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"Cotton Picking in Georgia"

In the 1890s, most African Americans labored in the southern cotton economy. Some owned their own farms, but many worked in a system called sharecropping. Landlords provided sharecroppers with land, a cabin, farm tools, and cotton seed; in return, the sharecroppers gave the landlord part (usually 50 per cent) of the crop. Landlords often cheated tenants, who were forced into growing debt. For some tenants, sharecropping seemed almost as bad as slavery. By 1907, when this photo was taken, the southern agricultural economy was weakened by its complete dependence on the sharecropping system. In this context many African Americans renewed their search for new opportunities.

Source | Marcus L. Brown, "Cotton Picking in Georgia," photograph (Decatur, G.A.: Marcus L. Brown, 1907). Available from Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a45276.
Creator | Marcus L. Brown
Item Type | Photograph
Cite This document | Marcus L. Brown, “"Cotton Picking in Georgia",” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed March 29, 2024, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1075.

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