Cotton is a plant, it grows in many places on the earth,and is cultivated in many countries for centuries.
Scientists and historians have found shreds of cloth or written reference to cotton dating back at least seven-thousand years. The oldest discovery was made in a Mexican cave, where scientists unearthed bits and pieces of cotton bolls and cloth. Archaeologists have also found cloth fragments in the Indus Valley of India (Pakistan) dating about 3000 B.C. In 1500 B.C., cotton was referred to in a Hindu Rig-Veda hymn mentioning “threads in the loom.” It is generally believed that the first cultivation of cotton was in India, though it grew in several locations around the world. People living in Egypt’s Nile Valley and across the world in Peru were also familiar with cotton.
Cotton was grown by American Indians in the early 1500’s, documented from sightings by the Coronado expedition 1540-42. The Spaniards raised a cotton crop in Florida in 1556.
In England, in the early 1700’s, during the height of the British Empire, it was against the law, to either import or manufacture cloth from cotton. These laws were enacted to protect the powerful English sheep and wool industry of that time. These restrictions also kept the cotton industry from expanding to the American Colonies. However, by the early 1600’s, cotton had been introduced to North America and in 1607 the first seed was planted by colonists along the James River in Virginia.
The colonists had the ability to produce much cotton but were restricted by the mechanical know-how. It was Samuel Slater, an English mill worker, who changed this by migrating to America in 1790 and building the first American cotton mill from memory. With the development of the cotton mill, Eli Whitney saw the need for a faster means of removing the lint (cotton fibers) from the seed. In 1793, he patented a machine known as the cotton gin. This invention revolutionized the way lint was separated from the seed. Up to that time, for centuries, the separation process had all been done by hand. With Whitney’s gin, short for the word engine, lint volume was increased for each worker from 1 lb. To 50 lbs. per day.
Harvesting the cotton by hand was another limitation of productivity. An experienced laborer could pick approximately 450 pounds of seed cotton (cotton removed from the plant with seeds intact) by hand per day. A picking device was first patented in 1850 and a stripper (a machine that strips both open and unopened bolls and trash from the plant) in 1871. In the early 1930’s, after years of development and change, the Rust Brothers of Mississippi used a one row mechanical cotton picker (a machine that used revolving spindles or barbed points to grab and pull the cotton from the open boll) of their design to pick approximately 8,000 pounds of seed cotton in one day. This was quite an improvement in cotton harvest efficiency.
THE COTTON INDUSTRY AND YOU
The cotton industry is constantly striving to develop new and improved methods for producing quality products at a reasonable price. The cotton industry continues to look toward the future at further improving their product while providing employment opportunities for millions of people in a variety of related areas.
Cotton related job opportunities can be found from the farm where the cotton is produced to the department store where the garments are sold. Cotton supports the dairy industry by providing a source of food for the milk cows.
Cotton seed can be processed to produce oil for cooking and blending with food products. Jobs can be found in the trucking and transportation industry as it is often transported thousands of miles from the cotton gins to the cotton mills, and then again to the distribution outlets.
Transforming the cotton boll through the processes of delinting and cleaning at the gin to processing at the mill for spinning and weaving fabric requires a trained labor force.
The dying of fabric and the assembly of clothing and other products can provide employment for millions of people. High quality papers requiring cotton and paper mills employ thousands annually. The fashion industry needs trained individuals to select the proper combination of fabrics and design to market them to the public. Fashion models rely on these products in their profession. The cotton industry continues to find new and improved uses for cotton worldwide and the public fuels continuous demand for this important commodity. With cotton having all these uses and benefits, it has certainly lived up to the name it was given years ago….”White Gold.”
