Question

why was Eli Whitney's cotton gin an important invention for farmers and Georgia prior to the Civil War

Answer 1

Eli Whitney invented a machine that made a great impact on American history. The cotton gin made it easier to separate the cotton seeds from the cotton fiber. The cotton gin (that Eli Whitney invented and the versions that was later made by others) made cotton planting so profitable that it increased demand for land and slave labor. It grossly contributed to the import of over 80 000 Africans. There were so many, a third of Southerners are slaves. The invention augmented the conflict that has led to the Civil War.

Answer 2

In 1794, architect Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the machine that transformed the generation of cotton by considerably speeding up the method of separating seeds from cotton fiber.

While it was valid that the cotton gin decreased the labor of extracting seeds, it did not decrease the need for laborers to grow and pluck the cotton.

Later, Cotton growing grew as the profitable business for the cultivators which greatly boosted their interest for both land and serf labor in Georgia.  An immediate effect of this growth was a development of slavery. While the cotton gin decreased the labor demanded to separate the seeds from the plant, it did not decrease the number of serfs required to grow and pluck the cotton.