Eli Whitney and the Historic Graphic Novel

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

Published by: Capstone Press

Written by: Jessica Gunderson

Illustrated by: Gerry Acerno, Rodney Ramos, and Charles Bartnett, III

This four chapter graphic novel about Eli Whitney and his turbulent journey towards inventing the Cotton Gin.  This thirty-two page picture book includes wonderfully expressive illustrations of Eli Whitney and eighteenth century America and cleverly relates historic invention and discovery to the needs of the times.  Instead of vaguely stating that Eli Whitney sought to invent a cotton gin that would help cotton farmers separate cotton seeds from cotton fibers, he did, and it changed the way Americans processed cotton forever, this text draws readers in with  its vivid depiction of human emotion.  The first image in the text shows a very disgruntled plantation owner addressing what readers can assume are slaves working on his cotton farm.  Gunderson builds towards Eli's moment of genius by highlighting some of the main frustrations with farming cotton during this period: cotton was grown in the southern United States but milled in Europe, this made cotton expensive, mills were eventually built in the US, but cotton was still expensive because it took so long to separate the seeds from the fibers.  Eli Whitney, being a true intellectual and natural scientist is inspired by his friends Catherine Greene and Phineas Miller to create a new and improved cotton gin (who knew the "roller gin" pre-dated Whitney's cotton gin but it was only useful when separating black-seed cotton, not the more widespread green-seed cotton).

You can preview the first two chapters of Eli Whitney through Google books to see if you're interested in this story, but know that it is a limited preview.  Unfortunately, you cannot see the inspired extension on the final pages of the fourth chapter that discuss the lasting impact of the cotton gin. Though the bulk of the text does not focus on how cotton farming affected the slaves working in the fields, Gunderson recognizes Whitney's invention as both a stimulus to the Southern American economy and as an unfortunate catalyst to the American slave culture.  

The quick facts page, glossary, or related resources listed at the end of the text are useful but not completely effective.  The glossary has a short list of useful terms, but these terms are not highlighted throughout the text.  I would have preferred these vocabulary words to be addressed during the introduction of the text or in context.  The related resources listed at the end of the text, however, are extremely useful.  There are four more age-appropriate texts on the cotton gin listed as well as a full bibliography.  There are also instructions for students to visit FactHound.com, enter the book's ID, and browse prescreened, age-appropriate sites (http://www.facthound.com/CategorySearch.aspx?ISBN=0736868437).  This option is available for all Capstone texts, which can also be searched by state standard at http://www.capstonepub.com/aspx/stdIndex.aspx.