Eli Whitney: Nemesis of the South by Arnold Whitridge - Essay Example

This article named so pathetically and ironically at the same time tells us an amazing story of a young man, promising Yale graduate and brilliant inventor Eli Whitney. The author narrates about Eli’s wonderful career as a devisor whose ingenious invention eased life and work of lots of people, and whose altruism, sometimes naivety and simplicity did not bring him nation-wide fame and great money in life. Arnold Whitridge starts his article with familiarizing the reader with Whitney’s background, his interests and preferences.

The very first device invented by Whitney is the cotton gin, the invention that made a revolution in cotton production. Arnold Whitridge writes that “no invention ever answered a more pressing need than the cotton gin” (Whitridge 115). Thus Eli Whitney provided the “possibility of supplying it [market] with ease and profit made cotton planting the one absorbing industry of the South” (Whitridge 115). Every invention ever made by minkind has both beneficial and disastrous effects. Having invented the magical device, a cotton gin, Whitney became the reason of slavery promotion all over the South, as free working hands for developing the cotton production were highly in demand.

Whitridge (115) cites the words of Daniel Webster concerning the current situation, “it was the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor” (Whitridge 115). And according to the author’s arguments, it turns out that the rush demand for slave force was a handiwork of one man – Eli Whitney. It is hard to say definitely if Eli Whitney is to be blamed in spreading slavery and greedy planter’s profit-making. In my opinion, the most important thing is inventor’s sincere desire to help people.

It was really impossible to predict the consequences which finally resulted in promotion of slavery. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; he was not the one who invented slavery. Still, the astonishing inventions of Whitney did not end there. His other invention was a breakthrough in producing firearms. The author of the article under consideration allows us to understand that the idea of mass production was in the air at that date. So Whitney was quite aware of this and he also was eager to help America in the targeted war with France.

He created a milling machine that was necessary for creating a system of interchangeable parts “by means of which he was able to make the same parts of different guns as much like each other as the successive impressions of a copper-plate engraving” (Whitridge 120). Thus Whitney managed to provide the constant supply of firearms to the government. But the South that was so enthusiastic about Eli’s first creation remained indifferent towards the second one, whereas the North started using it and began to develop their machinery actively.

In his article Arnold Whitridge suggests that the occasion played a joke on Eli Whitney. He contributed to the South prosperity by inventing the cotton gin, but that brought him neither money nor fame though being used all over the South. But the following discovery took revenge for its master. Indeed, the traditional South couldn’t resist the well-equipped North in the Civil War. Here I cannot