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Article: A turn of the crank started the civil war: the cotton gin was a simple mechanism by today's standards, but its influence divided and then united a nation.
- Article from:
- Mechanical Engineering-CIME
- Article date:
- September 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As engineers, we are in the business b of taking something that exists only in the mind, making it tangible, and putting it out into the real world. This usually involves a depth of understanding and a high degree of ingenuity.
But there have been cases in which the mere fact of an engineer's having been on the scene at the right time produced an effect totally out of proportion to what may have been a negligible amount of real engineering. The cotton gin might be history's best example of that.
Eli Whitney conceived it almost on the spur of the moment. He went on to other things and became famous as an engineer, but the gin, which itself was a very ...