International Harvester Mechanical Cotton Picking Machine
date: label: Date made
content: 1943
name: label: user
content: Producers Cotton Oil Company
label: maker
content: International Harvester
notes: label: Description
content: Built in 1943, Old Red was one of the first commercial spindle cotton picking machines. International Harvester developed the machine at the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Miss., in the early 1940s and began manufacturing machines. According to date code numbers, Old Red was the 25th of 30 picking machines manufactured in 1943, and was sold to Producers Cotton Oil Company in Fresno, Calif. After further development there, the machine, usually operated at 2 mph, picked 8,000 bales of cotton before being retired in 1959. In 1970 Producers donated Old Red to the National Museum of American History. In 1978, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers awarded Old Red landmark status in agricultural engineering.
label: Description
content: Mechanical cotton harvesters transformed work routines on cotton farms. Using tractors to prepare the land and cultivate, herbicides to clean the fields of weeds, and mechanical harvesters to pick the cotton, the crop changed from one that required large amounts of labor to a capital-intensive operation. Millions of field hands in the South were thus unemployed and migrated to towns and cities across the country.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Agriculture
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content: Work
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content: Agriculture
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Producers Cotton Oil Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: AG.70A01
label: catalog number
content: 70A01
label: accession number
content: 288163
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cotton picking machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (overall material)