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Eli Whitney ([[December 8]], [[1765]] - [[January 8]], [[1825]]) was an [[United States|American]] [[inventor]] who created the first [[cotton gin]] in [[1793]] (patented on [[March 14]], [[1794]]), which removed the seeds from [[cotton]], which until that time was extremely labor intensive work.  

Whitney invented the [[American System]] of manufacturing, and the [[assembly line]], and was first to use them when he won a contract with the U.S. Government to create [[musket]]s.  Whitney's concepts were later exploited by [[Henry Ford]] and others in [[manufacturing]] industry.

Born in [[Westboro, Massachusetts|Westboro]], [[Massachusetts]], he graduated from [[Yale University|Yale]] College in [[1792]]. While his ideas were innovative and useful, they were so easy to understand and reproduce that the concepts and designs were duplicated by others.  Whitney's company that produced cotton gins went out of business in [[1797]].

He never patented his later inventions, one of which was a milling machine.

====References====
* Adapted from the [[Wikipedia]] article, "Eli Whitney" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney December 1, 2003