Whitney's genius came about at the perfect time. He helped the United States start its road to success that so many of us are used to now. With his cotton gin and the concept of interchangeable parts the United States was able to compete with England, and in effect, slowly become self-sufficient. Before the cotton boom the U.S. had problems with its economy. There were no highly tradable crops or goods for the U.S. to export. The southern farmers started to find that green seed cotton was highly marketable, but there was a problem – it had a rival in "Island" or black seed cotton. The island cotton was longer and had less clutter to be cleaned. The problem with black seed though was it could be grown in a very small area.
             Whitney had an idea to solve this problem. He worked and worked, then finally came up with what is now called the cotton gin. The gin could clean the green seed cotton allowing to be shipped just as the island cotton. At the time Whitney was building this, textile mills had started springing up all over the north. Now the cotton was both an exportable product as was it a natural resource used to make more goods to export. With the invention of the cotton gin, farmers could start planting more cotton and cleaning it even quicker than usual. This sped up the process which in turn would allow the farmers to charge a little more. With these raises in price and quantity, the U.S. government would benefit with the farmers on the export income.
             The second of Eli Whitney's inventions may have been the most important. The United States was preparing for war with France and they were in dire need for weaponry. The Springfield Armory was well equipped and slowly producing muskets, while the newly built Harpers Ferry Armory was lightly stocked and had yet to produce even one gun. This brought about a rather large problem for the Americans. They needed rifles and they needed them fas
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