Eli Whitney’s love of inventing and pondering new ideas made him one of America’s greatest inventors. Best known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the most important American inventions of the century, he changed cotton production forever. A few years later, Whitney invented machines to make muskets that were identical. The first mass-manufacturing business in the country, his musket factory revolutionized the way Americans made things.

Eli Whitney is remembered as a great inventor. His cotton gin was one of the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution, and it did much to shape the course of the American economy. This biographical title explores Whitney’s entrepreneurial mind, bringing to life his inventions, innovations, and hardworking spirit. Through accessible language and detailed images, this curriculum-focused title provides an in-depth look at the Industrial Revolution, Whitney’s role in it, and how together they helped shape a growing nation. A timeline and primary sources complete a comprehensive learning experience.

Eli Whitney was an inventor best known for his invention of the cotton gin. But it was his ideas and methods that had the greatest impact on America, bringing the country into the Industrial Revolution. He grew up as a farmer's son, but was often found in his father's workshop. As a boy during the American Revolution, he started his first business as a supplier of nails. Against his family's wishes, he insisted on getting an education from Yale. It was while he was studying to be a lawyer that he stumbled upon a solution to clean cotton. Whitney most enjoyed looking at a problem and trying to solve it, whether it was how to clean cotton or lock a desk. He created solutions with easily understood steps. With these steps, he developed a system of manufacturing that worked well with anything that had pieces to be put together. It would be used to mass-produce guns, sewing machines, and, later, cars. Today's manufacturing can be traced to Eli Whitney.

"In graphic novel format, tells the story of how Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, and the effects it had on the South"--Provided by publisher.

Lakwete shows how indentured British, and later enslaved Africans, built and used foot-powered models to process the cotton they grew for export. After Eli Whitney patented his wire-toothed gin, southern mechanics transformed it into the saw gin, offering stiff competition to northern manufacturers.

From the bestselling author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown and The Tycoons comes the fascinating, panoramic story of the rise of American industry between the War of 1812 and the Civil War