The Cotton Gin
Technology has undoubtedly improved the lives of people in all sections of life. Through improved technologies, now there are convenient and lot quicker ways for doing things that used to take a lot more effort and time in the past. Most importantly, the peasants who used to work by putting their lives on the line whilst on duty, have benefited greatly from the technologies that have been introduced in the industry and agriculture. There are three notable technologies that, when got introduced to the society and industry, revolutionized the way that people used to work. One such technology that is worth mentioning about is the cotton gin. Where previously, cotton farming used to be a very difficult challenge for farmers to comprehend with, with the advent of this technology, it became far easier to grow and harvest cotton. The purpose of the introduction of this technology was to ensure that there could be grown more cotton and that it could be harvested quickly, in addition to that, to enable the farm workers to increase their productivity. What also came along as an additional advantage was that working on the farm became even easier for the farm workers as well, and they got saved from a lot of needless extra effort.
The cotton gin was an invention that contributed largely to American history. 1793 was the year when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the machine designed to remove the seeds from the cotton plant after it was harvested. The cotton gin was a very simple invention which did not require much effort on the part of the human workforce because the machine did all of the work. The agricultural South in America consisted mainly of farmers and slaves who worked in the cotton fields and were responsible for the harvest and production of cotton.
Farmers knew that the cotton crop was a tricky one, where the separation of the cotton seeds from the actual crop required a long time and the only way that separation was possible was if it were done by hand. At the same time, however, the South became one lucrative region where agriculture flourished. Hence, slavery was common in that area because of the workforce required working in the fields. However, the invention of the cotton gin meant that the work of probably 20 slaves needed at one time was reduced to only two. This meant that cotton became the one cash crop that gave huge profits to the South and farmers decided to make the best of it in order to gain a good profit. Thus, the farmers knew that they needed more land to harvest more of the cotton crop. This land for their cotton was bought from Native Americans. When the land was bought, the farmers then needed more workers to sow the seeds and work on the fields. Hence, slaves were the cheapest and readiest form of labor available, and they decided to make the best use of them. Moreover, slaves were the free market that would cost them nothing to produce large amounts of cotton. Thus, the South began to make use of the cotton gin that led the region to become the most lucrative region, which also affected Northern America. However, there were certain disadvantages the region faced as well.
As history records it, the South was not very rich in the capital because its capital was tied to slavery and their use in the harvest of the cotton. At the same time when North America was building more and more textile mills and industries for utilizing their own cotton, England was a country that also built more textiles and mills that imported its cotton from the South. Yet, the South itself was not able to build its own mills and industry because of the low capital, neither did the South have any roads, transport or means of building up its own industry because its capital was linked to the use of slaves in cotton production.
In the light of ethics, the cotton gin was made as a tool to speed up production and to decrease the amount of work that was required to be done on the part of the slaves that were working in the fields. The cotton fiber that took one slave about two months to be produced could now, with the help of the cotton gin, be produced by the help of two slaves in one day. However, at the same time, America became a country that began to support slavery to a very large degree. From just 700,000 slaves in the year 1790, the number of slaves rose to 3,200,000 in the year 1850. This created a sentiment as the country being one that sought its main help from discrimination and the treatment of people with lower status as their slaves. Whereas this was going on with other countries, America was a country which was supposed to be beyond these concepts.
Socially, the cotton gin changed society for the worst. The world, as a whole began to shift toward competition in business and moved from its idealistic state to the state of slavery becoming rampant and widespread. Division in society was ever more widespread, and it caused about more than one-third of the South. Also, the land that was needed for cultivation and the price of slaves went so high, that the growth of cities and industries in the South fell low.
Another technology that has revolutionized the lives of farmers is the harvester. Harvesting is the time of cutting the crop that has been ripened fully. Once the crop is ready, farmers usually try to harvest is as quickly as possible in order to head to the market sooner and to receive the monetary return of their entire season’s hard work. Additionally, as soon as the crop gets ripened full, it becomes even more vulnerable to decay and pests. Hence, if not cut timely, the crop can potentially be wasted. In the older days, farmers used to work days and night while trying to harvest their crop. Working in the dense fields, they were vulnerable to attacks by poisonous animals like snakes and scorpions while many farmers would lose their lives because of getting cut by their own crop cutting tools that would slip out of their hands out of tiredness.
Earlier harvesters were very basic but mechanized nonetheless. In the late nineteenth century, harvesting no longer remained a challenge for the farmers. Turbine propelled harvesters were capable of harvesting any kind of crop very quickly and did not require but one labor for the purpose. This however negatively affected the lives of the laborers that were dependent on the seasonal services of harvesting manually. The farmers, on the contrary, saved a lot of money that was otherwise spent paying the workers for their services. The modern day harvesters have been modified into combines that are capable of performing not just one but several tasks associated with harvesting. For example, they cut, crush, separate seeds, peel and grind the crop and many more functions based on the kind of the crop are available. The lives of farmers were revolutionized in a way that they had to either lose their jobs or upgrade their skills according to the usage of harvesting. There still remained some parts of the job however in the process of harvesting that slowly transformed from manual to mechanized, but harvesting technology has undoubtedly reformed the process of farming. Now farmers are able to harvest their crops spread over acres in a matter of a handful of days, hence saving them from the high risk of decay and pest attack.
Another notable invention in the field of physical work is that of mining tracks that date into the latter half of the 18th century. Miners have always been the people associated with industry who have the toughest jobs of all. It is utterly difficult to tear open mountains and to break stones, and where now a day this task is done with the help of explosives and heavy duty cutters, in the ancient times, miners did not have anything but small hammers to break the stones. There are found several different kinds of metals under the earth and mountains are relatively easier to explore these metals in because they are actually parts of the earth that have surfaced high above the surface level. The problem associated with mining is that it can only be estimated about how much amount of a certain metal is presently hidden from the eye, and the truth is revealed not before the action of tearing it apart takes place.
Once the miners had broken rocks into stones, they actually had to carry them out of the mines that could slowly and gradually become several miles long in length. The miners had to carry heavy loads of mountain debris out of the tight and dark mines so that they can be separated based on the quality of the metal retrieved in the open air. However, when the railway tracks that ran from one corner of a mine to the other were introduced, this hardship was over for the miners and their lives were revolutionized for the fact that they, at least, did not have to take the risk of having to carry heavy burdens out of the mines that could crush them if they tipped over. This invention did make the process of mining quicker and more profitable, but it clearly benefitted the miners more. The risk of mine collapsing was, however, has always remained a major one for the miners even the modern day mining engineers.
In the present day, both farming and mining remain to be demanded professions because there is no alternate to human service in these professions. Farming has become a less risky job because of the use of cotton gin and harvesters, but it has certainly cost a lot of jobs. The same farm where in the past several hundred farmers used to work, now only a handful of people are sufficient. On the contrary, the mining technology that was completely manual has become far more mechanized. The railway tracks laid inside modern-day mines are very well managed and controlled. Even when these tracks were invented, miners had to drag and push them out, now they are fully automated with engines. While this invention eradicated the risk of getting crushed by falling over while carrying the debris, another risk in the form of getting hit by the carriage has arisen. But modern day mining tracks are sensitive to human activity and have security features installed to protect the lives of working miners. Undoubtedly, these inventions have been revolutionary in their specific fields of work whether it is farming crop or mining for precious metals from the earth.
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