African Americans group including men, women, children and elders, hand cleaning or sorting cotton at the Atlantic Cotton Compress Company in Pensacola, Florida. Ca. 1905.
African Americans picking cotton in the U.S. South in 1887. Wood engraving from a drawing by Horace Bradley.
African American slaves using a cotton gin. Wood engraving after a drawing by William L. Sheppard from HARPER'S WEEKLY 1869 with modern watercolor.
Idealized view of cotton plantation on the Mississippi River, with African American workers. Evocative of Southern antebellum era of pre-Civil War prosperity and slavery. Color lithograph, 1884
Young Raoul Julien had already worked for two years in the mule-spinning room in Chace Cotton Mill, Burlington, Vermont, when Lewis Hine took this photo in 1909.
African Americans leaving a cotton field after a day of picking in the U.S. South. 1887 engraving from a drawing by Matt Morgan.
Child laborer portrayed by Lewis Hine in 1909. Barefooted boy in a George cotton mill was so small he had to climb up on the spinning frame to mend the broken threads and put back the empty bobbins.