"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.

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.

A brief biography of the inventor of a gin to seed upland cotton and of a way to mass produce musket locks.

A biography of Eli Whitney tracing his long legal journey to win rights over his pirated cotton gin and to fulfill his Government contract for ten thousand muskets with interchangable parts.

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.