Family Picking Cotton in the fields near Savannah, Georgia, stereograph, c. 1867.

Family Picking Cotton in the fields near Savannah, Georgia, stereograph, c. 1867.
(Negative #50482, Collection of the New-York Historical Society)

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Under the sharecropping system, which emerged as the dominant labor system in the rural South, black families rented individual plots of land. The system placed a premium on utilizing the labor of all members of the family.

Learn more about farm tenancy in Texas

Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War he Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery From Free Labor to Slave Labor Rights and Power: The Politics of Reconstruction Introduction The Ending of Reconstruction Epilogue: The Unfinished Revolution Additional Resources Credits for this Exhibit