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The first harvesters were only capable of harvesting one row of cotton at a time, but were still able to replace up to forty hand laborers. The current cotton picker is a self-propelled machine that removes cotton lint and seed (seed-cotton) from the plant at up to six rows at a time. There are two types of pickers in use today.
Picking cotton was often a subject which was mentioned in songs by African-American blues and jazz musicians in the 1920s–1940s, reflecting their grievances. In 1940, jazz pianist Duke Ellington composed "Cotton Tail" and blues musician Lead Belly wrote "Cotton Fields". In 1951, Big Mama Thornton wrote "Cotton Picking Blues."
Until mechanical cotton pickers were developed, cotton farmers needed additional labor to hand-pick cotton. Picking cotton was a source of income for families across the South. Rural and small town school systems had split vacations so children could work in the fields during "cotton-picking." [57]
The United States exports more cotton than any other country, though it ranks third in total production, behind China and India. [1] Almost all of the cotton fiber growth and production occurs in the Southern United States and the Western United States, dominated by Texas, California, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine" [1] [2] —is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. [3] The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil .
A high schooler is “so genuinely mortified and sorry” after facing backlash for the way she asked her date to a school dance – with a poster that read “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton.
The planting season is from September to mid-November, and the crop is harvested between March and June. The cotton bolls are harvested by stripper harvesters and spindle pickers that remove the entire boll from the plant. The cotton boll is the seed pod of the cotton plant; attached to each of the thousands of seeds are fibres about 2.5 cm ...
Dozens of Black people across the country said they have received text messages telling them they had been “selected” to pick cotton “at the nearest plantation.”