(Boston, 1904) edited by W. S. Kennedy; In re Walt Whitman (Philadelphia, 1893) edited by his literary executors, H. L. Traubel, R. M. Bucke, T. H. Harned; Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (Boston, 1907}, a record of talks in 1888, full of material; Bliss Perry, Walt Whitman: His Life and Work (Boston, 1907), with new material and unpublished letters; Calamus, a series of letters (1868-1880) written by Whitman to a “young friend” (Peter Doyle), edited by R. M. Bucke (1897), who also wrote an authorized biography — Walt Whitman (Philadelphia, 1883) — which contains contemporary criticisms of Whitman and W. D. O'Connor's “Good Gray Poet” (1866); Walt Whitman (London, 1893), a study by J. Addington Symonds; Reminiscences of Walt Whitman with Extracts from his Letters (London, 1896) by W. S. Kennedy; H. B. Binns, Life of Walt Whitman (New York, 1906); and critical estimates in R. L. Stevenson's Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882); E. Dowden's Studies in Literature (1892), and in E. C. Stedman's Poets of America, &c. A bibliography of writings on Whitman is appended to Selections (Boston, 1898), edited by O. L. Triggs.
WHITNEY, ELI (1765-1825), American inventor, was born on
a farm in Westboro, Massachusetts, on the 8th of December 1765.
He exhibited unusual mechanical ability at an early age and
earned a considerable part of his expenses at Yale College, where
he graduated in 1792. He soon went to Savannah, Georgia,
expecting to secure a position as a teacher, but was disappointed,
and accepted the invitation of Mrs Nathanael Greene, the widow
of the Revolutionary general, to spend some time on her plantation
on the Savannah river, while deciding upon his future
course. The construction by Whitney of several ingenious
household contrivances led Mrs Greene to introduce him to some
gentlemen who were discussing the desirability of a machine to
separate the short staple upland cotton from its seeds, work
which was then done by hand at the rate of a pound of lint a day.
In a few weeks Whitney produced a model, consisting of a wooden
cylinder encircled by rows of slender spikes set half an inch apart,
which extended between the bars of a grid set so closely together
that the seeds could not pass, but the lint was pulled through
by the revolving spikes; a revolving brush cleaned the spikes,
and the seed fell into another compartment. The machine was
worked by hand and could clean 50 lb of lint a day. The model
seems to have been stolen, but another was constructed and a
patent was granted on the 14th of March 1794. Meanwhile
Whitney had formed a partnership with Phineas Miller (who
afterward married Mrs Greene), and they built at New Haven,
Connecticut, a factory (burned in March 1795) for the
manufacture of the gins. The partners intended to establish an
absolute monopoly and to charge a toll of one-third of the cotton
or to buy the whole crop. They were unable to supply the
demand for gins, and country blacksmiths constructed many
machines. A patent, later annulled, was granted (May 12, 1796)
to Hogden Holmes for a gin which substituted circular saws for
the spikes. Whitney spent much time and money prosecuting
infringements of his patent, and in 1807 its validity was finally
settled. The financial returns in Georgia cannot be ascertained.
The legislature of South Carolina voted $50,000 for the rights for
that state, while North Carolina levied a license tax for five years,
from which about $30,000 was realized. Tennessee paid, perhaps,
$10,000.[1] Meanwhile Whitney, disgusted with the struggle,
began the manufacture of fire-arms near New Haven (1798) and
secured profitable government contracts; he introduced in this
factory division of labour and standardized parts. Although the
modern gin has been much enlarged and improved, the essential
features are the same as in Whitney's first model, and the invention
profoundly influenced American industrial, economic and
social history.
See Denison Olmsted, Memoir (New Haven, 1846); D. A. Tompkins, Cotton and Cotton Oil (Charlotte, N.C., 1901); and W. P. Blake, “Sketch of Eli Whitney” in New Haven Colony Historical Society, Papers, vol. v. (New Haven, 1894).
