cotton hosiery had hitherto had to be carried on on a limited scale,
owing to the difficulty of obtaining yarn that was sufficiently strong
for the stocking-frames that were then used. At first he and John
Smalley were associated with the Messrs. Wright, Nottingham bankers,
but these bankers, figuring on the experience that had befallen the
inventors of other spinning machines, soon withdrew their aid. But
Arkwright was more fortunate in his next step. Samuel Need, a
Nottingham manufacturer of stockings, and his partner, Jedediah
Strutt, of Derby, who had himself invented a device for making ribbed
stockings, became interested in his machine, tested it carefully, and
with the experience they had already gained as practical
manufacturers, decided in its favor. It was their approval that
started Arkwright on the road to fortune.
Arkwright took out his first patent in 1769, the same year that Watt
patented his steam-engine with a separate condenser. A little later,
with his partners Need and Strutt, he built a very complete factory at
Cromford, on the Derwent River. He had already shown his power of
originating and perfecting a working machine, now he showed an
additional ability for organizing a great manufactory, and improving
and adding new devices to his original model. This was the test of his
strength, and perhaps the most wonderful part of his character. Many
men have come upon new ideas, and many have sent them forth to improve
the world’s work, but only a few have developed them, day in and day
out, until they stand forth as a finished achievement. That is the
gauge, the test that has proved the inventor. Not Watt’s first
innovations on the stationary steam-engine, nor Stephenson’s building
of his original locomotive, nor Arkwright’s discovery that rollers
could be used to draw the cotton, but the years of trial and
improvement Watt spent at Birmingham, and Stephenson in his shops at
Killingworth, and Arkwright in his factory at Cromford, have made the
three men famous in history. They were the years of patience and
perseverance, which must come in the life of every great inventor to
test his strength.
The country people about Cromford came to see Arkwright’s machines,
and wonder at them, and sometimes to buy a dozen pairs of stockings
that had been made of Arkwright’s yarn. But the big Manchester
manufacturers refused to trade with him. The fine water-twist that was
being spun on his spinning-frames was perfectly adapted to be used as
warp, and would have supplied the demand for genuine cotton goods,
which otherwise had to be imported from India. But, though they needed
his yarn, the manufacturers would not buy it from him, and he was
forced to find some way of using his large output himself. First he
used it to manufacture stockings, and then, in 1773, to make, for the
first time in England, fabrics entirely of cotton. This was the
turning point in England’s trade in cotton goods. Heretofore she had
not been able to meet the demands of her own people, now she was to
commence a campaign that was ultimately to send her cloth to the
farthest ends of the earth.
His powers of resistance were to be still further tested. An act was
passed, based on the assumption that the English spinners could never
compete with the fine Indian handiwork, that a duty of sixpence a yard
should be levied on all calicoes, which were a variety of cotton goods
originally imported from Calicut, in India. In addition, the sale of
printed calicoes was forbidden. The customs officers immediately began
to levy the duty on the products of Arkwright’s mills, claiming that
the goods were in reality calicoes, although they were made in
England. It followed that merchants who had ordered goods from the
Cromford Mill cancelled their orders, rather than pay the duty, and
again Arkwright found his cottons piling up on his hands.
The act was too unfair to stand, and after a time was repealed. Cotton
and all mixed fabrics were taxed threepence per yard, and the
prohibition on printed cotton goods was withdrawn. The opposition of
rival manufacturers could not in the nature of things long retard
what was to become one of the nation’s main industries.
He took out his second patent in 1775, and it embraced almost the
entire field of cloth manufacture. It contained innumerable devices
that he had worked out during the years he had been experimenting at
his factory. It covered “carding, drawing, and roving machines for use
in preparing silk, cotton, flax, and wool for spinning.” The man who
had been a vendor of wigs had now revolutionized the whole spinning
world. He had taught men and women to work at his machines, instead of
in the old way of individual hand labor, he had organized a great
business, and was showing the world that more could be accomplished by
the division of labor and its control by one mind than could ever have
resulted from individual initiative. In this way he was taking a most
vital part in the progress of those new economic ideas that were
dawning into consciousness toward the close of the eighteenth century.
It is so easy to see the successful result, so difficult to appreciate
the trials that have been undergone. We look at the great picture and
we admire the genius of the artist, but how rarely we realize the no
less wonderful patience, the no less wonderful struggle that underlies
what we see. The creator has not wrought easily, that is certain; and
his greatness consists in what he has overcome.
Arkwright was ill with asthma during many of the years when he was
fighting for his fortune, and time and again it seemed as if his
strength must fail before the task he had undertaken. But he was a
great fighter, and so he won through. His workmen were offered bribes
to leave his service, and teach his methods to rivals, his patents
were infringed, right and left there was warfare, and he was fighting
a score of enemies single-handed.
