Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney Born December 8, 1765 - Died January 8, 1825. An american inventor, Eli Whitney created the first [cotton gin]? in 1793, which removed the seeds from cotton, which until that time was extremely labor intensive. While under contract with the U.S. Government to create rifles, he took the idea of interchangable parts, and created the first assembly line, the concept of which was fully exploited by Henry Ford and others in the manufacturing? industry.

Born in Westboro?, Massachusetts, he graduated from Yale College in 1792. While his ideas were innovative and useful, they were so easy to understand and reproduce that the concepts and designs were duplicated by others. Whitney's company that produced cotton gins went out of business in 1797.

He never patented his later inventions, one of which was a milling machine.