Who invented the cotton gin?

Who invented the cotton gin? Eli Whitney invented the modern mechanical cotton gin in 1793. He patented the machine in 1794, creating a device that rapidly separated cotton fibers from their seeds.

Whitney’s gin used wire teeth to pull cotton lint through a closely spaced screen while brushes removed the cleaned fibers. It was especially valuable for short-staple cotton, whose seeds were difficult to remove by hand. Earlier roller gins existed in India and elsewhere, but Whitney’s design made short-staple cotton commercially profitable in the American South.

The invention transformed cotton production, but it did not harvest cotton from fields; that work still had to be done manually. By making cotton cultivation more profitable, the gin helped expand plantation slavery and became one factor in the economic tensions that preceded the American Civil War. James Watt, Samuel Slater, and Henry Bessemer were important inventors, but none invented the cotton gin.