In this activity, students will analyze the patent drawing for Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin.
Suggested Teaching Instructions
This activity can be used during a unit on slavery. For grades grades 6-12. Approximate time needed is 10 minutes.
Ask students to look at the partially obscured patent drawing. Without providing any context, ask students to hypothesize the contents of the document.
If no student provides the correct answer, reveal that this is a patent drawing for an important invention. If students are unaware of the definition of a patent, provide a brief definition that a patent gives an inventor a temporary monopoly on his or her invention. Explain how in the United States, the Constitution gave Congress the power to "To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" in Article I, Section 8.
Ask students to offer educated guesses as to the specific invention. If no one guesses "Cotton Gin," provide the answer and allow students to then carefully zoom in and analyze the document.
Read the following description and ask students to identify the parts of the cotton gin mentioned in the quote:
"The cotton gin cranked cotton through rollers with teeth made of wire. The wire teeth tore the green seeds from the cotton. Iron slits let the cotton pass through, but not the seeds. A second rotating cylinder of bristles removed the seedless cotton from the wires. Through a simple arrangement of belts, the same crank turned both the cylinder with wires and another smaller one with bristles."
After completing this activity, continue on to the activity
A Petition for the Cotton Gin.
This activity was adapted from an article written by Joan Brodsky Schur, a teacher at Village Community School, in New York, NY.
