In high school in Virginia in the 1980’s I was taught that the Cotton Gin was one of the big deal inventions of the world comparable almost to the printing press. This seems silly to me today. Was this a part of Lost Cause propaganda or more likely just a result of cotton being important to the region’s historic economy? If the latter is more likely, is this a case of us receiving the values of the previous slave holding social structure?
I'm not sure the cotton gin's importance has much to do with the Lost Cause, other than maybe some relevant tie to the Old South.
The cotton gin, at least Eli Whitney's and its derivatives, revolutionized the textile world, making cotton a much more popular consumable item in regards to clothing/fabric. Before this, cotton wasn't a very profitable crop. It look a lot of time and labor to remove the seeds. Most planters in the South grew more indigo and tobacco before then because it was easier to deal with. The gin made it easier to separate the seeds from the lint, or fibers, meaning more labor could be placed on planting and harvesting the cotton. Whitney's gin dealt specifically with short-staple cotton grown in the US, rather than the Indian long-staple.
This allowed the cotton economy to explode in the South. Many planters were looking for a new cash crop, tobacco and indigo were on the way out. The industrial revolution was peaking in England, along with the demand for cotton for its manufacturers, part of which was supplied by their colonies in India and the American South.
This completely revolutionizes the textile industry. Cotton over time becomes a much more popular fabric to wear. It's durable, easy to sew and dye, and can be easily bought for consumers. Before then linen and wool were the more popular textiles for clothing. It's one of the main reasons cotton (along with man-made textiles) is used more than linen or wool for broad consumer items. It transformed the South in the Cotton Kingdom that we know think of it as, which also led to the dramatic increase of enslaved labor and plantations.
Angela Lakwete, Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).
John Larson. The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good.
Sven Beckert. The Empire of Cotton.