A biographical chapter on Eli Whitney (1765-1825) from George Iles's Leading American Inventors. It follows his Massachusetts boyhood, Yale education, and invention of the cotton gin at Mulberry Park, Georgia, then the patent battles with Georgia and South Carolina and the Hodgen Holmes saw-gin infringement. It ends with his move to musket manufacture at New Haven and his early use of interchangeable parts. Illustrations include a portrait, an engraving of the gin and a photograph of a gin.