PHOTOGRAPH | BILL STEBER

HOUSTON INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE | FEATURED ARTIST

Floyd and Leona, Abbeville, MS, 1997
Floyd Hollman and Leona pick cotton with traditional 9-foot sacks on Hollman's farm in Abbeville, MS. The introduction of the mechanical cotton picker in the 1940's marked the end of an era in American society. Many African-Americans, no longer needed for large-scale hand-picked cotton farming, left Mississippi in search of opportunity in the North. Today, only a handful of farmers still harvest cotton in the manner of their slave and sharecropper ancestors. Octogenarian Floyd Hollman owns his own land and still hand-picks at least part of his crop every year to keep his stamina up. "I used to be able to pick over 300 pounds of cotton a day" says Hollman, "But now I can only get about 100 pounds."