Born in Westboro, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765, Eli Whitney showed unusual mechanical ability at an early age. In fact, Whitney's mechanical skills kept him employed making and fixing various machines and paid his way through Yale University. Upon his graduation in 1792, he traveled to Savannah, Georgia, where he planned to teach while studying law.

In Georgia Whitney met Phineas Miller, another Yale graduate close to his age who managed the plantation owned by the widow of the American Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene (1742-1786). Catherine Littlefield Greene soon employed Whitney to attack several mechanical problems attendant to running a large plantation. Foremost among them was the slow and tedious work of removing the seeds from the short cotton grown in the Savannah area.

Stories of Whitney's invention of the cotton gin often attribute his invention to significant help from both Catherine Greene and the slaves who worked the plantation...