Before the cotton gin, why was short-staple cotton unattractive for plantations reliant on enslaved labor?
Answer
It was previously too labor-intensive to be profitable due to manual seeding
Prior to the gin, the short-staple variety was deemed unattractive because separating its sticky seeds manually made it too labor-intensive to be profitable.
Related Questions
What was the function of the wire teeth or rotating saws in Eli Whitney's original cotton gin design?What trade-off was introduced by the early cotton gin's mechanism prioritizing separation speed?Why did early gins struggle to efficiently clean short-staple cotton output?What immediate hazard did the high-speed operation of the early cotton gins pose to the workers?What was the most profound weakness introduced by the cotton gin, according to the text?Before the cotton gin, why was short-staple cotton unattractive for plantations reliant on enslaved labor?How did the cotton boom resulting from the gin's invention affect the planter class?What structural weakness emerged from the South's overwhelming reliance on 'King Cotton'?In regions where long-staple cotton grew, how was the economic pressure related to slavery expansion affected?Which subsequent adjustments were introduced to mitigate the mechanical shortcomings of Whitney’s early model?