Cortaro Farms

English: Cortaro Farms was an industrialized farming area in Pinal County north of Tucson, Arizona. Dorthea Lange photographed farm operations in November 1940.

Pinal County, Arizona

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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

Migratory cotton pickers on Cortaro Farms.

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This Mexican cotton picker, a day-worker, is hauled daily from Tucson to the Cortaro Farms by truck during cotton harvest.

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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".

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Housing

African American

Quarters for Negro cotton pickers on industrialized cotton farm.

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Caucasian

Quarters for white cotton pickers on industrialized cotton farm.

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Yaqui

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.

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Transportation

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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

Bringing the cotton in from the field

Cotton pickers with full sacks make their way through the field to the weighmaster at the cotton wagon. Wages $.75 per 100 pounds.

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Weighing the cotton

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.

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