Cotton Pickers Wanted

This advertisement on a board was intended to seek outany potential workers on the road. Many people were traveling hungry and looking for jobs to sustain themselves on the way. Unlike handbills, these were easially changable or taken down based on demand. They were also there for people who didn't get a handbill, incase any recruiters missed anyone.This advertisement is similar to the Billboard Near Hotchkiss Ranch for cotton pickers, but may be for a smaller farm and painted by a much smaller grower.

CONTEXT: In October 1933, there was a cotton strike. Involving up to 18,000 workers who refused to pick cotton at only .60 cents per hundred pounds offered by the growers. The workers demanded $1 per hundred pounds picked but came to a compromse of .75 cents per pound picked (as shown on the advertisement board). It is important to note that most cotton pickers in the 1930s were Mexican-Americans or Mexican immigrants.

The Joad family in Grapes of Wrath often talk about the handbills they come across. One cotton picking ad that was mentioned in the novel was on a handbill as well as a placard, similar to the one above, hand painted.

"COTTON PICKERS WANTED—placards on the road, handbills out, orangecolored handbills—Cotton Pickers Wanted. Here, up this road, it says." (279)