Originally Posted by Yooper32
Just imagine the ingenuity that man had to figure out a piece of machinery to do all the steps that a cotton gin does. Was it Eli Whitney? Seems like I remember that name associated with the cotton gin. Anyhow, I applaud whoever it was.
There's a good chance that it was a woman who gave Eli Whitney a significant part of the idea for the cotton gin! Catherine Littlefield Greene was the wife of Nathaniel Greene (general in the Revolutionary War) and a supporter of Eli Whitney. A very interesting woman.
The cotton gin was in the air, so to speak. Several inventors came up with different designs in around the same time period (1790s) but it was Whitney's design that prevailed.