Amy Christensen

12/8/2017

Econ 1740

Dr. KT Magnusson

King Cotton

Cotton has been estimated to been around for almost 7,000 years. So many

things that we use on a daily basis has cotton in it. It has become something that we

cant live without. Some people say that cotton is some kind of king. Since its been

around for so long. To understand why cotton is the King we need to understand what

its and the history of it. Where was it believed to originate from? Why was it so

important? What is it? How has it evolved? What happened when it came to the United

States?

Cotton is a plant, it grows wild in many places on the earth, but it has been

known about, cultivated and put to use by people of many lands for centuries. Scientists

and historians have found shreds of cloth or written reference to cotton dating back at

least seven-thousand years. (Phillips 2017)

The oldest discovery was made in a Mexican cave, where scientists unearthed

bits and pieces of cotton bolls and cloth. Archaeologists have also found cloth

fragments in the Indus Valley of India (Pakistan) dating about 3000 B.C. In 1500 B.C. It
is generally believed that the first cultivation of cotton was in India, though it grew wild in

several locations around the world. (Phillips 2017) People living in Egypt's Nile Valley

and across the world in Peru were also familiar with cotton. In England, in the early

1700's, during the height of the British Empire, it was against the law, to either import or

manufacture cloth from cotton. These laws were enacted to protect the powerful

English sheep and wool industry of that time. These restrictions also kept the cotton

industry from expanding to the American Colonies. However, by the early 1600's,

cotton had been introduced to North America and in 1607 the first seed was planted by

colonists along the James River in Virginia.

The colonists had the ability to produce much cotton but were restricted by the

mechanical know-how. It was Samuel Slater, an English mill worker, who changed this

by migrating to America in 1790 and building the first American cotton mill from

memory. With the development of the cotton mill, Eli Whitney saw the need for a faster

means of removing the lint (cotton fibers) from the seed. In 1793, he patented a

machine known as the cotton gin. This invention revolutionized the way lint was

separated from the seed. (Phillips 2017)

Up to that time, for centuries, the separation process had all been done by hand.

With Whitney's gin, short for the word engine, lint volume was increased for each worker

from 1 lb. To 50 lbs. per day. Harvesting the cotton by hand was another limitation of

productivity. (Baker 2017) An experienced laborer could pick approximately 450

pounds of seed cotton (cotton removed from the plant with seeds intact) by hand per
day. A picking device was first patented in 1850 and a stripper (a machine that strips

both open and unopened bolls and trash from the plant) in 1871. (Baker 2017)

In the early 1930's, after years of development and change, the Rust Brothers of

Mississippi used a one row mechanical cotton picker (a machine that used revolving

spindles or barbed points to grab and pull the cotton from the open boll) of their design

to pick approximately 8,000 pounds of seed cotton in one day. (Baker 2017) This was

quite an improvement in cotton harvest efficiency. The cotton gin is where cotton fiber is

separated from the cotton seed. The first step in the ginning process is when the cotton

is vacuumed into tubes that carry it to a dryer to reduce moisture and improve the fiber

quality. Then it runs through cleaning equipment to remove leaf trash, sticks and other

foreign matter. (Baker 2017)

Every bale of cotton is classed from a sample taken after its formation.

The classing of cotton lint is the process of measuring fiber characteristics against a set

of standards (grades). Classing is done by experts, called classers, who use scientific

instruments to judge the samples of lint. All standards are established by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture. (Hahn 2014) Once the quality of the cotton bale is

determined, pricing parameters are set and the lint may be taken to market. Cotton

marketing is the selling and buying of cotton lint. Cotton is priced in cents per pound

when sold and the price is negotiated according to the cotton's quality. After baling, the

cotton lint is hauled to either storage yards, textile mills, or shipped to foreign

countries. The cotton seed is delivered to a seed storage area. Where it will remain
until it is loaded into trucks and transported to a cottonseed oil mill or directly for

livestock feed. (Hahn 2014)

Ginning is accomplished by one of two methods. Cotton varieties with shorter

staple or fiber length are ginned with saw gins. This process involves the use of circular

saws that grip the fibers and pull them through narrow slots. To know how to make it

you had to be able to know how. Before farmers had the cotton gin they had to hand

pick the cotton. It took a lot of time and people to do that. The reason why the Civil War

happened was because of cotton. (Hahn 2014)

At the time of the Civil War, cotton had become the most valuable crop of the

South and comprised 59% of the exports from the United States. As a result, it played a

vital role in the conflict. For southern producers, the war disrupted both the producing

and the marketing of what they hoped would be the financial basis of their new nation.

(Hahn 2014) As Confederate territory shrank under Union attack, invasion, and

occupation, the traditional patterns of cotton cultivation and sales likewise came under

assault. Blockading southern ports and encroaching into the major cotton-growing

areas, the Union stalled not only the cotton economy but also the foreign relations of the

Confederacy. As state after state across the South joined the Confederate States of

America, the new nations foreign relations relied on what came to be known as cotton

diplomacy. (Hahn 2014)

 Planters and the Confederate leaders believed that cotton shortages would

secure full diplomatic recognition and possibly aid from European consumers of their

produce. Chief among these was Great Britain, which consumed most of the output of

the fiber in the textile mills of the Industrial Revolution. (Hahn 2014) In order to starve

the world of cotton. Believing in the power of King Cotton, the Confederates placed an

embargo on cotton exports in the summer of 1861. By the time Davis lifted the

embargo, it was too late; the Union navy had blockaded Confederate ports. The

blockade, begun in 1861, was never perfect. It did not entirely prevent cotton from

leaving the South but it did hobble export activities and made cotton sales risky and

unpredictable. (Hahn 2014)

British manufacturers sought other supplies. The shortfall in shipments from

America stimulated cotton production in India, Egypt, and Brazil, which all increased

their production in order to meet British demands. (Hahn 2014) The Union armys

presence in Memphis and New Orleans by 1862 brought the cotton market back to life

with cotton being sold across enemy line to factories in the North and in England. This

unofficial trade continued throughout the rest of the war. The end of the war brought a

long period of time before cotton production in the south recovered from the loss of

slaves, the destruction wrought by the war and the new suppliers in India and

elsewhere. (Hahn 2014)

 The Cotton King, has been an impact to so many lives. It has even caused a

nation to go into a Civil War. Something this powerful that has been used for so long is

still on the rise. With being the Cotton King, there are many good things and many bad.

Some of the good is that there is a more efficient way to collect it. And the bad. There

were many people that had to suffer in the Civil War.

 Work Citied:
Cotton - a history. New Internationalist, 5 July 2017,

newint.org/features/2007/04/01/history.

Cotton. Cotton - Essential Civil War Curriculum,

essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/cotton.html.

The Cotton Gin, score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/cotton_gin/pages/reading.html.

How the Cotton Gin Started the Civil War. ASME.org, www.asme.org/engineering-

topics/articles/history-of-mechanical-engineering/how-the-cotton-gin-started-the-civil-war.