This summer, the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI)’s Junior Fellows created soundscapes inspired by the work of Dr. Allie Martin, one of CCDI’s current Artists/Scholars in Residence. Allie’s project, Sampling Black Life: Soundscapes and Critical Intention, uses Library of Congress digital collections to create soundscape compositions—short sonic vignettes that layer sounds from the Library’s digital collections with field recordings and composed music—to explore the sounds of Black life in depth.
In the following guest post, Janiya Peters, a 2024 CCDI Junior Fellow, shares more about the process of developing her project, The Gin in Motion: Examining the Cotton Gin Through Sound and Narrative.
Since the early ages, technology has increased channels for communication and information sharing, facilitated better health and physiological outcomes, and contributed to our general sense of modernity and social advancement. But technology is not inherently “good,” or even apolitical. Langdon Winner suggests that technology is riddled with politics, from the material and technical arrangements that produce socioeconomic outcomes, to the power hierarchies embedded in the operation of these systems. This may be seen in the architect Robert Moses’ design of the Long Island highway system such that minority and low-income communities could not enter upper class neighborhoods via bus; or the rigorous chain of command in a nuclear power plant. This framework of Science and Technology Studies (STS) teaches us that technology is designed and operated by humans, who themselves have their own goals and initiatives.
As a Junior Fellow working with the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI), I sought to examine the politics embedded in a technological artifact through the lens of the people who worked with it. I was inspired by the work and methodologies of CCDI’s Artist/Scholar in Residence, Dr. Allie Martin, who is working on a soundscape and community engagement project titled Sampling Black Life: Soundscapes and Critical Intention. My soundscape project, The Gin in Motion: Examining the Cotton Gin Through Sound and Narrative, considers oral narratives from former enslaved persons. I used my background in Information Science and New Media to sample the Library’s digital collections and create a soundscape composition that explores Black life as impacted by this technology. Through this soundscape, I aimed to identify and display a complex history marked by material innovation, as well as exploitation, dehumanization, and institutionalized violence.
History of the Cotton Gin
In 1794, Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, though several instances of the machinery existed prior to the 18th century. The cultivation of cotton could be segmented into three processes: retrieval, separation, and spinning. Retrieval required the manual picking of cotton from its source plant, which included both white plush fibers and prickly seeds. Separation required the uncoupling of these seeds from the fibers, after which the fibers would be sent for processing. Spinning wove these fibers into thread and yarn, which could form a variety of cloth materials. By this time, spinning had been partly mechanized by stocking frames and power looms. But the retrieval and separation of cotton was still costly and labor-intensive, and within the U.S. was completed by enslaved persons. Whitney’s cotton gin reduced the time it took to separate cotton fibers and seeds, making cotton a faster, viable cash crop for the U.S. South. In this, plantation owners demanded more enslaved labor to plant, retrieve, and prepare the cotton for the gin. By 1800, the number of enslaved persons in the U.S. was roughly under a million. By 1860, the number of enslaved persons in the U.S. was an estimated 3.9 million. Though cotton was just one of several products, including rice and tobacco, fueling the U.S. Southern economy, the invention of the cotton gin failed to slow down demand for enslaved labor.
The history of the cotton gin in the U.S. reveals the nuances of labor and technology. First, the gin made the operations of the plantation faster and more profitable; it did not relieve enslaved persons of their dehumanization or labor tasks. “The First Cotton Gin” depicts enslaved persons cranking a gin machine and loading and retrieving cotton products. This wood engraving is a sobering depiction of the activities enslaved persons had to complete. A photograph entitled “Cotton gin at Dahomey, Mississippi” shows Black men in suspenders and work trousers on a factory floor covered in cotton fibers. This photograph was taken in 1890, nearly three decades after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. These collection items display a racialized power structure whereby persons of African descent are cast as machine operators and laborers, and persons of European descent are cast as overseers of production.
