How the Cotton Gin Works

[00:00:00]Whitney spent approximately 10 days designing a mechanical solution. His cotton gin worked on a straightforward principle. A wooden drum fitted with wire hooks rotated and pulled cotton fiber through a mesh screen. The gaps in the screen were too small for the seeds to pass through, so they were stripped away.

[00:00:17]A second rotating brush cleared the hooks after each pass, preventing clogging and keeping the machine running continuously.

[00:00:25]The result was a device that could process around 50 lb of clean cotton per day, with some accounts suggesting up to 100 lb under ideal conditions. Either figure represented roughly a 50-fold increase over hand processing. Whitney filed for a patent in June 1793. It was granted in March 1794.

[00:00:44]Whitney entered into a partnership with Phineas Miller, the manager of the Greene estate, to commercialize the invention. Their plan was not to sell the machines, but to retain ownership of all the gins and charge plantation owners a toll of 2/5 of all cotton processed through them. Whitney