Mr. Whitney Had a Notion

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Eli Whitney is arguably best remembered for inventing the cotton gin. However, those in the know may argue that his most useful contribution to the world is an idea, one he was able to put into practice in the late eighteenth century when he signed a government contract to produce the seemingly impossible ten thousand muskets in two years, most people who could only make at most ninety per year. That idea was what is now coined as mass production. The government officials who entered into the contract with him thought it pure folly, that view strengthened as they saw no muskets month after month after month. However, the people that worked for Whitney, even after his borrowed money ran out, stayed to work for him on the belief of what he was doing, which was kept secret behind locked doors. He may have had some doubts in the idea himself, which may make what is happening today in the world of production even more of a surprise to him.