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Harper's Weekly, December 18, 1869

The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made cultivating cotton more profitable because it dramatically reduced the time spent in separating the seeds from the cotton fiber, work that had previously been done by hand. That year, the South produced 10,400 bales of cotton, but in 1810, with the help of the gin, the production rose to 177,800. It reached 7,000,000 bales in 1860.