Eli Whitney, American engineer, invented the cotton gin (died 1825)

Eli Whitney Jr. was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.

A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil.