206 COTTON 



mentioned among the products of Carolina in 1666, and by 1708 it 

 is said to have become one of the principal commodities of that 

 colony. By about the middle of the eighteenth century the culture 

 and use of cotton had extended to Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 

 sissippi, and Louisiana, the seed being brought from all quarters of 

 the globe. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson in a letter said : 



" The four southernmost states make a great deal of cotton. 

 Their poor are almost entirely clothed with it in winter and in 

 summer/' 



- Invention of the Cotton Gin. The export movement of cotton 

 began in the middle of the eighteenth century and in 1793, the year 

 before Eli Whitney patented his saw gin, about 2000 bales were sent 

 abroad. In the same year 22,222 bales were produced. In 1796, a 

 year after Whitney had improved his machine, about 45,000 bales 

 were grown and one-half of this amount exported. The invention 

 by Kichard Arkwright in England, 1796, of a machine for spinning 

 cotton had created a great demand for the raw fiber, and Whitney's 

 gin, which separated the fiber from the seeds, made possible a greater 

 supply. Thus we see the stimulus of a great industry in the inven- 

 tion of the two machines. Within one hundred years, from 1790 to 

 1890, the production of cotton in the United States increased from 

 5000 bales to over 10,000,000 bales, and cotton became the great 

 southern crop. 



Cotton Manufacture in the United States. The development 

 of cotton manufacturing as a great national industry began with the 

 first cotton mill, built in Massachusetts in 1788. This was soon fol- 

 lowed by others in various parts of the eastern border of the country. 

 In them carding and spinning was done by machinery, but weaving 

 was by hand-looms until 1815, when a power-loom was built, also in 

 Massachusetts. The manufacture of cotton rapidly increased until, 

 in 1860, there were more than one thousand mills capitalized at about 

 one hundred million dollars, using each year more than four hun- 

 dred million pounds of raw material, and turning out annually a 

 finished product valued at nearly one hundred and sixteen million 

 dollars. During the great " cotton famine " caused by the Civil 

 War the production and manufacture of cotton in the United States 

 practically ceased, and it was not until 1868 that the cotton industry 



