Mechanical Cotton Picker

Donald Holley

Economic History
Industrial Organization
Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth

Article

Until World War II, the Cotton South remained poor, backward, and un-mechanized. With minor exceptions, most tasks -- plowing, cultivating, and finally harvesting cotton -- were done by hand. The mechanical cotton picker played an indispensable role in the transition from the prewar South of over-population, sharecropping, and hand labor to the capital-intensive agriculture of the postwar South.