The Evolution of the Cotton Picker in America (2024)

FAQs

When did cotton picking end in America? ›

In 1950, Western cotton growers were using mechanical pickers to harvest upwards of 50% of their crops and by the early 1960's hand picked cotton was a thing of the past in the West.

The first commercial production of mechanical cotton pickers were manufactured in 1949, and these machines did not exist in large numbers until the early 1950s. Since the Great Migration began during World War I, mechanical pickers cannot have played any causal role in the first four decades of the migration.

The first practical cotton picker was invented over a period of years beginning in the late 1920s by John Daniel Rust (1892–1954) with the later help of his brother Mack Rust.

Often slaves, and later sharecroppers, would pick cotton from sunrise to sunset. In August, this would result in a 13 hour workday spent in the hot sun. To pick the cotton, a worker would pull the white, fluffy lint from the boll, trying to not cut his hands on the sharp ends of the boll.

Beginning in 1800, slaves cultivated cotton for sixty years; but free blacks were cotton laborers for nearly a hundred years after emancipation.

The use of modern day machinery is now replaced the manual pickers of yesteryear. Today in America there are two different types of machines that are used in most of the cotton fields at harvest time.

Historians agree that a seasoned plantation slave picked around 125 to 150 pounds of cotton per day. The length of the harvest season depended on the size of the plantation, with some large plantations having seasons that stretched from late summer to the early spring.

But they continued working nonetheless. In 1935, John and Mack Rust founded their Rust Cotton Picker Company in Memphis, Tennessee. The next year, they demonstrated their model of the Rust picker at the Delta Experiment Station in Stoneville, Mississippi. This was a significant step forward for the brothers.

Picking is extremely hard work, as it grows in tropical (or near tropical) humid hot climates, and the plant itself is sticky and dirty to work with.

This happened along with a textile boom in the Northeastern U.S. By 1850, 1.8 million of the nation's 3.2 million enslaved people were growing and picking cotton.

Who picked cotton first? ›

From a historical perspective, cotton was originally picked by the hands of slaves living on plantations and the owner's profit margins were very good due to the over 400 years of free labor.

Growers could not simply leave the early-maturing bolls on the plant until all had matured because the quality of the cotton deteriorated as soon as the bolls opened. So, human pickers would move through the fields trailing 10 foot long sacks that would weigh up to 100 pounds when full.

Cotton picking occurred as many as seven times a season as the plant continued to flower and produce bolls through the fall and early winter. During the picking season, slaves worked from sunrise to sunset with a ten-minute break at lunch.

After harvest

The cottonseed is used for either animal feed or sent on to be pressed for cottonseed oil and other uses. The cotton fiber is then sent a to mill where it can be woven into cloth that is used to make our bed sheets, soft towels, clothes and more! So, there you have it: cotton harvest from field to gin.

When Did Cotton Picking End? Prior to the 1930s, cotton harvesting was done entirely by picking cotton by hand end—it wasn't until a man named John Rust came up with a “harvesting locomotive” in the late 1930s that any semblance of harvesting innovation became a reality.

Cotton represents the product of a system that required slave labor to function. More recently, perpetrators of racial intimidation have used cotton as a symbol of their hatred. Before white robes became the uniform, some KKK members wore ceremonial horns stuffed with cotton.

The history and growth of slavery in colonial America was tied to the rise of land cultivation, and particularly the boom in the production of tobacco (in Virginia and Maryland) and rice (in the Carolinas).

Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Living | PBS. Although slaves on the Eustatia Plantation often had to work through showers, on many days in the account book, the overseer notes that slaves did not work because of rain.

Picking & Ginning issues

If cotton lint is wet, it doesn't play well with big machines! Cotton pickers pull the lint off of plants on spindles, so they twist the fiber a bit to pull it off. If the fiber is wet, it is more likely to get stuck and start jamming up the spindles/picker.

The cotton bolls are sharp and likely to shred tender skin. To pick the cotton from the bolls, simply grasp the cotton ball at the base and twist it out of the boll. As you pick, crop the cotton into a bag as you go.

How much were cotton pickers paid? ›

While ZipRecruiter is seeing annual salaries as high as $38,000 and as low as $16,000, the majority of Cotton Picker salaries currently range between $24,500 (25th percentile) to $33,500 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $37,500 annually across the United States.

Slaves, especially those in the field, worked from sunrise until sunset. Even small children and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.

At the age of sixteen, enslaved boys and girls were considered full-fledged workers, tasked as farm laborers or forced into trades.

Slaves worked from dawn to well after dark from Monday through Saturday. Sundays were the only day they had to rest during the week. The only holidays that were usually free of work were Christmas and the Fourth of July.

Traditionally, cotton has been used by Native Americans in the desert Southwest for food and fiber for thousands of years. Archaeological digs at Snaketown along the Gila River in Central Arizona have revealed roasted cottonseed fragments dating back 1,400 years.

Picker machines, often referred to as spindle-type harvesters, remove the cotton from open bolls and leave the bur on the plant.

