The Cotton Gin Spinner

By Bill Friday and Anthony Mullins
Published on September 5, 2017
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A McBride gin spinner at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas.
A McBride gin spinner at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas.
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Patent illustration of John McBride’s Columbian Spinster cotton gin spinner.
Patent illustration of John McBride’s Columbian Spinster cotton gin spinner.
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Nameplate on a J&T Pearce gin spinner.
Nameplate on a J&T Pearce gin spinner.
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Nameplate on a Hugh Joyner gin spinner.
Nameplate on a Hugh Joyner gin spinner.
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Joyner metal frame gin spinner on display at the Tennessee State Museum.
Joyner metal frame gin spinner on display at the Tennessee State Museum.
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A vintage print of a cotton illustrating the plant's characteristics, including the bloom of its flower.
A vintage print of a cotton illustrating the plant's characteristics, including the bloom of its flower.
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Samuel Slater’s mass spinning machine, on display at a Smithsonian museum.
Samuel Slater’s mass spinning machine, on display at a Smithsonian museum.
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This McBride cotton gin carder, part of the Tony Mullins collection, is currently on display at Falls Mill Museum in Belvidere, Tenn. It has no spinning apparatus on the front.
This McBride cotton gin carder, part of the Tony Mullins collection, is currently on display at Falls Mill Museum in Belvidere, Tenn. It has no spinning apparatus on the front.
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A Pearce gin spinner on display in a Smithsonian museum.
A Pearce gin spinner on display in a Smithsonian museum.

John McBride was one of many early innovators at the turn of the 19th century who possessed the ability to observe multiple related technologies and combine them into a single machine that greatly improved the overall efficiency of the separate processes. The cotton gin spinner is an almost forgotten product of the fertile imagination of a man who himself is almost forgotten to history. This is the story of McBride and his unique device, relating how he came to learn from various developments by his predecessors.

Caveat of invention

On March 14, 1789, Hodgen Holmes, Augusta, Georgia, received a five-year “caveat of invention” for the first reliable cotton gin capable of processing the hairy seeded variety of upland cotton. Because the Patent Office hadn’t yet been established, this caveat of invention was issued by the U.S. Department of War.

Holmes’ design featured saw blades with fine, needle-pointed teeth inclined toward the direction of rotation. The back edges of the saws reached through a row of metal bars, called ribs, to snag cotton fibers and pull them between the ribs. The seeds wouldn’t fit through the rib slots and so were left behind as the fibers were pulled away. A doffing brush on the back side of the ribs cleared the loose fibers from the saw teeth so that they could gather a fresh load when they again entered the ginning chamber. This method is still used today for ginning upland cotton across the entire southern region of the U.S.

Eli Whitney earned the title of inventor of the cotton gin with his patent of March 14, 1794, issued on the same day that Holmes’ caveat expired. His design was much inferior to Holmes’, and even Whitney himself later switched from his poor design to use saws and metal ribs. But he took credit in his patent for the superior saw-and-rib construction, and thus is remembered as the father of the cotton gin. Holmes lost his court battle with Whitney and disappeared from history.

Defying British law

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