Steam-Powered McCarthy Gin

This drawing features a gin designed by Fones McCarthy. Captioned "Ginning Cotton by Steam," it accompanied an article titled "Cotton, In the Coast and Upland Fields of South Carolina" by Jennie Haskell, published in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly in May 1880. The men on the left supply seed cotton to a cotton gin while the kneeling woman gathers the lint. The woman in the center is sorting the lint, and the men in the back right are operating the steam engine. Many of these gins were manufactured in Demopolis, Marengo County.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

Appears In