In order to grow properly, cotton requires a warm climate, so the American south is the ideal place for it to be harvested. In the 1730s, England began using American cotton as part of its clothing industry. The cotton from the American south was shipped overseas so the English could spin it into clothing and textiles.

U.S. cotton is grown predominantly in 17 southern-tiered “Cotton Belt” States—from Virginia to California. Cotton is planted from March to June and harvested from August to December. Among the U.S. States, Texas is the largest producer, contributing approximately 40 percent of U.S. cotton production in recent years.

Most slave labor, however, was used in planting, cultivating, and harvesting cotton, hemp, rice, tobacco, or sugar cane. On a typical plantation, slaves worked ten or more hours a day, "from day clean to first dark," six days a week, with only the Sabbath off.

Contents. In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber.

How much did slaves get paid a week? ›

For that time, the slave earned $0.80 per day, 6 days per week. This equals $4.80 per week, times 52 weeks per year, which equals pay of $249.60 per year. Since this slave worked for 50 years, his/her total lifetime earning, at the minimum wage, should have been $12,480.

During the winter, slaves toiled for around eight hours each day, while in the summer the workday might have been as long as fourteen hours.

King Cotton, phrase frequently used by Southern politicians and authors prior to the American Civil War, indicating the economic and political importance of cotton production.

Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

After the second world war, the Lancashire cotton industry went into decline. This was partly based on a lack of investment in new technology and partly due to production moving to countries where labour was cheaper. Cotton processing increasingly takes place close to where the crop is grown.

In 1915 and 1916, the boll weevil infestation ravaged cotton production in the South, resulting in the loss of many cotton crops. Many farmers, particularly African American sharecroppers, found themselves out of work, which led them to journey North in search of a better life.

In May, excessive rainfall delayed planting for many growers, which is one reason so much cotton remains to be harvested. By the time the crop was ready to be picked in mid-to-late fall, growers couldn't risk bringing harvesters into the field because of saturated conditions.

In late August, 1619, 20-30 enslaved Africans landed at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies.

Palm wine and beer made from barley, guinea corn, or millet were used widely. The alcoholic content of these beverages is less than 3% (Umunna, 1967). For the most part the drinking of beer and wine was one of acceptance without moral or immoral implications.

James Hammond, a southern plantation owner, and U.S. Senator extolled Southern power. In his speech to the United States Senate on March 4, 1858, he put words to a long-brewing Southern philosophy: “Cotton is King.”

How many times can cotton be harvested? ›

Cotton plants are biennial plants, meaning that they can grow and produce for two growing seasons. However, this cotton is grown as an annual crop, meaning that the growers put all of their effort into the growing process to produce an optimal crop each year.

Other natural fibers include silk, made from the cocoons of silkworms; wool, made from the fur of sheep or alpacas; and linen, made from fibers in the stems of flax plants. Cotton fibers come from cotton plants. Specifically, they grow from the seed coat—the outer layer of the cotton plant's seeds.

Through selective breeding, they gradually developed a domesticated form that was even more useful. Domesticated cotton has more plentiful and longer fibers that are more easily removed from the seed than wild varieties.

Cotton farm pay rates start at minimum wage, but it depends on the tasks you do. Farms often hire seasonal workers, but many also have full-time positions of year-round workers. Some companies that process the cotton also have positions year-round, and many even have benefit packages for their workers.

By 1952, 10,000 mechanical cotton pickers were in use, and by 1955 the number was up to 20,000. By 1955, 25% of the total cotton crop was harvested by mechanical pickers, and by 1960, it was up to 55%. Also, it had taken 130 hours to pick a bale of cotton before, but with the mechanical cotton picker, it took 45 hours.

Hand-harvesting is still the standard in many other countries and you can see that done in many areas of Turkey, India, China, Africa, etc. In these places, the people who harvest are still picking cotton the way it was done in the US many decades ago.

By 1870, sharecroppers, small farmers, and plantation owners in the American south had produced more cotton than they had in 1860, and by 1880, they exported more cotton than they had in 1860. For 134 years, from 1803 to 1937, America was the world's leading cotton exporter.

Picking is extremely hard work, as it grows in tropical (or near tropical) humid hot climates, and the plant itself is sticky and dirty to work with.

You will know when the cotton is ready to be picked when the bolls crack open, and the fluffy white cotton is exposed. Before you begin to harvest your homegrown cotton, arm yourself appropriately with a thick pair of gloves. The cotton bolls are sharp and likely to shred tender skin.

After the second world war, the Lancashire cotton industry went into decline. This was partly based on a lack of investment in new technology and partly due to production moving to countries where labour was cheaper. Cotton processing increasingly takes place close to where the crop is grown.

How did the cotton boom effect slavery? ›

Growing more cotton meant an increased demand for slaves. Slaves in the Upper South became incredibly more valuable as commodities because of this demand for them in the Deep South. They were sold off in droves. This created a Second Middle Passage, the second largest forced migration in America's history.