Impact of Cotton Gin

The invention of the Cotton Gin impacted the ways of life and work for many southerners. Before 1793 when Eli Whitney had produced the first Cotton Gin, cotton had been quite the hassle to grow. The Cotton Gin had helped cotton become more popular than the cash crops had been throughout that time period. The Cotton Gin had positive and negative affects for many of the southerners lifestyles.

Cotton was a highly desired crop, but because of the labor intensive process it required this kept it from being cost efficient. If farmers wanted to grow cotton it took a very large amount of work and time to do this. Once Whitney's invention had been discovered it decreased the labor by 50 times without throwing anyone out of business. This then inceased cotton to become the most planted crop in the US. The first ten years of the Cotton Gin, cotton production sky rocketed up by 800%. The new moto in the south had then become "Cotton is King". Cotton had become the most popular, planted crop in the United States.

The South isn't the only place in the country that had benefited from the Cotton Gin: "Southerners were not the only ones benefiting from the cotton boom. Eighty percent of the south’s cotton went to England by way of northern shippers. These shippers were able to buy cotton wholesale and sell it at a premium, since England’s most important manufactured good was cotton cloth. One-fifth of the population in England earned a living from the manufacture of this cloth, and 75 percent of the cotton used in England’s production came from the United States. Since England was so dependent on the south’s cotton and the north’s transportation of it, both the north and the south were able to benefit heavily from this export". Another positive out-come from the Cotton Gin is how the production from it helped strengthen the US.

The Cotton Gin seems to have very many positive affects on the US, it also had negative affects. As the cash crops tobacco, rice, and sugar began to dwindle away and not be as popular cotton production got very strong. This can be helpful at first, until the economy becomes a one crop economy from so much cotton being planted by so many people. The cotton had also taken a tole on the soil quality in the south, which had led to labor sources being unstable. The Cotton Gin had also cause slavery to go back up in numbers because of the needed workers for the Cotton Gin's they needed more slaves to work. The Cotton becoming so popular had led to socioeconomic imbalance in the south, while Democracy was just taking place. Another negative affect this had was the majority of the south was taken over by minority of wealthy plantation owners. The Cotton Gin's negative affects certainly put somewhat of a tole on the US.