Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0208Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is several people, all African American, working in a cotton field, two are children standing behind a bussel of cotton, one is a man standing in the midground picking cotton, the last three are in the background sitting on a large sack of cotton. Above the image "T89 (Star)" is printed, below the image "9506 Picking Cotton on a Mississippi Plantation." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
117 - (9506)
PICKING COTTON ON A MISSISSIPPI PLANTATION
Lat. 31 (Degrees) N.; Long. 89 (Degrees) W.
This is what harvesting means in the South. Here is a group of negroes busy gathering in the fleecy bolls of cotton. Men, women, and children are busy with the picking. Such a scene as this might be observed anywhere in the Cotton Belt during the fall of the year.
This is the way cotton is grown. The gorund is plowed and a good seed bed is made. In the early spring months of March and April the seeds are sown. They are purposely sown too thickly so as to insure a good set. When the plants come up they are thinned to the proper distance. They are cultivated in the same way that corn is cultivated. The harvesting last thorugh several months. This is because the bolls open unevenly, requiring several pickings to harvest the crop. then, too, the cotton belt extends over a great distance north and south. The farther south, the picking beings earlier.
The cotton field that is shown you here may yield 400 pounds to the acre. Some fields grow as much as a bale per acre. A good picker in such a cotton field may gather as much as 500 pounds but this is almost twice as much as the average workman can gather.
The Cotton blet extends through the following states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas (pronunciation), Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The last-named state produces far more than any of the others. Our crop averages each year about 15,000,000 bales, of which Texas produces more than one-fourth. Georgia grows one half as much as Texas; and Alabama about three-fifths as much as Georgia. South Carolina, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, and North Carolina follow in this order.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection