered by water, which can gin 300- 1000 pounds a day.
Whitney's invention greatly promoted the development of planting in the southern United States, and cotton became the most important cash crop in the manor for a long time.