Full text of Child Labor in Fruit and Hop Growing Districts of the Northern Pacific Coast, Bureau Publication No. 151

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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
JAMES J. DAVIS, Secretary

CHILDREN’S BUREAU
GRACE ABBOTT. Chief

CHILD LABOR
IN FRUIT AND HOP GROWING DISTRICTS
OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC COAST

*
BY

ALICE CHANNING

Bureau Publication N o . 151

WASHINGTON
GOVERNM ENT PRINTING OFFICE

1926

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A D D ITIO N A L COPIES
OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PROCURED FROM
THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D. C.
AT

15 CENTS PE R COPY

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CONTENTS
Letter of transmittal-________________________
Introduction_______________________________________________ ” 11"I~
Child labor in orchards and hop yards of the Yakima Valley, W ash.'and
the Willamette Valley, Oreg________ ______ •
________________________
Local workers_________________________________
IIII
Families of child workers_________________________________
Work of children______________________________________________
Schooling of child workers_____________________________________
Migratory workers__________________________ ______________________~
The labor supply______________________________________________
Recruiting workers___________________________________________ ~
Work of children______________________________________________
Schooling of child workers_____________________________________
Camps for migratory workers__________________________________I
Child labor in berry fields o f the Puyallup Valley, Wash_________________ I
The labor supply___________________________________________________
Local workers_________________________________________________
Migratory workers____________________________________________
Work of local and migratory children_______________________________
Age and sex of child workers__ _______________________________
Kinds of work______________________
|
Hours_________________________________________ „______________
Duration_____________________________________________
~
Earnings______________________________________________
Schooling of local and migratory workers_________
Berry pickers’ camps_______________________________
Conclusion._______ _____________________ |_______________________________
Appendix.— Work of mothers in fruit and hop growing districts. ______

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ILLUSTRATIONS
Pacing page

Picking prunes, Yakima Valley_______________________ ______
Raspberry picker, Puyallup Valley_________________ ;_________
Picking hops, Willamette Valley_____________________ _____ 32
Types of frame shacks, Puyallup V alley.______________ ____ I __ I~
Cooking arrangements, camp for hop pickers, Willamette Valley___ _

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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
U nited States D epartment of L abor,
Children ’s B ureau ,

Washington, A pril 2, 1925.
Sir : Submitted herewith is a report on Child Labor in Fruit and

Hop Growing Districts of the Northern Pacific Coast, the seventh of a
series ° f studies of rural child labor made by the Children’s Bureau
and the fourth of these dealing specifically with the employment of
children on truck and small-fruit farms.
The investigation upon which the report was based was planned
and carried out under the general supervision of Ellen Nathalie
Matthews, director of the industrial division of the Children’s
Bureau. The field work was directed by Mary E. Skinner and the
report written by Alice Channing.
The Children’s Bureau is indebted to State and county officials,
especially school superintendents, principals, and teachers, for their
cooperation and assistance in the study.
Respectfully submitted.
Grace A bbott, Chief.
Hon. James J. D avis ,

Secretary o f Labor

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CHILD LABOR IN FRUIT AND HOP GROWING DISTRICTS OF THE
NORTHERN PACIFIC COAST
INTRODUCTION

This survey of the work of children on fruit crops and hops in
Washington and Oregon is one of a series of studies of the work of
rural children which have been made by the United States Children’s
Bureau in different sections of the country. Three studies of this
series were made of children’s work on truck and small-fruit farms of
the Atlantic coast in Maryland, New Jersey, and the Norfolk section
of Virginia.1
The labor of children can be utilized for harvesting berries, hops,
and some kinds of orchard fruit, because the work is done by hand
and, except for picking some of the orchard fruits, is unskilled.
Most fruit and hop growers in Washington and Oregon, besides
depending on members of their families to help during the harvest,
engage either local or transient workers, both adults and minors.
Owners of small apple orchards in Washington and owners of prune
orchards in Oregon rely mainly on local workers, but the berry
growers and hop ranchers of both States and the large orchard owners
of Washington import great numbers of workers—men, women, and
children— both from other rural districts and from the large coast
cities.
This study was made in the berry district of the Puyallup Valley,
Wash., and in orchard and hop-raising districts of the Willamette
Valley, Oreg., and the Yakima Valley, Wash. These valleys were
chosen as representative hop and fruit growing areas of the two
States. The Puyallup Valley is the center of the red-raspberry
industry in Washington, which produces more raspberries than any
other State except Michigan and New York.2 The section of the
Willamette Valley which was chosen for survey produces some
orchard and small fruits, chiefly prunes and loganberries, and is the
most important hop-growing section of the northern Pacific coast.
In this connection it may be noted that the acreage of hops in Oregon
increased from 10,000 acres in 1918 to 12,000 in 1922.3 The third
area, in the Yakima Valley, was selected for study on account of the
diversified character of the orchard crops. Pears, peaches, and
are raised there; as well as apples, the principal orchard crop of
the State. Small acreages of hops also are grown in one section of the
valley.
T ™ckFarms, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Truck
J arms, and Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey. U. S. Children’s
Bureau Pubhcations Nos. m , 130, and 132. Washington, 1923 and 1924.
* Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Vol. V , Agriculture, p. 855. Washington, 1922.
and 1922 tUie’ U ' S' Department of: Yearbook, 1918, p. 553; Yearbook, 1922, p. 750. Washington, 1919

