July 6, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Apple founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone to the public in 2007, he used multiple iPhones. If one crashed or had another issue, he secretly swapped it for another one. He had to show off a specific set of functions in a certain order, called the “golden path.” But way back in 1801, another young inventor named Eli Whitney–already known for his invention of the cotton gin in 1794–seized an opportunity to try to make his fortune. Here to tell the story is Ashley Hlebinsky. Ashley is the former co-host of Discovery Channel’s “Master of Arms,” the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and president of The Gun Code, LLC. Here’s Ashley.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love to hear from you and love to
hear your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There are some of our favorites. When Apple founder Steve
Jobs unveiled the first iPhone to the public in two
(00:31):
thousand and seven, he used multiple iPhones. If one crashed
or had another issue, he secretly swapped it for another one.
He had to show off a specific set of functions
in a certain order, what he called the Golden Path.
But way back in eighteen oh one, another young inventor
named Eli Whitney, already known for his invention of the
(00:55):
cotton gin in seventeen ninety four, seized an opportunity to
try to make his fortune. Whitney claimed to have invented
interchangeable parts for muskets. He unveiled this invention with the
Jobs like presentation before a group of men, which included
the outgoing president John Adams and the recently elected Thomas Jefferson.
(01:18):
Here to tell the story is our regular contributor Ashley Libinski.
Ashley is the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master
of Arms, the former curator in charge of the Cody
Firearms Museum, and President of the Gun Code LLLC. Here's Ashley.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
When you're in school, you learn about a lot of
different historic figures throughout American culture. You learn about people
like Henry Ford and his assembly line, and you hear
about Eli Whitney and his Cotton Gin, and these histories
are really wrapped up in.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
A nice little bow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But when you get older and possibly study history, you
learn that things aren't always as simple as you learned
in school, and aren't always as true as you learned
in school.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And one part of those.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Narratives that's often left out is the fact that these
people were inspired by firearms. For example, Henry Ford visited
Winchester right before he built his Highland Park factory in Detroit,
and it was the processes used in Winchester factories and
as well as cult factories that inspired him to build
(02:35):
his assembly line, which we now associate one hundred percent
with him.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And not with anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And then the other person that has kind of this
neat compact history is Eli Whitney and is Cotton Gin.
A lot of those histories are rooted in truth, so
Eli Whitney did invent the cotton gin in seventeen ninety four.
The part they don't tell you about is that he
received a patent, and that cotton gin patent was questionable
(03:05):
because he was sued a lot for patent infringement when
he was initially trying to produce that piece of technology,
so he didn't make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
He didn't make any money.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Actually on it because he was spent so much time
trying to defend his patent that he needed a new
source of income. And in seventeen ninety seven, the US
was gearing up for war, and like a lot of
eighteenth century nineteenth century designers inventors.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
They decide, you know what, I can make.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Firearms, and I'll get into the firearm's business because certainly
in a time of war, that is an area where
you'd think that you could make profit. So in seventeen
ninety eight, the US government looked at Eli Whitney and
they were like, if you can make a cotton gin,
I guess you can make guns. And they gave him
a contract to make ten thousand muskets. And Whitney really
(04:00):
had never made guns before, didn't have any type of
production capacity for that, but he said yes because he
needed the money. Ten thousand muskets to be delivered. Over
two years, eighteen oh one rolls by, and he hasn't
produced a single one, which I'm not quite sure how
that works, although I did read that there is a
(04:21):
theory that he obsessed with his cotton gin, went south
while he was supposed to be making the guns and
tried to make profit on his cotton gin off of
the money that the US government had given him, although
I just read that, so I'm not one hundred percent
sure if that's true, but it would make sense because
I don't know what else you'd be doing with that
money over two years. So basically, the US government is
(04:43):
pretty irritated, rightfully so, because they are waiting on muskets
that are needed for the military, and so when they
contact him, they're like, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And he ultimately is called.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
To do a demonstration to basically answer for why he's
taken money but not actually produced anything. And so when
he's called to prove himself or justify himself, he shows
off that his muskets have this really revolutionary concept of
interchangeable parts. But interchangeable parts really predated him, and one
(05:22):