In 1781 he had to bring suit against Colonel Mordaunt, and eight other
manufacturers, for infringing his patent. The influence of all the
Lancashire cotton-spinners was aligned against his claims. They could
not deny the fact that he had invented the spinning-jenny, but they
said that the specifications of his patent were not sufficiently
clear. The court upheld this contention, and declared the patent
invalid. Arkwright withdrew the other suits he had started, and wrote
and published his “Case,” in order to set forth to the world the truth
of his claims.
In 1785 he brought his case again into court, and this time Lord
Loughborough ruled that his patent was valid. On account of this
conflict of decisions the matter was referred to the Court of King’s
Bench. Here a Lancashire man named Highs, who had constructed a double
jenny to work fifty-six spindles in 1770, was declared by Arkwright’s
opponents to be the real inventor. It was said that Arkwright had
stolen this man’s ideas. On such evidence Arkwright’s claims were
denied, and his patent overruled. This was the species of constant
warfare with which he had to occupy himself.
Manchester had fought against the spinning-frame for years, but it was
to receive the chief fruits of its success. Arkwright built a mill
there in 1780, and it prospered exceedingly, in spite of the fact that
he no longer had the protection of his patents. He was such a good
business man, such a splendid organizer, that he could overcome his
enemies without that help, and in time he built up a fortune.
When he had started his first mill at Nottingham Arkwright had been
obliged to use horse-power, and it was owing to the expense of such a
system that he had soon moved to Cromford, where he could obtain
water-power from the Derwent River. It was this that gave his yarn the
name of water-twist. But in his Manchester Mill he made use of a
hydraulic wheel, supplied with water by a single-stroke atmospheric
steam-engine. Later Boulton and Watt’s engines were installed, and
with the most profitable results. As a result of these improvements
the imports of cotton wool, which had averaged less than 5,000,000
pounds a year in the five years from 1771 to 1775, rose to an average
of more than 25,000,000 pounds in the five years ending with 1790.
England began to export cotton goods in 1781, which was sufficient
evidence that the manufacture of such goods was proceeding more
rapidly than the home demand for them. This was due largely to
Arkwright’s invention, to his building up of factories on new methods,
and to the great help furnished to all machinery by the steam-engines
of James Watt.
This is the romance of the dealer in wigs and dyes. He had won fame
and fortune, and a powerful position in his country. In 1786 he was
appointed High Sheriff in Derbyshire, and the same year was knighted
by George III. He died at Cromford in 1792.
His personality was strong, aggressive, dominating. Nothing could turn
him from his course when he had made up his mind in regard to it. He
was determined to make a fortune out of cotton-spinning, and he did,
in spite of the loss of his patents, and the rivals who were always
pursuing him. He stands high as inventor, and quite as high as one of
the makers of modern commercial England.
VI
WHITNEY AND THE COTTON-GIN
1765-1825
Cotton-growing has been for a long time the main industry of the
Southern United States, and the exporting of cotton by that part of
the country has largely fed the mills of the world. Yet in 1784 the
customs officers at Liverpool seized eight bags of cotton arriving on
an American vessel, claiming that so much of the raw material could
not have been produced in the thirteen states. In 1793 the total
export of cotton from the United States was less than ten thousand
bales, but by 1860 the export was four million bales. The chief reason
for this marvelous advance was the cotton-gin, for which Eli Whitney
applied for a patent in 1793.
Wherever cotton grew in the South there the cotton-gin was to be
found. It brought prosperity and ease and comfort, it allowed the
small as well as the large owner to have his share of the profits of
the markets of the world. It gave the cotton country its living, and
yet Whitney struggled for years to win the slightest recognition of
his claims. He wrote to Robert Fulton, “In one instance I had great
difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia,
although at the same moment there were three separate sets of this
machinery in motion within fifty yards of the building in which the
court sat, and all so near that the rattling of the wheels was
distinctly heard on the steps of the court-house.”
He came to the South from New England, having been born in
Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765,
educated at Yale College, and going to Georgia as teacher in a private
family. General Greene, of Savannah, took a great interest in him, and
taught him law. Whitney had been a good student, had an attractive
personality, and had already shown a natural knack for mechanics.
While he was teaching at the Greenes’ home he noticed that the
embroidery frame that Mrs. Greene used tore the fine threads of her
work. He asked her to let him study it, and shortly had made a frame
on an entirely different plan that would do the same work without
injuring the threads. His hostess was delighted with it, and spread
the word of her young teacher’s ingenuity through the neighborhood.
