Which literary device does the underlined portion of the text most clearly show

Flashback

Explanation:

It talks about what happened before.

eli whitney was an american inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. this was one of the key inventions of the industrial revolution and shaped the economy of the antebellum south.

it is the background information on the characters and setting explained at the beginning of the story. the exposition will often have information about events that happened before the story began. the exposition is often the very first part of the plot.