The Story of Eli Whitney (e-Book only)

Written by Jean Lee Latham
Illustrated by Fritz Kredel

            Young Eli Whitney may be a slow scholar, but he is clever with his hands. His peddler friend, Hiram Wedge, sees this gift and encourages him to “keep on keeping on.” Eli’s father, on the other hand, belittles Eli’s mechanical bent and is convinced that his son would do better as a lawyer. So Eli studies, but he also keeps tinkering. At age 12 he crafts a fiddle; at age 14 he starts his own business selling homemade nails. But with the end of the Revolutionary War the return of imported goods cuts off the demand for homemade items. So Eli turns belatedly to focusing on college, and finally graduates from Yale at age 26. However, his path to becoming a lawyer is once again disrupted, this time by an unexpected patroness, Catherine Greene, widow of General Nathanael Greene. She persuades Eli to work on inventing a machine to remove the seeds from cotton, up to now laboriously separated by hand. With the task of creating a “cotton gin,” Eli Whitney at last submits to his natural inclination and begins the long road of trials and triumphs leading to his world-changing invention.

Part of the Heritage History Series.

Includes:

• Illustrations
  

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Book Details:

• Time period: 1775-1880's
• Location: East Coast
• Content suitability (age): 10-up
• Read-aloud interest: 9-up
• Readability Level (grade): RL2.8
• Page count: 192 in print book
• SKU: 225-E (e-Book only)