As in all Southern mansions hospitality was rife at the Greenes’, and
it happened that one evening a number of gentlemen were gathered there
who had fought under the General in the Revolution. The subject of the
growing of cotton came under discussion, and some one spoke of the
unfortunate fact that no method had been found for cleaning the cotton
staple of the green seed. If that could be done cotton could be grown
with profit on all the land that was unsuited for rice. To separate a
single pound of the clean staple from the green seed took a whole
day’s work for a woman. There was little profit in trying to grow
much cotton at such a rate, and most of the cotton picking was done by
the negroes in the evenings, when the harder labor of the fields was
finished. Then Mrs. Greene pointed to Eli Whitney with a smile.
“There, gentlemen,” said she, “apply to my friend Mr. Whitney for your
device. He can make anything.” The guests looked at the young man, but
he hastened to disclaim any such abilities, and said that he had never
even seen cotton-seed.
But in spite of his disclaimer he began to consider whether he could
make a machine that would help to separate the seed from the cotton.
He went to see a neighbor, Phineas Miller, and talked over his plans
with him. Miller became interested, and gave him a room in his house
where he might carry on his experiments. He had to use very primitive
implements, making his own tools and drawing his own wire. He worked
quietly, only Mr. Miller and Mrs. Greene knowing what he was doing.
Whitney worked on his machine all the winter of 1793, and by spring it
was far enough completed to assure him of success. Mr. Miller, who was
a lawyer with a taste for mechanics, and who was, again like Eli
Whitney, a New Englander and graduate of Yale, married Mrs. Greene
after the General’s death. It was he who actually made Whitney’s
machine a business possibility by proposing that he should become a
partner with the inventor, and bear all the expenses of manufacturing
it until they should secure their patent. They drew up a legal
agreement to this effect, dated May 27, 1793, and stipulating that
all the profits should be equally divided between them.
There followed very soon the first dramatic scenes in the long battle
between the owners of the cotton-gin and the public. The Southern
people knew how invaluable such an invention would be to them; it
meant food and shelter and better living all along the line; it would
increase the value of their property a hundredfold. So as soon as it
became bruited abroad that Eli Whitney had such a machine in his
workroom that spot became the Mecca for the countryside. Crowds came
to beg for a look at the wonderful machine, and hung about the house
and plotted to get in. But Whitney and Miller were afraid to let
people see the invention until they had made sure of their patents on
it, and so they refused to let the crowds have a look at it. Then the
more reckless of the crowds threw all sense of fairness to the winds,
and broke into Mr. Miller’s house, seized the machine, and carried it
off with them. Soon it was publicly displayed, and before Whitney
could finish his model for the Patent Office a dozen machines, similar
to his, were in use in the cotton fields.
Whitney’s cotton-gin was made of two cylinders of different diameters,
mounted in a strong wooden frame. One cylinder had a number of small
circular saws that were fitted into grooves cut into the cylinder. The
other cylinder was covered with brushes, and so placed that the tips
of the bristles of these brushes touched the saw-teeth. The raw cotton
was put in a hopper, where it was met by the teeth of the saws, and
torn from the seeds. The brushes then swept the cotton clear of the
gin. The seeds were too large to go between the bars through which the
series of saws protruded, and were kept apart by themselves. Of course
many improvements were made upon this machine, but it was found that
even in this original form it would enable one man, using two
horse-power, to clean the seed from five thousand pounds of cotton in
a day. That meant that fortunes could be made in the hitherto
disregarded cotton fields of the South.
Whitney now went to Connecticut to finish certain improvements on the
machine, to secure his patents, and to begin the manufacturing of as
many gins as his partner Miller should find were needed in Georgia.
The partners’ wrote frequently to each other, and their letters show
the fierceness of the struggle they were waging to protect their
rights. “It will be necessary,” wrote Miller, “to have a considerable
number of gins in readiness to send out as soon as the patent is
obtained in order to satisfy the absolute demands and make people’s
heads easy on the subject; for I am informed of two other claimants
for the honor of the invention of the cotton-gin in addition to those
we knew before.”
The two men did everything in their power to hasten the building of
their gins. They knew their rivals were unscrupulous, and were in fact
already trying their best to prejudice the minds of the more
conservative Georgia cotton-growers against them. But money was very
scarce, and the manufacture of the machines proved so costly that
Whitney found it impossible to furnish as many gins as his partner
wanted.
Whitney applied for his patent in 1793. The following April he went
back to Georgia, where he found unusually large crops of cotton had
been planted, in expectation of using the gin. As there were not
enough of his gins ready rivals were pushing their inferior machines.
