Eli Whitney, an inventor from Massachusetts, is inducted for his invention of the cotton gin.

By the age of 16, Whitney had established a successful business in a workshop on his father’s farm. He produced and sold nails and other small items that were difficult for local citizens to obtain during the Revolutionary War era.

In 1792, Whitney graduated from Yale University and moved to Georgia to take a tutoring position. It was here that he saw the need for an apparatus to eliminate the tedious hand cleaning of cotton harvests.

By 1793, Whitney had invented and demonstrated his cotton gin prototype and by 1784 he had obtained a patent. His invention of the cotton gin enabled one man to clean as much cotton in one day as could be cleaned in an entire winter by hand. The cotton gin boosted U.S. cotton exports from under one hundred-ninety thousand pounds in 1791 to over forty-one million pounds in 1803.

Whitney also created innovations considered as forerunners of mass production, including the principle of interchangeability of parts for firearm manufacturing.