WHITNEY, JOSIAH DWIGHT (1819-1896), American geologist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 23rd of November 1819. He graduated at Yale in 1839, and after two years' work as assistant in the geological survey of New Hampshire, spent some time in Europe in the study of chemistry, mineralogy and geology. Returning to the United States in 1847, he laboured successfully for a time in the copper and iron
lands of the Lake Superior region; in 1855 he became State chemist and professor in the Iowa University and took part in the geological survey of the state; he subsequently worked in the lead region of the upper Missouri river, in Wisconsin, and in Illinois, publishing many reports, singly or in collaboration with others. From 1860 to 1874 he was state geologist of California, and issued a comprehensive series of reports on its topography, geology and botany. In 1869, with William H. Brewer, he determined the heights of the principal Rocky Mountain summits; and in recognition of his labours Mount Whitney (14,502, in Inyo county, California, the highest peak in the United States) received its name from him. From 1865 until his death he was professor of geology and director of the school of mining and practical geology at Harvard University, residing in Cambridge save when absent on expeditions of research. The records of his investigations are somewhat dispersed; the most homogeneous of his writings are The Metallic Wealth of the United States, described and compared with that of other Countries (1854), a work of importance at the time of its issue, and Contributions to American Geology (vol. i. only, 1880). He died at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, on the 18th of August 1896.
WHITNEY, WILLIAM COLLINS (1841-1904), American
political leader and financier, was born at Conway,
Massachusetts, on the 15th of July 1841, of Puritan stock. He graduated at Yale in 1863, studied law at Harvard, and practised with success in New York City. He was an aggressive opponent of the “Tweed Ring,” and was actively allied with the anti-Tammany organizations, the “Irving Hall Democracy” of 1875-1890, and the “County Democracy” of 1880-1890, but upon the dissolution of the latter he became identified with Tammany. In 1875-1882 he was corporation counsel of New York, and as such brought about a codification of the laws relating to the city, and successfully contested a large part of certain claims, largely fraudulent, against the city, amounting to about $20,000,000, and a heritage from the Tweed regime. During President Cleveland's first administration (1885-1889), Whitney was secretary of the navy department and did much to develop the navy, especially by encouraging the domestic manufacture of armour plate. In 1892 he was instrumental in bringing about the third nomination of Mr Cleveland, and took an influential part in the ensuing presidential campaign; but in 1896, disapproving of the “free-silver” agitation, he refused to support his party's candidate, Mr W. J. Bryan. Whitney took an active interest in the development of urban transit in New York, and was one of the organizers of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. He was also interested in horse-racing, and in 1901 won the English Derby with Volodyovski, leased by him from Lady Meux. He died in New York City on the 2nd of February 1904.
WHITNEY, WILLIAM DWIGHT (1827–1894), American philologist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of February 1827. He was the fourth child and the second surviving son of Josiah Dwight Whitney, a banker, and Sarah Williston, daughter of the Rev. Payson Williston (1763–1856) of Easthampton, Mass., and a sister of Samuel Williston (1795–1874), founder of Williston Seminary at Easthampton. Through both parents he was descended from New England stock remarkable alike for physical and mental vigour; and he inherited all the social and intellectual advantages that were afforded by a community noted, in the history of New England, for the large number of distinguished men whom it produced. At the age of fifteen (1842) he entered the sophomore class of Williams College (at Williamstown, Mass.), where he graduated three years later with the highest honours. His attention was at first directed to natural science, and his interest in it always remained keen, and his knowledge of its principles and methods exerted a noticeable influence upon his philological work. In the summer of 1849 he had charge of the botany, the barometrical observations and the accounts of the United States survey of the Lake Superior region conducted by his brother, Josiah D. Whitney, and in the summer of 1873 assisted in the geographical work of the Hayden expedition in Colorado. His interest in the study of Sanskrit
- ↑ D. A. Tompkins, Cotton (1901), p. 28.
