who invented the cotton gin that separated the cotton fiber from the seed?
When Europeans founded colonies in America they relied on cotton to make a living. In the early days, growing and harvesting cotton was a hard job that was done manually by slaves. In 1793 an American, Eli Whitney, invented the cotton gin, a machine that separated seeds from fiber. This new invention allowed farms to produce even more cotton. In the second part of the 20th century people started to produce synthetic fibers, like nylon and acrylic. The importance of cotton fiber began to drop.