Eli Whitney disappears

Darkest

Banned
What happens when, in 1791, before Eli Whitney has invented the cotton gin and before he created the concept of interchangeable parts and mass production... Eli Whitney disappears overnight!

There is no trace of him. Maybe he slept-walked to a nearby river and threw himself into it... maybe an alien from the future lifted him off to create an industrial revolution somewhere else... But, he's gone.

The cotton engine revolutionized southern agriculture, and saved the dying practice of American slavery (boosting it to radical levels). King Cotton dominated the South, and many reaped from the benefits... everyone except for the poor whites and the black slaves.

The system of interchangeable parts and mass production revolutionized northern industry, enabling the boom of cheap mass production. From this, factories were born, many Americans were enslaved by wages, pollution became rampant, ect. ect.

Eli Whitney, in OTL, invented things that led to a boom of oppression... along with productivity. Sure, someone is going to come along eventually that introduces these machines, but it will come later, and possibly from other areas, like France or Britain.

In my opinion, even ten years of waiting for these inventions could have a huge change. Maybe slavery is abolished within that decade, when it doesn't prove fruitful any more. Also, the American economy is in a slump. The War of 1812 might go a little different, and if so, definitely in the favor of the Brits. It could wound early America, definitely.
 

Shadow Knight

Well the obvious effects on slavery are there. I don't know if it would eliminate it completely (there is still tobacco farming, etc. where it might be useful) but its certaintly going to be declining.

Also the US is going to be much poorer as cotton was a lot of its early wealth. The concept of interchangeable parts and assembly line will no doubt be thought up by someone else...when and where though are the question.
 

Dave Howery

I think someone else would have invented it... it wasn't a "only this man could do this" kind of thing... with so much at stake, people would continue to look at the problem, and someone will come up with the cotton gin before too long...
 

Keenir

Banned
Dave Howery said:
I think someone else would have invented it... it wasn't a "only this man could do this" kind of thing... with so much at stake, people would continue to look at the problem, and someone will come up with the cotton gin before too long...
Click to expand...

ah, but how long is too long?
 

Max Sinister

Banned
And what would people wear instead of cotton clothes? How does Britain develop, now that many workers won't find jobs in the clothes industry?
 

Darkest

Banned
Eli Whitney invented it very simply. Yet no one had come up with the idea before then... why should it come up so soon after it should have in OTL? Assume that it could have been built in the early 1700s, or maybe even the late 1600s, because it was so simple. No, it was the idea that was special. My opinion: at least ten or twenty years before someone finally slaps their head and makes the thing.

As for the system of interchangeable parts, I'd give that another two decades or three before someone recognizes its value.
 

Xen

Banned
Carlton Bach did something like this in his timeline A saner Gentler world. If memory serves me correctly, it was a Brit that came up with the invention. As a result cotton manufacturing was big in India and Egypt, and not so much in the US. The United States does lose the war of 1812, and loses part of upper state New York, Michigan, and Oregon, which eventually go to Canada.

The US becomes a Jeffersonian style Republic
 
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