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Eli Whitney, Sr.
Born Westborough, MA - December 8, 1765
Died New Haven, CT - January 8, 1825
The founder of the Whitney Armory, innovator in interchangeable parts, and inventor of the cotton gin.
Whitney was named after his father, meaning that he was actually Eli Whitney, Jr. or Eli Whitney II. However, he is commonly known as Eli Whitney, Sr. to distinguish him from his son.
Whitney was born in Westborough, MA to Eli Whitney (1740 - 1807) and Elizabeth Whitney, née Fay (1740-1777). His father was a prosperous farmer. The younger Eli Whitney showed technical prowess from a young age. He worked as a farm laborer and teacher to earn money to attend college and enrolled at Yale College in 1789. He graduated in 1792 at the age of 26. Today, Yale University’s program for nontraditional students (undergraduates who enter the university more than 5 years after completing high school) is named in his honor.
After graduation he traveled to the southern states, seeking work as a private tutor. While staying in Georgia, he came up with the idea for the cotton gin, a machine to help separate the seeds from cotton fiber. The cotton gin was a massive success, with wide-reaching consequences for the Southern economy and the further expansion of the plantation slavery system. Whitney was unable to enforce his patent on the machine and earned little income from its success. In the late 1790s he returned to New Haven, where he set up an unsuccessful cotton gin factory and then turned his attention to firearms manufacturing, securing a government contract and opening the Whitney Armory in 1798. He spent the rest of his life pursuing improvements in the firearms manufacturing process, with the goal of developing true interchangeable parts. He died at the age of 59 in 1825.
Whitney married his wife, Henrietta Frances Edwards, in 1817. They had four children:
Frances Whitney, later Chaplain (1817–1859)
Elizabeth Whitney (1819–1854)
Eli Whitney III, known as Eli Whitney, Jr. (1820–1895)
Susan Johnson Whitney (1821–1823)
Whitney was also instrumental in the education and careers of the children of his sister Elizabeth Fay Whitney Blake (1767-1827), particularly Philos and Eli Whitney Blake, who managed the Armory from 1825 until 1835. For more on them, see below and The Inventions of the Blake Brothers.
