Eli Whitney

[rumdonkey]

What are the effects of Eli Whitney not inventing the cotton gin in the 1790s,indeed no gin at all for several decades? I know it made slavery immensely profitable and gobbled up labor,so what would the country look like by the 1840-50s?

[lordroel]

Jul 19, 2017 23:31:54 GMT rumdonkey said:

What are the effects of Eli Whitney not inventing the cotton gin in the 1790s,indeed no gin at all for several decades? I know it made slavery immensely profitable and gobbled up labor,so what would the country look like by the 1840-50s?

Well it is argued that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War, so if the cotton gin is not invented it would mean there might be no civil war in the future.

[stevep]

Jul 20, 2017 2:44:47 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 19, 2017 23:31:54 GMT rumdonkey said:

What are the effects of Eli Whitney not inventing the cotton gin in the 1790s,indeed no gin at all for several decades? I know it made slavery immensely profitable and gobbled up labor,so what would the country look like by the 1840-50s?

Well it is argued that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War, so if the cotton gin is not invented it would mean there might be no civil war in the future.

  If its not invented then that could quite well be the case, simply because plantation slavery would be a hell of a lot less profitable and hence the great estates are less likely to dominate the old south.  In fact by the time you get some version of the gin developed slavery might have become exstinct in a number of additional states.

  The other effect would be that cotton production world-wide is likely to be markedly less.  [If its that much less efficient].  Hence the cotton industry will be less important which will have impacts, chiefly in NW England and parts of New England but what will happen to the resources that OTL went into that I don't know?

[rumdonkey]

I think a big thing in history is it is truly hard to predict things.In say,1954,would anyone think LBJ would get a Civil Rights Bill passed,or Nixon would start the EPA,or even RFK of McCarthy hearings campaigning as a liberal? The unintended and unforeseen consequences are what I think truly make good alternate history when done by good writers.