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Labor Markets, Regional Diversity, and Cotton Harvest Mechanization in the Post-World War II United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Craig Heinicke  and
Wayne A. Grove
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Extract

As hand-harvest labor disappeared from the American cotton fields after World War II, labor market dynamics differed between two key production regions, the South and the West. In the South, predominantly resident African Americans and whites harvested cotton, whereas in the West the labor market was composed of white residents, domestic Latino migrant workers, and Mexican nationals temporarily immigrating under the sponsorship of the U.S. government (braceros). We use newly reconstructed data for the two regions and estimate for the first time the regional causes of the demise of the hand-harvest labor force from 1949 to 1964. Whereas cheaper harvest mechanization substantially affected both regions, the downward trend in cotton prices and government programs to control cotton acreage played important roles in the disappearance of hand–harvested cotton in the South, but not in the West.

Type
Special Section: Race, Labor Markets, and Social Disorder in Twentieth-Century America
Information
Social Science History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , summer 2005 , pp. 269 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2005 

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