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Because his stepmother opposed his wish to attend college, Whitney worked as a farm laborer and schoolteacher to save money.
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Although the younger Eli, born in 1765, could technically be called a "Junior", history has never known him as such. He was famous during his lifetime and afterward by the name "Eli Whitney".
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Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765, the eldest child of Eli Whitney Sr., a prosperous farmer.
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Whitney's mother, Elizabeth Fay, died in 1777, when he was 1 At age 14 he operated a profitable nail manufacturing operation in his father's workshop during the Revolutionary War.
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He prepared for Yale at Leicester Academy (now Becker College) and under the tutelage of Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, Connecticut, he entered the Class of 1789, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1792. Whitney expected to study law but, finding himself short of funds, accepted an offer to go to South Carolina as a private tutor.
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Whitney is most famous for two innovations which later divided the United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of interchangeable parts. In the South, the cotton gin revolutionized the way cotton was harvested and reinvigorated slavery
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eli whitney died from Prostate Cancer. January 8, 1825 in New Haven
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His son, born in 1820, also named Eli, was well known during his lifetime and afterward by the name "Eli Whitney, Jr."
