Inventing the Cotton Gin

"Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which created the Old South and then destroyed it . . . Lakwete targets this myth in Inventing the Cotton Gin and largely demolishes it."—John Bezís-Selfa, Alabama Review

"This study provides students a clear example of how technological choices are not the storybook cases of perfected innovations replacing hopelessly outclassed traditional methods."—William H. Phillips, EH.Net

"For those seeking to understand how the interplay of market factors, cultural norms, and personal choices shape—and are shaped by—technology, Inventing the Cotton Gin is an excellent read."—Don Butts, History: Reviews of New Books

"Lakwete has written the first scholarly study of the cotton gin in antebellum America . . . Instead of viewing Eli Whitney's work as a historical watershed, she finds continuity."—Choice

"Lakwete joins the pantheon of technological historians by demolishing a standard, widely accepted myth with the careful and persuasive analysis of a vast array of evidence . . . The book is a triumph."—Barbara Hahn, H-South, H-Net Reviews

"Few will dispute that this book will change how historians think about the rise of King Cotton and the nature of technological change."—John Majewski, Business History Review

"[Lakwete] captures the nuances that distinguish technological success from failure."—John S. Nader, Enterprise and Society

"Another myth relating to the South is relegated, shall we say—with apologies to Marx—to the (cotton) dustbin of history . . . A major work of scholarship."—Peter A. Coclanis, Technology and Culture

"Inventing the Cotton Gin is an education in economic and business history as much as a needed revisionist version of the cotton gin myth."—Kim Long, Bloomsbury Review

"Bold and path-breaking . . . Most forcefully, Lakwete impugns the notion that a machine bears the responsibility for the Civil War and its aftermath."—Mark Finlay, South Carolina Historical Magazine

"The best and most sophisticated treatment of the gin in the larger context of the antebellum cotton South we are likely to see . . . The dramatic, great-white man narrative of Eli Whitney yields to a richer, more complex story."—David L. Carlton, Georgia Historical Quarterly

"She has done an excellent job of weaving together an amazingly complex series of events in a straightforward and interesting manner."—Twyla Dell, Material Culture

"An important addition to the growing list of works on southern industrialization . . . As with other good history books, it challenges what we think we knew, and sends us searching for more clues."—Shepherd W. McKinley, H-Net Reviews

"Lakwete's compelling and revisionist book on the cotton gin is a major contribution to the history of Southern technology. The writing is clear and concise, the descriptions of very complex mechanical operations are lucid, and the study is grounded in superb research."—Pete Daniel, curator, National Museum of American History

"The book is a highly original and substantial contribution to the history of technology, particularly in showing how machine designs are shaped by the pull and haul of both economics and culture. The scholarship is impressive, skillfully linking together a very wide range of diverse documentary and pictorial evidence."—Carolyn C. Cooper, Yale University