of the people that he did the demonstration for was
President elect Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson saw the concept
for interchangeability overseas in Europe, actually in France, where a
French artillerist was working on this idea of standardizing artillery pieces,
and that man inspired other people to work towards this
(05:44):
idea of interchangeability. Well, what's fascinating is that Whitney, who
is iconically associated with the practical application of interchangeable parts,
didn't talk about them until he was in trouble. In fact,
he didn't interchangeable parts when he got his contract, But
ten months into the contract, Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Junior
(06:08):
sent him a quote foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques,
and after that he started talking about interchangeability. So he
goes to do this demonstration and he brings parts of
his musket and shows that you can assemble different lock plates,
different barrels and they'll fit all.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Within the same gun.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So instead of having to make something totally from scratch,
and then you can't take that lock plate and put
it onto a different stock or attach it to a
separate barrel, he's able to show that everything there can
be interchangeable, meaning that you can take a bunch of barrels,
they can be attached to a bunch of stocks, which
can be attached to a bunch of lock plates and
(06:52):
all kinds of internal working parts. And so when you
do that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, that's revolutionary.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It really hadn't been done successfully. So to President Alec
Thomas Jefferson, he's like, oh my gosh, I finally can
see you know, the product of his concept that I
saw overseas, and it really is I mean, it's impressive
because they hadn't really seen.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It done before.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
But what we learn later is that he had actually
numbered the parts so that it was a trick.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Essentially, he had numbered the.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Parts so he knew which parts attached to you know,
of this gun, a part attached to this other part
of the gun, so that it looked like it was interchangeable.
But it was labeled for him to see, but for
others to just be wowed by his brilliance.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And everyone's absolutely wowed by this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
You know, he takes his you know, gun and he
assembles it in front of everybody, and everyone's you know,
their minds are blown they're like, well, of course this
is what you've been working on, spending all your money on,
and we think it's pretty revolutionary. And I will say
he does ultimately fulfill his contract. The Whitney name does
get associated pretty large in firearms history. The Whitney evil
(08:02):
armories around for ninety years, but we can credit that
more to his son than anything else. And his son
worked on several contract guns and he struggled with it
as well. But I mean he made iconic Colt guns
and created parts for iconic Colt guns like the Walker
by the time of the eighteen forties. And so you
(08:24):
look at the turn of the nineteenth century and Whitney's
working on it, but he's struggling and telling some lies.
But by the middle of the nineteenth century, you know,
the Whitney name is much more readily associated with firearms
and in a much more positive light. But if you
look at the original story of Eli Whitney and his
(08:46):
cotton gin and the development of interchangeable parts, I feel
like you almost don't even realize that he will one
faked it, but two the fact that it was really
about firearms and not his cotton gin. And I mean
you can make a lot of speculation why that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Part of the story might not be told in school.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
But I just sometimes always wonder why we can't tell
the real history and why they have to focus.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
On some tight.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Little bow to teach people just so when they grow
up they either perpetuate a fake history or they learned
that they were totally lied to it. And I was going,
what a waste of everybody's time, because the story of
Eli Whitney and his failures and his ability to fool
Thomas Jefferson is far more interesting than his perfect little cotton.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Gin and his development of interchangeable parts.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And a great job on the storytelling in production and
editing by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Ashley Lebinski.
He's the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms,
the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum
and president of the Gun Code LLC. And what a
story she told. And we appreciate that history is not
(09:58):
tied up in a neat boat. That's why it's not
interesting when it's taught the way it's taught. And this
is why we have the storytellers we have because human
history is complicated and it's nuanced as are human beings,
and that this inventor was somewhat of a hustler. Well,
welcome to the world. They all are, and they're all
pushing boundaries and pushing themselves and pushing the truth. And
(10:22):
one day the truth becomes the reality. And that's what's
so interesting about so many inventors and entrepreneurs, people like
Eli Whitney, who change the world. The story of Eli
Whitney and his Fake Interchangeable Parts demo to Thomas Jefferson.
