Cortaro Farms
Pinal County, Arizona[edit]
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View of 21,000 acre industrialized farm looking west from water tower.
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Part of equipment yard seen from water tower.
Pickers[edit]
Migratory cotton pickers on Cortaro Farms.
This Mexican cotton picker, a day-worker, is hauled daily from Tucson to the Cortaro Farms by truck during cotton harvest.
Yaqui Indian cotton picker. Some are employed on this ranch the year round, especially for irrigating, at $.20 per hour. When irrigating they work 12-hour shift. The superintendent says that they are not good with machinery but that "the Yaqui is an artist with the shovel".
Housing[edit]
African American[edit]
Quarters for Negro cotton pickers on industrialized cotton farm.
Caucasian[edit]
Quarters for white cotton pickers on industrialized cotton farm.
Yaqui[edit]
Yaqui Indian "Jacal". On highly industrialized corporation farm these Yaquis live -- by their own request -- in the dwellings of their ancestors, native to the desert. Huts are made of mud, cactus ribs, and mesquite timbers.
Transportation[edit]
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"Warming up the buggy" in the morning to drive to the cotton field.
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Company trucks on edge of cotton field. They haul pickers to the fields from the camp operated by the company and from Tucson, more than 20 miles distant.
Harvesting[edit]
Bringing the cotton in from the field[edit]
Cotton pickers with full sacks make their way through the field to the weighmaster at the cotton wagon. Wages $.75 per 100 pounds.
Weighing the cotton[edit]
Weighing cotton at the truck. Cotton pickers weigh, haul, and dump their sacks at the cotton wagon on large-scale industrialized farm.
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Letting down the sack from the scales, old migrant cotton picker.
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Negro woman picker brings in her morning's picking to the scales.
Weighmaster is a year-round employee paid $60. per month.