Mechanical Cotton Picker Begins Displacing 2 Million Black Agricultural Workers

International Harvester's mechanical cotton picker, demonstrated in 1936 and commercially available by 1941, could do the work of 50 pickers. Planters who received AAA payments for reducing cotton acreage used the funds to purchase machinery and evict sharecroppers. The displacement of 2 million Black agricultural workers between 1930 and 1960 drove the Second Great Migration into Northern cities with redlined housing and exclusionary unions. The transition from agricultural to urban labor occurred without any government support or retraining programs.