233. Cotton Growing in the South.--Cotton had been grown in the South for many years. It had been made on the plantations into a rough cloth. Very little had been sent away. The reason for this was that it took a very long time to separate the cotton fiber from the seed. One slave working for a whole day could hardly clean more than a pound of cotton. Still as time went on more cotton was grown. In 1784 a few bags of cotton were sent to England. The Englishmen promptly seized it because they did not believe that so much cotton could be grown in America. In 1791 nearly two hundred thousand pounds of cotton were exported from the South. Then came Whitney's great invention, which entirely changed the whole history of the country. [Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. As designed by Thomas Jefferson.] [Sidenote: Eli Whitney.] [Sidenote: His cotton gin, 1793. _McMaster_, 195-196.] 234. Whitney's Cotton Gin, 1793.--Eli Whitney was a Connecticut schoolmaster. He went to Georgia to teach General Greene's children. He was very ingenious, and one day Mrs. Greene suggested to him that he might make a machine which would separate the cotton fiber from the cotton seed. Whitney set to work and soon made an engine or gin, as he called it, that would do this. The first machine was a rude affair. But even with it one slave could clean one hundred pounds of cotton in a day. Mrs. Greene's neighbors promptly broke into Whitney's shop and stole his machine. Whitney's cotton gin made the growing of cotton profitable and so fastened slavery on the South. With the exception of the steam locomotive (p. 241) and the reaper (p. 260), no invention has so tremendously influenced the history of the United States. [Sidenote: Early manufactures.] 235. Colonial Manufactures.--Before the Revolutionary War there were very few mills or factories in the colonies. There was no money to put into such undertakings and no operatives to work the mills if they had been built. The only colonial manufactures that amounted to much were the making of nails and shoes. These articles could be made at home on the farms, in the winter, when no work could be done out of doors. [Sidenote: New manufactures established.] [Sidenote: Invention of cotton spinning machinery.]