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O F GRO W ING DISTRICTS

The plan of the study is similar to that of other rural studies made
by the bureau, several school districts in each area being selected
for intensive survey.1 After the names of the children enrolled in the
schools had been obtained a house-to-house canvass was made, and
interviews were held with local children under 16 years of age who
had worked on fruit or hop crops at least 12 days during the previous
12 months and with migratory children under 16 who had worked
at least 6 days.2 Representative berry ranches, orchards, and hop
yards in the school districts selected and in their vicinity were also
visited, and owners and managers, as well as local and migratory
families employed, were interviewed. No estimate as to the number
of migratory children engaged in harvesting in the two areas could be
obtained. Detailed information was obtained for 1,006 migratory
children, who represented only a small proportion of those working
in the selected areas, but all the children whose homes were in the
selected school districts were interviewed. All the school children
under 16 years living in the three districts selected for study who had
worked on farms at least 12 days during the preceding year were
included in the study. These children (797) represented from onethird to two-thirds of all the school children under 16 living in these
districts. The study was made during the harvest seasons: In the
Puyallup Valley in July, during the raspberry season; in the Yakima
Valley in August and September, when peaches, pears, and hops were
being picked; and in the Willamette Valley in September, during the
prune and hop harvests.
1 The districts selected in the Puyallup Valley were in Pierce County, Wash.; those in the Yakima
Valley were in Yakima County, Wash.; and those in the Willamette Valley were in Marion and Polk
Counties, Oreg.
2 Children of families which maintained permanent homes in the selected school districts were classified
as local. Children who had come into these districts for farm work were classified as migratory. These
children belonged to two types of migratory families: So-called “ floating” families, which followed fruit
crops or other crops from district to district and had no permanent residence; (2) families which maintained
a permanent residence outside the district where they worked, and returned to it after the fruit season was
over.

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CHILD LABOR IN ORCHARDS AND HOP YARDS OF THE YAKIMA
VALLEY, W ASH., AND THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY, OREG.

The work of children in hop and orchard raising sections of the two
States is discussed in the same section of this report because, although
different varieties of fruit are grown in the Willamette Valley, Oreg.,
and the Yakima Valley, Wash., the children of both areas do much
the same type of work. In both valleys children work in hop yards
and orchards, their work being usually confined to harvesting. About
the same numbers of local child workers were interviewed in each
area, 249 workers in the Yakima Valley and 268 in the Willamette
Valley. A great many more children migrate for work in the Wil
lamette Valley than for work in the Yakima Valley; 175 in the
Yakima Valley and 472 in the Willamette Valley were interviewed.
(Table 1.)
T a b l e 1.— Children under 16 working in orchards and hop fields, by sex and work

ing status; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Both sexes
Selected area and working status of child

Total.... ................
Local laborer__________
Migratory laborer_______
Willamette Valley__________

Boys

Girls

Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
1,164

100.0

626

100.0

538

100.0

517
647

44.4
55.6

287
339

45.8
54.2

230
308

42.8
57.2

740

100.0

396

100.0

344

100.0

Local laborer________
Migratory laborer......................

268
472

36.2
63.8

151
245

38.1
61.9

117
227

34.0
66.0

Yakima Valley__________

424

100.0

230

100.0

194

100.0

249
175

58.7
41.3

136
94

59.1
40.9

113
81

58. 2
41.8

Local laborer______
Migratory laborer_________

The Willamette and Yakima Valleys are very different in climate
and development, and, as already noted, they produce different kinds
of fruit. The section of the Willamette Valley chosen for survey is
within 20 miles of Salem, the capital of the State, and not more than
60 miles from the coast. It was settled much earlier than the Yakima
Valley, by some of the first Oregon pioneers. Because of its mild
winters and ample rainfall it is well adapted to diversified agriculture.
Large areas of the valley and of the hillsides are under cultivation,
hops being raised in the bottom lands near the river and prunes on
the uplands. There is also some general farming. The Yakima
Valley, on the east side of the coast range, has a dry climate, and the
valley was not developed until irrigation by the Government made
farming possible. The extension of the “ ditch” has been followed
by a great influx of population in the last 20 years. A t the present
time apple, pear, and peach orchards, which follow the lines of the
irrigating canals in the valleys and hollows between the arid brown
hills, stretch for miles without a break.
48287°—26f----- 2

