Picker machines at Pepperell Mills, Biddeford ca. 1925
Item 29103 info
McArthur Public Library
The cotton, while deseeded by a cotton gin at the plantation where it was grown, still contained all kinds of dirt, bugs, leaves & twigs.
In the earliest mills, raw cotton was placed on a wooden frame and workers beat it with great rods to release the impurities.
By 1925, men no longer beat the cotton. Instead, they fed it into a series of machines in the Picker House and monitored its progress.
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