Here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love to hear from you and love to
hear your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There are some of our favorites. When Apple founder Steve
Jobs unveiled the first iPhone to the public in two
(00:31):
thousand and seven, he used multiple iPhones. If one crashed
or had another issue, he secretly swapped it for another one.
He had to show off a specific set of functions
in a certain order, what he called the Golden Path.
But way back in eighteen oh one, another young inventor
named Eli Whitney, already known for his invention of the
(00:55):
cotton gin in seventeen ninety four, seized an opportunity to
try to make his fortune. Whitney claimed to have invented
interchangeable parts for muskets. He unveiled this invention with the
Jobs like presentation before a group of men, which included
the outgoing president John Adams and the recently elected Thomas Jefferson.
(01:18):
Here to tell the story is our regular contributor Ashley Libinski.
Ashley is the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master
of Arms, the former curator in charge of the Cody
Firearms Museum, and President of the Gun Code LLLC. Here's Ashley.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
When you're in school, you learn about a lot of
different historic figures throughout American culture. You learn about people
like Henry Ford and his assembly line, and you hear
about Eli Whitney and his Cotton Gin, and these histories
are really wrapped up in.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
A nice little bow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But when you get older and possibly study history, you
learn that things aren't always as simple as you learned
in school, and aren't always as true as you learned
in school.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And one part of those.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Narratives that's often left out is the fact that these
people were inspired by firearms. For example, Henry Ford visited
Winchester right before he built his Highland Park factory in Detroit,
and it was the processes used in Winchester factories and
as well as cult factories that inspired him to build
(02:35):
his assembly line, which we now associate one hundred percent
with him.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And not with anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And then the other person that has kind of this
neat compact history is Eli Whitney and is Cotton Gin.
A lot of those histories are rooted in truth, so
Eli Whitney did invent the cotton gin in seventeen ninety four.
The part they don't tell you about is that he
received a patent, and that cotton gin patent was questionable
(03:05):
because he was sued a lot for patent infringement when
he was initially trying to produce that piece of technology,
so he didn't make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
He didn't make any money.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Actually on it because he was spent so much time
trying to defend his patent that he needed a new
source of income. And in seventeen ninety seven, the US
was gearing up for war, and like a lot of
eighteenth century nineteenth century designers inventors.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
They decide, you know what, I can make.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Firearms, and I'll get into the firearm's business because certainly
in a time of war, that is an area where
you'd think that you could make profit. So in seventeen
ninety eight, the US government looked at Eli Whitney and
they were like, if you can make a cotton gin,
I guess you can make guns. And they gave him
a contract to make ten thousand muskets. And Whitney really
(04:00):
had never made guns before, didn't have any type of
production capacity for that, but he said yes because he
needed the money. Ten thousand muskets to be delivered. Over
two years, eighteen oh one rolls by, and he hasn't
produced a single one, which I'm not quite sure how
that works, although I did read that there is a
(04:21):
theory that he obsessed with his cotton gin, went south
while he was supposed to be making the guns and
tried to make profit on his cotton gin off of
the money that the US government had given him, although
I just read that, so I'm not one hundred percent
sure if that's true, but it would make sense because
I don't know what else you'd be doing with that
money over two years. So basically, the US government is
(04:43):
pretty irritated, rightfully so, because they are waiting on muskets
that are needed for the military, and so when they
contact him, they're like, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And he ultimately is called.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
To do a demonstration to basically answer for why he's
taken money but not actually produced anything. And so when
he's called to prove himself or justify himself, he shows
off that his muskets have this really revolutionary concept of
interchangeable parts. But interchangeable parts really predated him, and one
(05:22):
of the people that he did the demonstration for was
President elect Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson saw the concept
for interchangeability overseas in Europe, actually in France, where a
French artillerist was working on this idea of standardizing artillery pieces,
and that man inspired other people to work towards this
(05:44):
idea of interchangeability. Well, what's fascinating is that Whitney, who
