Invention: Interchangeable Parts Inventor: Eli Whitney Year of Invention: 1800 Location: Georgia
Background: Eli Whitney grew up in the state of Massachusetts; however, he left Massachusetts to become a private tutor to teach children on plantations in Georgia. Whitney was able to successfully create the cotton gin in 1793 (see tab on the cotton gin for more information), after seeing how difficult it was to produce cotton at a reasonable pace.
The United States government noticed how successful Whitney's cotton gin was for production rates in cotton and the economy as a whole. In 1798, the US government contacted Whitney with a proposal to create an invention that would speed up the process for the manufacturing of certain items. Due to the impressment of American sailors, and the possibility of war, America needed a way to create 10,000 rifles in a short period of time.
Up until this time in history, all items were hand made by specialists who would manufacture the items in their own homes. Blacksmiths, gunsmiths, silversmiths, seamstress are all jobs that would take place in the homes, where the craft-master would narrow his focus to a specific item such as tools, clothing, rifles and dish-ware.
It could take weeks or months for some items to be made correctly and to where they would function properly. If America was indeed going to war, America did not have time to wait months for one rifle to be made, much less 10,000, needing to be made by hand.
Whitney had 28 months to produce 10,000 rifles for the United States government. In order for him to fulfill this demand, he was able to create an invention known as "interchangeable parts." The idea behind interchangeable parts was a manufacturing method that could create large quantities of identical pieces that could replace that could replace each other when needed.
Significance: Interchangeable parts had a huge impact on the manufacturing process. Instead of items having to be made by hand, one by one, interchangeable parts opened up mass production. Many different kinds of goods were able to be produced on a mass scale because if a part broke on one rifle, that one piece could be taken off and switched with an identical piece without having to make a whole new rifle. The long term effects of interchangeable parts lead to goods that could be produced faster and reduced the cost of those goods.