The Cotton Gin & Slavery

Who invented the famous cotton gin in the early 20th century?

• Eli Whitney

• Eli Young

• Abraham Lincoln

• Benjamin Franklin

The nickname given to cotton.

• white gold
• Emperor Crop
• Carolina Cash
• King Cotton

The economy of the north was based on ___________.

• manufacturing
• agriculture
• capitalism
• tourism

The economy of the south was based on _________.

• manufacturing
• agriculture
• tourism
• trade

The business (type of factory) that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

• automobile
• textile
• welding
• gun manufacturing

This is the location of the first textile mills and where the Industrial Revolution was born.

• England
• America
• France
• China

The name of the man who memorized the spinning jenny and smuggled it to America.

• Samuel Slater
• Benjamin Franklin
• Thomas Edison
• Sherlock Holmes

Both the manufacturing system and the agricultural system relied on cheap labor and were fueled by _____.

• The desire for the higher quality products 
• The desire for handmade items since they were more of better quality than machine made.
• Greed and the desire for profit from the planters and factory owners.
• The decrease of the slave population in America due to slavery being outlawed.

The cotton gin processes cotton more quickly, so why did the invention of the cotton gin increase the need for slaves even though it reduced the need for labor for seed removal?

• It was an extremely complicated machine.  Therefore, more slaves were needed to operate and repair it.
•  Now that more cotton could be processed quickly, more cotton needed to be grown and picked.
• Only the large plantations used the gin.  Smaller plantations still processed cotton by hand.
• The cotton gin only gathered the fiber and crushed the cotton seeds.  Slaves still physically picked through the fibers and pulled out the seeds.

What did cotton bring to the south and how did that affect them?

• Slaves—Before cotton, slaves had only been used in the islands of the Caribbean.
• Disease—Cotton carried fleas which would bite any person near the plant and give them the plague.
• Wealth—Along with this wealth came much pride in the southern way of life which led to sectionalism.
• Mistrust—When the government forced SC to begin growing cotton, many southerners felt like the government should not be allowed to tell them how to run their state.