This stereograph card is from the Library of Congress’s photographic collection and is titled “Weighing Cotton—In one of the Large Cotton Fields in Texas, U. S. A.” The photograph was taken about 1904–1905, and it depicts African Americans weighing sacks of cotton next to a wagon. These people were probably hired laborers who picked the cotton and were paid by the pound. Landowners like Ransom Williams would have weighed their own cotton before taking to a local market to sell.
Image by the Keystone View Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USZ62-106687.