Lost Chapters
Eli Whitney: Gold Character
Eli Whitney (1765 to 1825) was an American inventor who patented the cotton gin in 1794 and later promoted manufacturing with interchangeable parts. His gin made cotton far more profitable, and that increased the demand for enslaved labor in the South.
- Cost
- 6 crystals
- Type
- Character · Inventor
- Power / Health
- 4 / 6
- Color
- Gold (Inventors & Industry)
- Rarity
- Common
- Set
- Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
On play: search your deck for an Item.
Mechanical mastermind whose cotton gin revolutionized industry while accidentally entrenching slavery.
The real history
Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, in Westborough, Massachusetts. In 1794 he received a patent for the cotton gin, a machine that separated seeds from cotton fibers, a job that had been slow work to do by hand. Whitney described his machine as one that, with a man and a horse, could do more than fifty men with the old methods.
The gin was easy to copy, and Whitney lacked the money to defend his patent, so he earned little from it. Its effect on the country was enormous. Cotton production doubled about every decade after 1800, and by 1850 the United States grew roughly three-quarters of the world's cotton.
The gin did not make slavery shrink. It made it grow. Cotton grown with enslaved labor became so valuable that the number of slave states rose from six in 1790 to fifteen by 1860, and cotton made up more than half of the nation's exports for much of the period from 1820 to 1860. A machine meant to save labor ended up deepening slavery.
Whitney's second career was in firearms. In 1798 he signed a government contract to make 10,000 firearms. He delivered them about nine years late, in 1809, but he is often credited with promoting the idea of uniform, interchangeable parts made by specialized machines, a method that became important to American manufacturing. He died on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Sources
- Eli Whitney, National Park Service
- Eli Whitney's Patent for the Cotton Gin, National Archives
How the card plays
Eli Whitney costs 6 crystals and is a 4/6 Gold Inventor. On play, search your deck for an Item.
He is a tutor attached to a sturdy body, and his 6 health is hard for most attackers to remove. The Item you find should match your plan. The Steam Engine, The Steam Engine, gives +3/+3 and refreshes the equipped character, and Finished Product, Finished Product, gives +2/+2 and grows when you play other Items. If Thomas Edison, Static Hero, Thomas Edison, is already on your field, every Item you play afterward builds a Lightbulb Token. As an Inventor, Whitney costs one less next to Nikola Tesla. Save crystals for the turn after he lands so you can play the Item you find.
- Playable in decks led by Nikola Tesla, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Gold.
- In the Tesla starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-BV8BYAFhAWICYwFkAWUCZgFnAWgBaQFqAWsCbAFtAm4BbwFwAXEBcgFzAnQBdQF2AXcBeAJ5AnoBewF8AX0BfgF_AXiK - A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.
Questions about Eli Whitney
Did the cotton gin increase slavery?
Yes. The gin sped up one step of processing cotton, but it made growing cotton so profitable that demand for enslaved workers rose. The number of slave states grew from six in 1790 to fifteen by 1860.
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