Technological Innovations

Tobacco Cotton

There were tiny seeds inside the bolls that were difficult to remove.

Was a Northerner visiting Mrs. Catherine Green Miller at Mulberry Grove Plantation near Savannah, Georgia Heard farmers talking about problems with deseeding cotton; Mrs. Miller asked him if he could invent something to make the work easier.

Whitney “invented” it to comb the seeds out of the cotton A problem was that lint stopped the machine, but that problem was easily solved.

Before the gin a worker could seed 6 or 7 pounds of cotton a day. After the gin a worker could seed 50 pounds of cotton a day.

The South became dependent upon one crop

Southern farmers began to grow more cotton They needed more people to help them plant and harvest it— MORE SLAVES

People traveled on horses, boats or stagecoaches. Freight was sent to market by riverboats, ferries, or wagon trains.

At first, rail travel was, perhaps, the least favored means of transportation. In 1830, there were only 13 miles of laid track in the US and that belonged to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. But, by 1840, only 10 years later, there were 3,300 miles of track.

Most of the track in Georgia belonged to the Western & Atlantic Railroad, chartered in It ran from near present-day Chattanooga, TN to a point on the southeastern bank of the Chattahoochee River.

That point on the Chattahoochee was called Terminus (end of the railroad line) Today it is known as Atlanta. Railroads shortened travel time for both passengers and freight, reducing to hours trips that had before had taken days.