One of these, called the roller-gin, destroyed the seeds by crushing
them between two revolving cylinders, instead of separating them by
teeth. A large part of the crushed seed was, however, apt to stay in
the cotton after it had passed through the machine, and this form of
gin did not therefore produce as satisfactory results as did
Whitney’s. Another rival was the saw-gin, which was almost identical
with Whitney’s gin, except that the saw-teeth were cut in circular
rings of iron instead of being made of wire. This machine infringed
the partners’ patents, and caused them an almost endless series of
expensive lawsuits.
Two years of conflict in the South proved the superiority of Whitney’s
invention over all other machines, but resulted in little actual
profit. In March, 1795, he went north to New York, where he was kept
for several weeks by illness. When he got back to his factory in New
Haven he found that fire had wiped out his workshop, together with all
his gins and papers. He was $4,000 in debt, and virtually bankrupt.
Yet he had great courage, and fortunately his partner Miller had the
same faith. When Whitney sent him the news from New Haven, Miller
replied, “I think we ought to meet such events with equanimity. We
have been pursuing a valuable object by honorable means, and I trust
that all our measures have been such as reason and virtue must
justify. It has pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this
object. In the midst of the reflections which your story has
suggested, and with feelings keenly awake to the heavy, the extensive
injury we have sustained, I feel a secret joy and satisfaction that
you possess a mind in this respect similar to my own--that you are not
disheartened, that you do not relinquish the pursuit, and that you
will persevere, and endeavor, at all events, to attain the main
object. This is exactly consonant to my own determinations. I will
devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions, and all the
money I can earn or borrow to encompass and complete the business we
have undertaken; and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny
us the boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never be
said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance could
have attained. I think, indeed, it will be very extraordinary if two
young men in the prime of life, with some share of ingenuity, and with
a little knowledge of the world, a great deal of industry, and a
considerable command of property, should not be able to sustain such a
stroke of misfortune as this, heavy as it is.”
Whitney attempted to rebuild his factory, but the affairs of the firm
were in extreme jeopardy. He had to pay twelve per cent. a year to
borrow money for his work. Then certain English manufacturers reported
that the cotton that was cleaned by Whitney’s gin was not of good
quality. The struggle was a hard one. He wrote to Miller, “The extreme
embarrassments which have been for a long time accumulating upon me
are now become so great that it will be impossible for me to struggle
against them many days longer. It has required my utmost exertions to
exist without making the least progress in our business. I have
labored hard against the strong current of disappointment which has
been threatening to carry us down the cataract, but I have labored
with a shattered oar and struggled in vain, unless some speedy relief
is obtained.... Life is but short at best, and six or seven years out
of the midst of it is to him who makes it an immense sacrifice. My
most unremitted attention has been devoted to our business. I have
sacrificed to it other objects from which, before this time, I might
certainly have gained $20,000 or $30,000. My whole prospects have been
embarked in it, with the expectation that I should before this time
have realized something from it.”
Pirates now filled the field, and the lawsuits which they were
compelled to bring to defend themselves went against them. Miller
wrote to Whitney on May 11, 1797, “The event of the first patent suit,
after all our exertions made in such a variety of ways, has gone
against us. The preposterous custom of trying civil causes of this
intricacy and magnitude by a common jury, together with the
imperfection of the patent law, frustrated all our views, and
disappointed expectations which had become very sanguine. The tide of
popular opinion was running in our favor, the judge was well disposed
toward us, and many decided friends were with us, who adhered firmly
to our cause and interests. The judge gave a charge to the jury
pointedly in our favor; after which the defendant himself told an
acquaintance of his that he would give $2,000 to be free from the
verdict, and yet the jury gave it against us, after a consultation of
about an hour. And having made the verdict general, no appeal would
lie.
“On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we applied for a
new trial, but the judge refused it to us on the ground that the jury
might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law, which makes
an aggression consist of making, devising, and using or selling;
whereas we could only charge the defendant with using.
“Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and difficulty,
are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our
hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than
before, while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy.”
The failure of that patent suit loosed all the pirates, and Whitney
saw the cotton fields flooded with gins, all of which were really
based on his invention, and yet from which he did not receive one
penny. The public had given over paying any attention to his patents.
Every one seemed determined that a machine which meant so much to the
cotton lands should be free to all, irrespective of any legal or moral
rights in the matter. Miller wrote him a little later, “The prospect
of making anything by ginning in this state is at an end.
Surreptitious gins are erected in every part of the country, and the
jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding among themselves that
they will never give a cause in our favor, let the merits of the case
be as they may.”
[Illustration: WHITNEY, THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN]