Q 01/05

Eli Whitney said which animal, clawing at a chicken through a fence, inspired his cotton gin?

A) A fox

B) A cat

C) A raccoon

D) A hawk

Answer · why

B) A cat

A cat gave him the idea, by Whitney's own telling: its paw came back through the fence holding only feathers, just as the gin's hooks drag lint throug...

Q 02/05

The 'gin' in Eli Whitney's cotton gin has nothing to do with the drink; it is short for which word?

A) Gingham

B) Ginger

C) Virginia

D) Engine

Answer · why

D) Engine

Engine was already being clipped to 'gin' in medieval English, where the short form meant any clever device, so a cotton gin is simply a cotton machin...

Q 03/05

During the Revolutionary War, teenage Eli Whitney ran a profitable workshop business making what?

A) Horseshoes

B) Candles

C) Nails

D) Buttons

Answer · why

C) Nails

Nails were scarce while the war cut off British imports, so 14-year-old Whitney forged them in his father's farm workshop and sold them at a profit.

Q 04/05

Eli Whitney's first gin cleaned about fifty pounds of cotton a day; how much could one worker clean by hand?

A) One pound

B) Four pounds

C) Twelve pounds

D) Forty pounds

Answer · why

A) One pound

One pound a day was the old hand rate for upland cotton, whose seeds cling tightly to the fibre. A fifty-fold jump is why planters began copying the g...

Q 05/05

In which Southern state was Eli Whitney a plantation guest for only a few months when he built his cotton gin?

A) South Carolina

B) Georgia

C) Virginia

D) Alabama

Answer · why

B) Georgia

Georgia was his home for only a few months, yet the model he built near Savannah in 1793 made upland cotton pay, and it soon replaced indigo as the re...