Eli Whitney
                     ELI 
WHITNEY
2
Introduction
Eli Whitney, (born December 8, 1765, Westboro, 
Massachusetts [U.S.]—died January 8, 1825, New 
Haven, Connecticut, U.S.), American inventor, 
mechanical engineer, and manufacturer, best 
remembered as the inventor of the cotton gin 
but most important for developing the concept of 
mass production of interchangeable parts.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
3
Family
Whitney’s father was a respected farmer who 
served as a justice of the peace. 
Source: 
www.britannica.com
4
Marriage
In 1817 Whitney married Henrietta Edwards, 
granddaughter of the Puritan theologian 
Jonathan Edwards. Of his four children, three 
survived, including Eli Whitney, Jr., who 
continued his father’s arms manufactory in 
Hamden, Connecticut.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
5
Education
In May 1789 Whitney entered Yale College, 
where he learned many of the new concepts and 
experiments in science and the applied arts, as 
technology was then called.
After graduation in the fall of 1792, Whitney was 
disappointed twice in promised teaching posts. 
Source: 
www.britannica.com
6
Cotton gin
Whitney’s cotton gin had four parts: (1) a hopper to 
feed the cotton into the gin; (2) a revolving cylinder 
studded with hundreds of short wire hooks, closely 
set in ordered lines to match fine grooves cut in (3) a 
stationary breastwork that strained out the seed 
while the fibre flowed through; and (4) a clearer, 
which was a cylinder set with bristles, turning in the 
opposite direction, that brushed the cotton from the 
hooks and let it fly off by its own centrifugal force.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
7
Business 
manufacturing
After perfecting his machine Whitney secured a 
patent (1794), and he and Miller went into 
business manufacturing and servicing the new 
gins. 
However, the unwillingness of the planters to 
pay the service costs and the ease with which 
the gins could be pirated put the partners out of 
business by 1797.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
8
Design of 
Musket
Whitney broke with this tradition with a plan to 
supply 10,000 muskets in two years. 
He designed machine tools by which an unskilled 
workman made only a particular part that 
conformed precisely, as precision was then 
measured, to a model. The sum of such parts 
was a musket.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
9
Interchangeabl
e parts
Eli Whitney has often been incorrectly credited 
with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts, 
which he championed for years as a maker of 
muskets; however, the idea predated Whitney, 
and Whitney's role in it was one of promotion 
and popularizing, not invention.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
10
Firearms in 
Connecticut
Whitney returned to Connecticut in 1793 and 
began manufacturing firearms in New Haven in 
1798. Here his inventive nature proved profitable 
once again. 
Whitney helped develop a series of rifles made 
with interchangeable parts that helped give rise 
to the mass production of firearms in 
Connecticut.
Source: 
www.britannica.com
11
Later life
Whitney died of prostate cancer on January 8, 
1825, in New Haven, Connecticut, just a month 
after his 59th birthday. He left a widow and his 
four children behind. One of his offspring, Eli 
Whitney III (known as Eli Whitney Jr.), was 
instrumental in building New Haven, 
Connecticut's waterworks.
Source: en.wikipedia.org