Working with cotton has never been a glamorous job. Here in the US, the stuff has been picked by slaves, spun by children, and turned into clothing by indentured immigrants-some of the worst work that any American has ever done. But cotton has also served as a muse to invention. Many of the early triumphs of the Industrial Revolution both here and in England (the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the cotton gin) were designed to tame this useful but difficult crop.
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