This page presents images and information on machines that combined cotton ginning, carding, and/or spinning. They were patented, manufactured, distributed, and used in the United States from about the 1830s. Many have survived but in damaged condition, making certain identification difficult. It is my hope that this page will help with the identification process. I hope to add patent specifications and drawings and other information as I uncover it. These machines are not a research interest of mine, at this point, so I have not verified information nor do I offer any historical or technical analysis.
Angela Lakwete, PhD
History Dept., Auburn University, AL

I have a sequence of photographs that may document three similar machines or the same machine in different hands. The first was taken in 1944, the second appeared in a 1957 work and the third was taken in 2000.

The first is a "Photo of a combined cotton gin and carder sold by J. Luke Burdette, Washington, Ga. to J. H. Elliott, Antique dealer in Atlanta. Elliott has placed this machine in his museum called the Atlanta Historical Museum. In the photo from left to right are: Tom Linder, Commissioner of Agriculture, J. H. Elliott, Wm. B. Heartsfield, Mayor of Atlanta, and T. M. Forbes, Vice President, Cotton Manufacturers Association of Georgia. Photo sent to M. D. C. Crawford, Research Editor, Fairchild Publications [N.Y.]. Account in Atlanta Journal, 21 May 1944." The photo and caption were found in a curator's office at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. (hereafter SI), 1993. Negative No. 36725.

I scanned the second from America's Arts and Skills (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1957), 78. The caption reads: "Whitney Workshop now stands near Washington, Ga. In foreground is a combination gin and carder, developed from his invention. It prepared cotton for home spinning on the plantation."

A man from Montevallo, Alabama (whose identification will be revealed only when I get his permission) supplied the third photograph. He graciously sent me this photograph in August 2000. It depicts a machine that he has since donated to Williamsburg Farms in Adamsville, Alabama. It bears distinct resemblance to the machine in the above 1944 photograph.

These three photos are specifically for the benefit of some kindly folks at Mississippi State University, Williamsburg Farms in Adamsville, Ala., and others who are trying to figure out the origins of a certain machine. The following are more conventional gin spinners with a saw gin, carding cylinders, and Arkwright spinning mechanisms. They are found in museum collections as noted. The photos are "thumbnails." Click on them for a larger image.

This "Plantation Cotton Spinner," was manufactured by J & T Pearce, Cincinnati, Ohio, ca. 1840. It is in the collection of the Museum of American Textile History, Lowell, Mass.

The James Pearce's gin spinner was a clear favorite. These four photographs document a model in the collection of Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. Negative numbers 45959 a-d. It is essentially identical to the machine in the collection of the Museum of American Textile History.

This is a patent model in the collection of the National Museum of American History. The inventor was J. E. Brudge (sp?). The U.S. Patent No. 76299 was awarded on 7 April 1868. NMAH Accession No. 89797.

Mr. W. R. Armstrong of Gastonia, N.C. furnished this negative (no. 6762b) to an NMAH curator on 18 Feb. 1926 who decided against acquiring the machine.