Landmark 1830s Ala Cotton Gin Factory Renovation, History- Enslaved Workers; Key Slavery Expansion

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- 'Slavery’s Ghost Haunts Cotton Gin Factory’s Transformation,' AP News. Nov. 22, 2022.

PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) — There’s no painless way to explain the history of a massive brick structure being renovated into apartments in this central Alabama city — a factory that played a key role in the expansion of slavery before the Civil War. Dating back to the 1830s, the labor of enslaved Black people helped make it the world’s largest manufacturer of cotton gins, an innovation that boosted demand for many more enslaved people to pick cotton that could be quickly processed in much higher quantities than ever before, historians say.

The project to transform the factory’s five historic buildings into 127 upscale homes has many in the city of nearly 40,000 excited that a local landmark will be saved from demolition. New residents moving in early next year will only help Main Street’s shops and restaurants. But with the nation debating how to teach history, the multimillion-dollar project also demonstrates the difficulty of telling the complicated story of a place in a way that both honors the past and doesn’t raise hackles over “wokeness” in a deeply conservative community.
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The transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1808 and slavery was in decline before Eli Whitney invented the labor-saving gin to separate white cotton fibers from seeds. The demand for unpaid labor skyrocketed and thousands of people were sold onto plantations, where the gins made cotton farming more profitable than ever. Prattville’s namesake, Daniel Pratt, became Alabama’s first major industrialist against this backdrop, moving South from New Hampshire and starting a business to produce gins several years later.

Pratt designed his company town about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of the state’s Capitol to resemble the New England communities of his past. With a physical layout matching an ethos built on labor, education and faith, he had workers build a church, schools and stores near the factory. His grave rests atop a hill overlooking the city, where he’s celebrated as a paragon of virtue. Slavery was always part of the operation, according to “Daniel Pratt of Prattville: A Northern Industrialist and a Southern Town,” a definitive history written by Curt John Evans.

Pratt used four enslaved mechanics in 1837 as collateral for a $2,000 bank loan to buy 2,000 acres along Autauga Creek for what would become Prattville, and then used more slave labor to clear the swampy land, according to the book...

- Read More, https://apnews.com/article/business-alabama-race-and-ethnicity-slavery-433dc0c956607a400b6b8b00c5c366fc

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1. Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin (Engine)

Last edited Sat Nov 26, 2022, 10:26 PM - Edit history (1)

-- ELI WHITNEY JR. (Dec. 8, 1765 – Jan. 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin (patented 1793), one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...Although Whitney himself believed that his invention would reduce the need for enslaved labor and help hasten the end of southern slavery,

Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged the institution Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost many profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention into securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825.

.. While the cotton gin did not earn Whitney the fortune he had hoped for, it did give him fame. It has been argued by some historians that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War. After Whitney's invention, the plantation slavery industry was rejuvenated, eventually culminating in the Civil War.[12] The cotton gin transformed Southern agriculture and the national economy.[13] Southern cotton found ready markets in Europe and in the burgeoning textile mills of New England. Cotton exports from the U.S. boomed after the cotton gin's appearance – from less than 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) in 1793 to 93 million pounds (42,000,000 kg) by 1810.[14] Cotton was a staple that could be stored for long periods and shipped long distances, unlike most agricultural products. It became the U.S.'s chief export, representing over half the value of U.S. exports from 1820 to 1860.

Whitney believed that his cotton gin would reduce the need for enslaved labor and would help hasten the end of southern slavery.[2] Paradoxically, the cotton gin, a labor-saving device, helped preserve and prolong slavery in the United States for another 70 years. Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo, none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty of seed removal. But with the invention of the gin, growing cotton with slave labor became highly profitable – the chief source of wealth in the American South, and the basis of frontier settlement from Georgia to Texas. "King Cotton" became a dominant economic force, and slavery was sustained as a key institution of Southern society. - Interchangeable parts... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney
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- COTTON GIN—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as calico, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil.

Handheld roller gins had been used in the Indian subcontinent since at earliest AD 500 and then in other regions. The Indian worm-gear roller gin, invented sometime around the 16th century, has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794. Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also led to the growth of slavery in the American South.

Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable, so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more enslaved people to pick the cotton. Whitney never invented a machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin

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2. Effects of the Cotton Gin: National Archives: *In 1790, 6 slave states. In 1860, 15 slave states..

- Effects of the Cotton Gin

After the invention of the cotton gin, the yield of raw cotton doubled each decade after 1800. Demand was fueled by other inventions of the Industrial Revolution, such as machines to spin and weave it, and the steamboat to transport it. By 1850, America was growing three-quarters of the world's supply of cotton, most of it sent to New England or exported to England where it was manufactured into cloth.

During this time tobacco fell in value, rice exports at best stayed steady, and sugar began to thrive, but only in Louisiana. By the mid-19th century, the South provided three-fifths of America's exports – most of it in cotton.

The most significant effect of the cotton gin, however, was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for enslaved labor to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred.
Cotton growing became so profitable for enslavers that it greatly increased their demand for both land and enslaved labor.

*.In 1790, there were 6 "slave states"; in 1860 there were 15.
From 1790 until Congress banned the slave trade from Africa in 1808, Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860, approximately one in 3 Southerners was an enslaved person.

Because of the cotton gin, enslaved people labored on ever-larger plantations where work was more regimented and relentless. As large plantations spread into the Southwest, the price of enslaved labor and land inhibited the growth of cities and industries.
In the 1850s, seven-eighths of all immigrants settled in the North, where they found 72% of the nation's manufacturing capacity.

- Epilogue

While Eli Whitney is best remembered as the inventor of the cotton gin, he was also the father of the mass production method.
In 1798, he figured out how to manufacture muskets by machine so that the parts were interchangeable. It was as a manufacturer of muskets that Whitney finally became rich. He died in 1825.

- Full article, Eli Whitney's Patent for the Cotton Gin (Manumission, the view to end slavery, prior to the invention of the cottonn gin).
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent#background

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3. Well, merciful heavens, we wouldn't want to raise any hackles over "wokeness" or the like!

I mean, where does it all end ? Before you know it, people will be saying really offensive things like "slavery was bad" and "we shouldn't have done that", and just think of all the poor hurt feefees then.

Whitney's belief that the cotton gin might decrease the need for slavery reminds me of the inventors of machine guns and other weapons who believed that they would make war so costly in human lives that it would mean the end of war. Just because you recognize an opportunity doesn't mean you can anticipate the direction(s) opportunism will lead.

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4. I hear you and thought of the machine gun as well. Humans...