Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin (short for 'engine') revolutionized the American South's economy. The machine quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds, a task that was previously labor-intensive and slow. While Whitney hoped the machine would reduce the need for manual labor, it had the opposite effect. By making cotton production highly profitable, it caused a massive expansion of the plantation system and led to a dramatic increase in the demand for enslaved labor. This deepened the economic and social divide between the industrial North and the agrarian South, serving as one of the long-term causes of the American Civil War. The cotton gin turned the United States into the world's leading cotton exporter, fueling the textile mills of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.