Item 62: Rolling Cotton Down the Bluff, 1911

Color image of African American workers rolling cotton bales down a bluff to be loaded on the waiting steamer. Some workers stand near a large group of cotton bales at the top of the bluff, while others are in the midst of rolling bales down the bluff. Printed on reverse of card: "Rolling cotton down the bluff. This picture shows the negroes rolling the cotton down the bluff to be loaded on the waiting steamer. The average bale weighs 500 pounds. One hundred years ago it would have taken a person working night and day two years to separate the seed from the cotton in one bale; to-day a battery ginnery has a capacity of 155 hundred pound bales in welve hours." Raphael Tuck & Sons' Post Card Series No. 2370, "In the Land of Cotton." Printed in Germany. Postmarked April 26, 1911, but card was manufactured before 1908. 14 x 8.5 cm.

Format: Postcard.