Remembering summer jobs hand- picking cotton in the early 1960s
By Dr. Paul Coreil
Growing up in Evangeline Parish in the early 1960s was a very different experience from childhood today. There was no internet, no cell phone, and certainly no 24-hour, multi-channel television. Instead, we spent much of our time outdoors, exploring our communities, playing with friends and, sometimes, working to make a little extra spending money.
Born in 1955, I was in elementary school during the early to mid-1960s, when cotton was still a very important part of south Louisiana agriculture. Coming from a family that operated a feed store and was involved in farming, my siblings and I were familiar with the crops being grown by farmers throughout the area. It did not take an ag economist to recognize the importance of cotton; you could simply look across the landscape and see acres and acres of cotton fields stretching across the region.
Cotton was so important to Ville Platte and Evangeline Parish that city leaders established the Louisiana Cotton Festival in 1952 as part of the local Fourth of July celebration. In 1953, the Louisiana Cotton Festival Association was incorporated to promote Louisiana cotton and benefit the people and farmers across our parish. Today, the festival is held each October and continues to recognize the importance of cotton in Louisiana.
From cotton to soybeans
Although cotton had been “king” in Louisiana agriculture for many decades, its dominance was already beginning to decline during my childhood. Louisiana cotton acreage reached an all-time high of approximately 1.95 million acres in 1930. By 1959-60, however, acreage had dropped to roughly 500,000 acres as Louisiana agriculture increasingly transitioned toward soybean production.
That transformation accelerated during the 1960s. Soybean acreage increased from approximately 240,000 acres in 1960 to more than 1.6 million acres by 1971, far surpassing the approximately 600,000 acres of cotton planted that year.
The transition has continued throughout my lifetime. In 2026, Louisiana farmers planted approximately 120,000 acres of cotton compared with nearly 900,000 acres of soybeans. The change has been particularly dramatic in Evangeline and Avoyelles parishes. In 1959, Avoyelles Parish planted almost 25,000 acres of cotton, while Evangeline Parish planted nearly 11,000 acres. Today, Avoyelles Parish grows fewer than 2,000 acres, while Evangeline Parish has only about 20 acres.
These numbers provide a remarkable perspective on the transformation of Louisiana agriculture that has occurred during my lifetime.
My introduction to the cotton fields
One of the most significant changes in cotton production was the transition from hand labor to mechanical harvesting.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, larger farmers increasingly adopted mechanical cotton pickers. These machines could harvest cotton much faster and with far less labor.
As a young boy growing up in Evangeline Parish, however, I was fortunate enough to experience the final days of an agricultural era that was rapidly disappearing. Some small farmers were still plowing their fields with mule-drawn walking plows, hand-picking cotton and using mule-drawn wagons to transport their cotton to the gin.
And that is where my early life summer jobs came in.I clearly remember my mother arranging for my five siblings and me to work for some of these small farmers during the summer, hand-picking cotton for two or three cents a pound.
One farm where we frequently worked was only a short distance from where we lived, so we could walk to the cotton field and never be far from home. My mother even sewed a fabric shoulder strap onto a burlap sack that was just the right size for my small stature. That hand sewed sack was an essential piece of cotton-picking equipment I had to bring with me every day!
At nine or 10 years old, I can assure you that picking 50 to 100 pounds of cotton in a day was no easy task. Walking up and down those long rows in the hot Louisiana summer sun, picking cotton and filling my little burlap sack, was hard work. At two or three cents a pound, I might earn only $1 to a high of $3 for a day's labor. But I was very proud of the money I earned.
I still vividly remember taking my sack of cotton to the farmer to be weighed at the end of the day using a steelyard balance scale. We would quickly find out how many pounds I had picked before the cotton was dumped into a wagon headed for the gin. At the time, my primarily interested was how much money I had earned that day. Looking back, however, I realize I was learning much more than how to pick cotton.
Lessons that lasted a lifetime
As mechanization advanced, mechanical cotton pickers gradually eliminated the need for the small army of workers once required to harvest cotton by hand. Cotton production also became increasingly concentrated on larger farms, while soybeans replaced much of the cotton acreage across south Louisiana.
Looking back on my childhood cotton-picking career, I have come to some conclusions and life lessons that I wish I could have discussed with my mother before she passed away.
I sometimes wonder if Mom's primary goal was simply to find a safe and productive way for her six children to spend their summer days. Rather than staying home underfoot or requiring a babysitter, we could work in the cotton fields, earn a little spending money, spend time with friends and learn the value of hard work.
If that was part of her plan, it worked remarkably well.
Those summer days taught me about responsibility, perseverance, cooperation and work ethic. They also provided an early lesson in mathematics. I learned that pounds of cotton translated into dollars and cents,a nd that earning money required effort.
More importantly, those experiences gave me an appreciation for agriculture and the farmers who worked hard to provide for their families and communities. I often wonder whether those early summer jobs helped spark my lifelong interest in agriculture and eventually influenced my decision to spend much of my career working for the LSU AgCenter assisting farmers and landowners. Who knows? Those hot summer days in the cotton fields of Evangeline Parish may have been the beginning of a 35-year professional career devoted to Louisiana agriculture.
Today, I fondly remember walking those long cotton rows with my siblings and friends, doing everything I could to fill that small burlap sack. Perhaps I was thinking about earning enough money to buy something special, a new bicycle, or a new baseball glove...
Only much later did I fully appreciate the lessons my parents were teaching us.
Those cotton fields are mostly gone now, and hand-picking cotton has become a chapter in Louisiana's agricultural history. But the memories remain. Those early summers helped build character, taught us the value of an honest day's work and gave us experiences that my siblings and I will always cherish.
Most of all, I am thankful for parents who were always looking for ways to help us become the best people we could be.
I consider those cotton-picking days among the many blessings of my childhood.
Until next time,
Paul Coreil
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