<P> Because his stepmother opposed his wish to attend college, Whitney worked as a farm laborer and school teacher to save money . He prepared for Yale at Leicester Academy (now Becker College) and under the tutelage of Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, Connecticut, he entered in the fall 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 . </P> <P> Instead of reaching his destination, he was convinced to visit Georgia . In the closing years of the 18th century, Georgia was a magnet for New Englanders seeking their fortunes (its Revolutionary - era governor had been Lyman Hall, a migrant from Connecticut). When he initially sailed for South Carolina, among his shipmates were the widow and family of the Revolutionary hero Gen. Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island . Mrs. Greene invited Whitney to visit her Georgia plantation, Mulberry Grove . Her plantation manager and husband - to - be was Phineas Miller, another Connecticut migrant and Yale graduate (class of 1785), who would become Whitney's business partner . </P> <P> Whitney is most famous for two innovations which came to have significant impacts on 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 . In the North the adoption of interchangeable parts revolutionized the manufacturing industry, and contributed greatly to the U.S. victory in the Civil War . </P> <P> The cotton gin is a mechanical device that removes the seeds from cotton, a process that had previously been extremely labor - intensive . The word gin is short for engine . The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks that pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh . The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside . Whitney occasionally told a story wherein he was pondering an improved method of seeding the cotton when he was inspired by observing a cat attempting to pull a chicken through a fence, and could only pull through some of the feathers . </P>

This american inventor created the cotton gin and interchangeable parts
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