Wednesday, February 13, 2013


Script for podcast

America’s greatest inventor is what most people would say about Eli Whitney. He changed the cotton and gun industry. He had a museum dedicated. He even has a town named after him!

            He Eli Whitney was born December 8th 1775 in Westboro Massachusetts. His parents Eli and Elizabeth Whitney were proud of the first child. Eli was the oldest of four siblings (including himself) he had 2 younger brothers and a sister. They all lived together on a farm.

            As a child he was very handy with tool work. By age eight he could take apart a watch and put it back together. He would tinker with other things around the house like clocks and machines. He was very intelligent as a child.

            When he was old enough he wanted to go to college so he attended Yale. When he left he had intentions of being a lawyer but like every single college student of back then and today he had debts to pay off first so he got a job on a plantation in Georgia. And he noticed how hard it was for slaves to get cotton seeds out of the cotton. So he invented the cotton gin a machine in which you place cotton in and wind a crank which causes bristles to move and clean seeds out of cotton. In changed the cotton industry forever.

            After words Whitney noticed that if a gun broke there was only one way to fix it since no guns were exactly the same you had to get the part made specially. So he invented interchangeable parts. Which means he could take 3 different guns take them all apart and take pieces from each gun and rebuild every gun exactly the same as it was just with parts from another gun that were no different than the original. Than he presented them to the government. He then was offered a job to make guns for the military and such. And eventually in the far future interchangeable parts were used for cars and tractors

            Eli Whitney was an amazing inventor. He was an intelligent person who helped a lot with the cotton and gun industry. He also changed America.

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