Cotton harvest is wrapping up across the South. Gin stands are
at full bore, separating seed from lint in a low, rumbling
drone. Trailers rumble into gin yards, dropping massive modules
into rows — white loaves of profit. Layers of fine dust blanket
the scene, almost like second skin. And just off to the side,
always on the periphery, hovers the ghost of Mr. Whitney. Eli
Whitney lit the fuse of agricultural revolution in 1793 with his
cotton gin invention. Quite plainly, and without exaggeration —
Whitney shifted U.S. history. Repercussions from the cotton
explosion slammed into slavery and industrialization. With a New
England childhood that sprang directly from the American
Revolution, Whitney would never have dreamed that his ‘cotton
engine’ would be swept up in a flow that led directly to the
Civil War. Despite the weight of history, the gin never brought
Whitney riches. Prior to 1793, a slave might pull a single pound
of cotton lint free from its seed in a day; but Whitney’s
invention could separate almo