![A black and white wood engraving of enslaved African American people using a cotton gin. The text at the bottom of the image says: "The First Cotton Gin-- Drawn by William L. Sheppard -- [See Page 814]"](https://blogs.loc.gov/ofthepeople/files/2024/08/service-pnp-cph-3c00000-3c03000-3c03800-3c03801v-300x241.jpg)
Composing a Soundscape
In composing my soundscape, I asked the following questions: How does the history of the cotton gin challenge assumptions that technological advancements lead to progress and innovation and reduce labor needs? How might firsthand accounts supplement our understanding of this history? I looked through the Library’s Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories collection. Through a keyword search of “cotton gin,” I was able to identify photos, interviews, and artifacts that discussed the machinery in some way. In this process, I found interviews with three individuals whose stories captivated me: Susanna Rebecca Wright Thompson of Oldhams, Virginia (1935); Aunt Phoebe Boyd of Dunnsville, Virginia (1935); and George Johnson of Mount Bayou, Mississippi (1941). These individuals discussed their former lives under slavery, including the integration of the cotton gin in their work and residencies.
For example, George Johnson explains how the gin would fail to clean the seeds from the cotton fiber, or dry out the cotton fibers. Johnson, his father, and grandfather were formerly owned by Southern Confederacy President Jefferson Davis. Aunt Phoebe Boyd mentions that her community would load cotton bolls onto the neighborhood gins and turn it to eliminate the seeds.
She also remarks that whereas people used to make bed quilts by hand, people primarily bought them as of 1935. These stories provided a rich context to the questions I sought. The gin was an important part of their life and work, but did not decrease their taskload or produce a more leisureful life. Instead, their work began to center on the picking, preparation, and maintenance of cotton for the gin.
In composing my soundscape, I sought to mimic the repetition of the gin in motion (the manual turning of the machine, and the seeds falling out of the mechanical teeth). I cut and looped a small snippet of audio feedback from Aunt Phoebe Boyd’s interview to achieve this effect. This sound may be heard recurrently in the background. I also employed repetition in the sound of her voice. The line, “Don’t you know we used to have gins here in our neighborhood?” is interjected at various points in the soundscape.
In examining the cotton gin as a technological and political artifact, I hoped to identify the ways formerly enslaved African Americans are included in technological histories (in this instance, they are included by way of colonial bondage). I also aimed to highlight the stories of an otherwise invisible workforce as they were not paid for their service.
Many thanks to the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative team, including Dr. Kimber Thomas and Dr. Marya McQuirter, for supporting me in this work. Special thanks to Dr. Allie Martin and Ann Chen for leading informative workshops on sound, sound ethnography, and digital storytelling which helped shaped my soundscape.
You can listen to Janiya’s soundscape below (link to audio transcript):
Sources
Langdon Winner. (1980). Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121–136.
Eric Allen. (2012). Mapping Slavery. Timeless, Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/10/mapping-slavery/
William L. Sheppard, “The first cotton-gin.” 1869 Dec. 18. 1 print: wood engraving. https://www.loc.gov/item/91784966/
Detroit Photographic Company, “Cotton gin at Dahomey, Mississippi.” 1890. 1 photographic print. https://www.loc.gov/item/93510593/
“Interview with Aunt Phoebe Boyd, Dunnsville, Virginia, 1935 (part 8 of 8).” 1935. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1984011_afs25752b/
“Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, September 1941 (part 1 of 6).” 1941. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04777a/
“Interview with Susanna Rebecca Wright Thompson, Oldhams, Virginia, 1935 (part 3 of 6).” 1935. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1984011_afs25735a/
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The Junior Fellows Program is an annual summer internship program for currently enrolled or recently graduated undergraduate or graduate students. Fellows have the opportunity to explore the Library of Congress’ digital and analog collections, while working directly with Library staff across the institution in a variety of fields, including: information technology, reference, preservation, and more.
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CCDI is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path program with support from the Mellon Foundation. This four-year program provides financial and technical support to individuals, institutions and organizations to create imaginative projects using the Library’s digital collections and centering one or more of the following groups: Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color from any of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and its territories and commonwealths (Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands). Learn more about CCDI here.