History of Cotton

Cotton plant species are known to have developed in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres. The earliest known remains of cotton are fossilized plants dating from about 2900 BC. These were found in Mexico. In what is now Peru, it is known that people were using cotton to make fishing nets and other items as early as 2500 BC and the earliest known woven cotton also dates from this area from about 1900 BC. By AD 1000, Indians in present-day Mexico and Peru were using cotton extensively.

In the Old World, the oldest evidence of cultivated cotton dates from about 3000 BC. This consisted of cotton thread and fabric found the Indus River Valley region in Pakistan. In about 1500 BC it is known that cotton textiles were exported from this region to Mesopotamia which then led to the residents of Mesopotamia and nearby areas cultivating their own cotton plants about 700 BC. Cotton was first grown and woven in Europe from about AD 700 in Spain and Italy. Cotton cultivation and weaving slowly spread throughout much of Europe.

By the 1500s cotton textiles were being imported to England and in the 1600s, the English began to weave their own cotton. Raw cotton was initially imported from countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and then later from the American Colonies. It began as a cottage industry (people working from home), but as demand grew, machines were developed that could process cotton in larger quantities. These machines which were invented in the 1700s were part of the Industrial Revolution which made England one of the largest producers of woven cotton goods. In 1733 the Fly Shuttle or Flying Shuttle was invented by John Kay. This increased the weaving speed by weaving the yarn mechanically rather than by hand. This increased the need for cotton yarn so in 1764 the Spinning Jenny was invented by a weaver called James Hargreaves. This enabled spinners to spin more yarn. It was the first machine which was able to spin more than one yarn at a time. The water frame was then invented by Richard Arkwright in 1769. This was even quicker than the Spinning Jenny by running on water power. In 1779, the Spinning Mule was invented by Samuel Crompton which combined the Spinning Jenny and water frame and gradually took over from both.

Cotton was grown by American colonists in the early 1600s. Cotton was woven by the colonists into coarse cloth for their own use. Large scale cotton growing began in the south of the United States in the late 1700s. They then exported raw cotton to England where it was made into textiles.

English manufacturers did not want the colonists to start their own spinning and weaving as they wanted them to continue to sell the raw cotton to England and then to buy back finished cloth. Inevitably, however, American cotton mills soon developed.

In 1793 the cotton gin was patented by a man called Eli Whitney in America. This was a machine by which the lint was separated from the seed. Before the invention of the gin, this work was done by hand. The gin meant that lint volume increased for each worker from 1 1b to 50 1bs per day. This invention meant that it was possible to supply much larger quantities of cotton fibre to the textile industry. The cotton industry in the Southern United States expanded rapidly with the invention of the gin. This meant that the slave population grew in the early 1800s as planters needed more and more people to pick and gin cotton. Many southern farmers believed they could only survive by using slave labour. Many Americans in the north disagreed and this was one of the reasons which led to the American Civil War which took place between 1861 and 1865.

Harvesting the cotton was also greatly improved by a picking device which was first patented in 1850 and a stripper which was a machine that strips both opened and unopened bolls and trash from the plant was patented in 1871. Before these machines were invented, an experienced person picking cotton by hand could pick approximately 450 pounds of seed cotton (this was cotton removed from the plant with the seeds intact) per day. In the 1930s, the Rust Brothers from Mississippi introduced a one row mechanical cotton picker which used revolving spindles to grab and pull the cotton from the open boll. This machine picked approximately 8,000 pounds of seed cotton per day. This greatly increased cotton harvest efficiency.

In the 1890s the boll weevil (a beetle) began to damage US cotton crops. The boll weevil is a beetle native to Mexico and Central America. The beetle had spread across much of the south by the early 1900s. Boll weevils cause the young squares to drop off the plant which meant that fewer bolls produced cotton fibres.

American cotton growers managed to stop the beetle infestation by changing growing methods. The infested bolls and squares were picked and burnt and cotton rows were planted further apart from each other so that extra sunlight killed the weevils. The cotton industry recovered in the 1920s but then slumped again in the 1930s during the Great Depression (a worldwide economic slump). By 1960, the cotton industry had recovered well but then synthetic fibres became increasingly popular. By 1977, only about one third of all fibres used were cotton.

Economic problems arose for American cotton farmers due to decreased demand and also high production costs. The US government made loans easier to obtain to help farmers survive. In 1971, an organisation was formed by cotton farmers now called Cotton Incorporated. This organisation helps support cotton research, promotes sale of cotton products and works to develop new products.

At the end of the 1970s, cotton became more popular again. Partly, people wanted softer, more comfortable clothing which cotton provides. The increase in demand led to a drop in the price of cotton goods and made a wider variety of high quality blends of cotton and synthetics available. By 1990, about half of the total fibres used were cotton.