> On Jul 4, 3:25 pm, David Johnston block.net> wrote:
>

>>On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:40:15 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Kraus
>>

>
>
>
> But Whitney did not "invent" the cotton gin
>
> There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the cotton gin
> and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney.
> The popular version of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed
> to an article on the subject in the early 1870s and later reprinted in
> 1910 in the The Library of Southern Literature. In this article
> Andrews mentioned how Catherine Littlefield Greene suggested to
> Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental to separate out
> the seeds and cotton. Historians later explored this idea, and some
> consider that Catherine Littlefield Greene, Whitney's landlady, should
> be credited with the invention of the cotton gin, or at least with the
> original concept.