Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2007 Common roots of a new industry: the introduction and expansion of cotton farming in the American West Cameron Lee Saffell Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Saffell, Cameron Lee, "Common roots of a new industry: the introduction and expansion of cotton farming in the American West" (2007). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 15617. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/15617 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Common roots of a new industry: the introduction and expansion of cotton farming in the American West by Cameron Lee Saffell A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Agricultural History and Rural Studies Program of Study Committee: Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Major Professor Amy Bix Hamilton Cravens Charles Dobbs Andrejs Plakans Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2007 Copyright © Cameron Lee Saffell, 2007. All rights reserved. UMI Number: 3289425 Copyright 2007 by Saffell, Cameron Lee All rights reserved. UMI Microform 3289425 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF TABLES v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 1 The Cotton West 1 Brief Overview of Cotton Farming in the West and the South 7 Historiography Review 12 This Study 24 CHAPTER II. SETTLEMENT AND IRRIGATION OF THE COTTON WEST 26 West Texas and Oklahoma 28 New Mexico and Far West Texas 34 Arizona 39 Western Arizona and Southern California 44 San Joaquin Valley 50 Lower Rio Grande Valley 55 Summary 56 CHAPTER III. COMMON ROOTS 58 Making More Cotton Fields 59 Establishing a Domestic Long-Staple Cotton Industry in the West 59 Unseen Influence of the Boll Weevil in Developing Western Cotton 64 From Common Roots 66 Keystone Selections of Acala in Oklahoma 69 iii Evolution of California Acala Cotton and the System Behind It 71 One-Variety is Good For Everyone 73 California’s Certified One-Variety Cotton 82 Acala Cotton in Arizona 83 New Mexico’s Upland Cotton Developments 85 West Texas Goes a Different Way 87 Conclusion 89 CHAPTER IV. MACHINES, PRACTICES, AND THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION 91 The Cotton Farming Year 91 Implements and Machinery in the Fields 95 By Task 100 Mechanization of Cotton Harvesting 107 The Role of Extension Research and Publications 116 CHAPTER V. LABORERS OF THE COTTON FIELDS 122 Types and Amount of Cotton Labor 123 Ethnic Groups Working in the Fields 128 Cotton Labor Wages 138 Conclusion 149 CHAPTER VI. COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS 151 The Cotton West in Summary 151 Some Points of Comparison 153 Common Problems for an American Cotton Industry 158 Cotton in Western History 161 Conclusions 164 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 166 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Definitions of the South 2 Figure 2. Where Does the South End and the West Begin? 5 Figure 3. Cotton-Producing Regions of the United States in the Twentieth Century 6 Figure 4. USDA Map of Irrigated Cotton-Growing Areas of the Southwest in the 1920s 27 Figure 5. Map of the High Plains, Rolling Plains, and Texas South Plains 29 Figure 6. Principal Cotton Growing Areas of New Mexico and Far West Texas 35 Figure 7. Principal Cotton Growing Areas of Arizona and California 40 Figure 8. Principal Cotton-Producing Areas of the San Joaquin Valley in 1930 51 Figure 9. Typical Distribution of Field Labor by Task and Time of Year 92 Figure 10. Diagrams of Furrow Types 102 Figure 11. Texas Station Cotton Harvester 113 Figure 12. Seasonal Labor Employed on Arizona Cotton Farms, 1935 123 Figure 13. Full-Year (Regular) and Seasonal Labor on Arizona Irrigated Farms in All Crops 125 Figure 14. Comparison of Family Labor and Wage Labor (All Agricultural Employment, 1936) 126 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Tractor Power Use for Plowing, Planting, and Cultivating in Cotton-Producing Areas of the United States, 1939 and 1946 98 Table 2. Percentages of Cotton Crop Mechanically Harvested, 1945-1955 115 Table 3. Average Wage Rates for Picking 100 Pounds of Seed Cotton, 1924-1942 (in dollars) 141 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Several people contributed immeasurably to this work. To them I owe very personal and professional debts, and I am pleased to publicly recognize their efforts. First are the several faculty that oversaw my studies, which extended over several years. Dr. R. Douglas Hurt, former director of the Agricultural History and Rural Studies (AHRS) Program and former editor of Agricultural History , was the original chair of my committee and directed my studies while I was in residence at Iowa State University. With my earlier graduate studies at Texas Tech University having been in museum science, I learned much of the craft of being a professional historian and writer from him. After Hurt’s departure from the department, Dr. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, his successor and current director of the AHRS Program, stepped in to advise me from several hundred miles away. To both I owe a debt of gratitude for helping mold the historian inside and pushing me to complete this endeavor. Several faculty members in the History Department at Iowa State University aided my advancement and, at times, served on my committee. Those who I recall with fondness and who made suggestions toward research papers and material that I incorporated in this work include Alan I Marcus, Dennis M. P. McCarthy, James Whitaker, Jerry Garcia, Amy Bix, Hamilton Cravens, and Joseph Taylor III. It was most gratifying that the collective faculty thought enough of me and my work to award me the Garst Dissertation Fellowship in Spring 2005, even though I had not been in residence for several years. I also want to express thanks to my classmates in the several seminars I completed while at Iowa State University, who offered their comments and criticisms on my work. As I completed my coursework and began studying for my comprehensive exams, I had the extraordinary opportunity to become the first agricultural historian for the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, a curatorial position in my chosen career field. I have been blessed to have extraordinary support from the administration and my colleagues. Former director Mac Harris and my immediate supervisor, Chief Curator Toni Laumbach, who graciously consented to my taking a part-time leave for the semester when I held the Garst Fellowship. I am personally appreciative of Laumbach’s words of encouragement and understanding, particularly in the final push to complete this project. Several co-workers and vii friends at the Museum were also inspirational and persuaded me to carry on with my doctoral studies on the “nights and weekends” plan. Notable among them were Robert Hart, Leslie Bergloff, Holly Radke, and several of our wonderful volunteers. The professionalism and success of a relatively new museum is due in large part to the staff, which have become my family away from home. I am grateful that I have been able to secure such a wonderful and rewarding position as my first career job. My finishing this project would not have been possible without the aid of many people in various institutions from Iowa to Arizona. This includes the staff of the Lubbock County Historical Collection (now part of the American Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock, Texas), the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech University, and the librarians and archivists at Iowa State University, Texas A&M University, Arizona State University, and New Mexico State University. Their contributions of knowledge and know-how were useful in securing resources and materials for this dissertation. Many thanks must go to family and friends who supported me even at a distance, whether I was in Ames or Las Cruces. The most thanks go to my parents, Julia and Ted (who works for a cotton module truck company), for their weekly phone calls and encouragement. I also very much appreciate my brother Justin, his wife Mary, and my niece Isabelle for their interest and support. I have also benefited from the support of many friends, including Deborah Bigness, Leslie Bergloff, Christine Carl, and Ellen Atkinson Stump, who always said that I would get through this one way or another. My interest in this subject began with my thesis research at Texas Tech University in the 1990s. In developing a material culture/technology history of cotton farming on the Texas South Plains, I reconnected to my own family heritage. I am the grandson of two West Texas farm families, J. C. and Helen Flournoy of Crosbyton and Leon and Ruby Saffell of Meadow. Although my grandfather Saffell died when I was young, the rest of my grandparents passed away during the years I worked on this project. I have always felt their presence and believe they would be pleased to know that I am honoring them among the numerous families who are the farmers of the Cotton West. I dedicate this dissertation to their memory. viii ABSTRACT During the early twentieth century American cotton-producing areas rapidly expanded beyond the “Old South” cotton belt, an area extending from Virginia to East Texas.