is iconically associated with the practical application of interchangeable parts,
didn't talk about them until he was in trouble. In fact,
he didn't interchangeable parts when he got his contract, But
ten months into the contract, Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Junior
(06:08):
sent him a quote foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques,
and after that he started talking about interchangeability. So he
goes to do this demonstration and he brings parts of
his musket and shows that you can assemble different lock plates,
different barrels and they'll fit all.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Within the same gun.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So instead of having to make something totally from scratch,
and then you can't take that lock plate and put
it onto a different stock or attach it to a
separate barrel, he's able to show that everything there can
be interchangeable, meaning that you can take a bunch of barrels,
they can be attached to a bunch of stocks, which
can be attached to a bunch of lock plates and
(06:52):
all kinds of internal working parts. And so when you
do that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, that's revolutionary.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It really hadn't been done successfully. So to President Alec
Thomas Jefferson, he's like, oh my gosh, I finally can
see you know, the product of his concept that I
saw overseas, and it really is I mean, it's impressive
because they hadn't really seen.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It done before.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
But what we learn later is that he had actually
numbered the parts so that it was a trick.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Essentially, he had numbered the.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Parts so he knew which parts attached to you know,
of this gun, a part attached to this other part
of the gun, so that it looked like it was interchangeable.
But it was labeled for him to see, but for
others to just be wowed by his brilliance.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And everyone's absolutely wowed by this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
You know, he takes his you know, gun and he
assembles it in front of everybody, and everyone's you know,
their minds are blown they're like, well, of course this
is what you've been working on, spending all your money on,
and we think it's pretty revolutionary. And I will say
he does ultimately fulfill his contract. The Whitney name does
get associated pretty large in firearms history. The Whitney evil
(08:02):
armories around for ninety years, but we can credit that
more to his son than anything else. And his son
worked on several contract guns and he struggled with it
as well. But I mean he made iconic Colt guns
and created parts for iconic Colt guns like the Walker
by the time of the eighteen forties. And so you
(08:24):
look at the turn of the nineteenth century and Whitney's
working on it, but he's struggling and telling some lies.
But by the middle of the nineteenth century, you know,
the Whitney name is much more readily associated with firearms
and in a much more positive light. But if you
look at the original story of Eli Whitney and his
(08:46):
cotton gin and the development of interchangeable parts, I feel
like you almost don't even realize that he will one
faked it, but two the fact that it was really
about firearms and not his cotton gin. And I mean
you can make a lot of speculation why that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Part of the story might not be told in school.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
But I just sometimes always wonder why we can't tell
the real history and why they have to focus.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
On some tight.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Little bow to teach people just so when they grow
up they either perpetuate a fake history or they learned
that they were totally lied to it. And I was going,
what a waste of everybody's time, because the story of
Eli Whitney and his failures and his ability to fool
Thomas Jefferson is far more interesting than his perfect little cotton.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Gin and his development of interchangeable parts.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And a great job on the storytelling in production and
editing by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Ashley Lebinski.
He's the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms,
the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum
and president of the Gun Code LLC. And what a
story she told. And we appreciate that history is not
(09:58):
tied up in a neat boat. That's why it's not
interesting when it's taught the way it's taught. And this
is why we have the storytellers we have because human
history is complicated and it's nuanced as are human beings,
and that this inventor was somewhat of a hustler. Well,
welcome to the world. They all are, and they're all
pushing boundaries and pushing themselves and pushing the truth. And
(10:22):
one day the truth becomes the reality. And that's what's
so interesting about so many inventors and entrepreneurs, people like
Eli Whitney, who change the world. The story of Eli
Whitney and his Fake Interchangeable Parts demo to Thomas Jefferson.
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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