A Painted House

Through the early 19th century, the fertile earth of the Arkansas Delta attracted an influx of farmers who depended on the labor of enslaved Africans to plant and harvest their cotton crops. Farming cotton in the Delta was an especially advantageous endeavor because farmers had access to the Mississippi River, which expedited the transportation of their harvest. After the abolition of slavery, the labor models governing cotton production shifted, giving rise to tenant farming, sharecropping, and wage labor. Tenant farmers worked the fields owned by wealthy landowners, typically using their own equipment to harvest and sell the crops. Tenant farmers often employed the use of wage laborers—migrant workers—to help harvest the crops. Sharecroppers, by contrast, owned none of the equipment they used to work the land. Though social mobility was difficult for all these groups, it was nearly impossible for sharecroppers.

The cotton industry underwent numerous changes through the first half of the 20th century. The Great Depression saw the price of cotton bales plummet, forcing the government to create programs that might help keep cotton farmers in business. Through the 1930s, as the country prepared to enter World War II, factories in urban areas created a demand for labor that paid much better than working the cotton fields did.