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GRO W ING DISTRICTS

Some of the fruit growers of the Yakima Valley have very large
orchards, but many have small ones. One of the orchards visited
included 305 acres of apples, pears, peaches, and prunes. On the other
hand, of 73 fruit growers whose children worked, 52 had orchards less
than 20 acres in area. In the Willamette Valley the largest prune
orchard visited was 90 acres in extent, and orchards of 10 to 20 acres
were common in this locality. The hop yards in the Yakima Valley
were small, usually less than 25 acres in area, and they were owned by
resident farmers. Hop ranches in the Willamette Valley were as a
rule much larger than the hop yards in the Yakima, and most of
them were owned by nonresidents. A few of the ranches visited
included 300 to 500 acres, and ranches of 50 to 100 acres were common.
LOCAL WORKERS

Children living in the Willamette Valley who were over 10 years
of age usually worked, helping to harvest prunes, berries, and hops
in the localities where they lived; in the orchard districts of the
Yakima Valley a smaller proportion of local children worked. Of
358 children under 16 years of age enrolled in 12 schools of the Willa
mette Valley and living in the locality at the time the study was made,
two-thirds (67 per cent) reported that they had worked on fruit
or hop craps at least 12 days during the year. Of 325 children
enrolled in 4 Yakima Valley schools more than one-third (36 per
cent) had done work of this kind. A small number of children,
including brothers and sisters of those who were interviewed, had
done some field work but had not worked with sufficient regularity
to be included. In the hop-growing districts of the Yakima and
Willamette Valleys, where hop yards were visited and migratory
workers were interviewed but no house-to-house canvass was made,
it appeared to be the practice for local children also to help at harvest
time.
.
„ „
FA M ILIES O F CH ILD W O R K E RS

The majority of the local child workers in each valley were the
children of fruit growers, most of whom owned their land. (Table 2.)
T a b l e 2. — Economic status o f chief breadwinner in local families, by working

status of children; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16 working during year—
Total

On home farm
only

Economic status of chief breadwinner
Num
ber
Total...... ....................................

Willamette Valley: T ota l........

Yakima Valley: Total------------

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617
314
40
112
61
268
167
20
56
25
249
147
20
56
26

Per
cent
distri
bution
100.0
60.7
7.7
21.7
9.9
100.0
62.3
7.5
20.9
9.3
100.0
59.0
8.0
22.5
10.4

Num
ber
113
83
4
22
4
.5 9
42
1
14
2
54
41
3
8
2

On other farms On home farm
and other farms
only

Per
cent
distri
bution

Num
ber

Per
cent
distri
bution

Num
ber

100.0
73.5
3.5
19.5
3.5
100.0
71.2
1.7
23.7
3.4
100.0
75.9
5.6
14.8
3.7

161
52
6
59
44
64
18
4
20
22
97
34
2
39
22

100.0
32.3
3.7
36.6
27.3
100.0
28.1
6.3
31.3
34.4
100.0
35.1
2.1
4Ò. 2
22. 7

243
179
30
31
3
145
107
15
22
1
98
72
15
9
2

Per
cent
distri
bution
100.0
73.7
12. 3
12.8
1.2
100.0
73.8
10.3
15. 2
0.7
100.0
73.5
15.3
9.2
2.0

Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OREG.

Only 8 per cent of the families represented in each valley were
tenants. A few of the heads of families whose children worked on
the local crops were not engaged in agriculture at all, and some of
the farm owners and tenants had other occupations in addition to
fruit or hop growing, so that in about two-fifths of all the families
(about the same proportion in each area) the head of the family
had a nonfarming occupation. A considerable proportion of the
heads of families m each of the districts studied were employed as
mechanics or operatives in factories or in the building trades; some
of them worked in local industries such as sawmilling, fruit packing,
or prune drying. A small number in each valley were proprietors
or managers of stores, a few were unskilled laborers, and several were
professional men.
In the Eastern States the majority of the children who work on
truck or fruit farms have foreign-born fathers or are negroes. In
the fruit and hop raising districts of the Yakima and Willamette
Valleys, on the other hand, the majority are of native white parent
age. In only 20 per cent of the families in the Willamette Valley,
and in 36 per cent of those of the Yakima Valley, the fathers were
foreign born; these represented at least 10 nationalities, among which
the German, Russian German, and French Canadian predominated.
No Indian or Negro families with children of school age were found
hying in the districts studied, and only one Japanese family. In
neither valley were the foreign born recent immigrants. Except
for the French Canadians and Russian Germans of the Yakima Valley,
who constituted less than half the foreign-born families included
in the study in that area, they were not concentrated in any one
district or colony. With few exceptions they were E n g lis h speaking
and literate, and the majority subscribed to American newspapers
or periodicals.
Many of the child workers of the Willamette Valley lived in wellbuilt, comfortable houses of six or more rooms, and many of these
houses had running water, electric light, and a telephone. Their
homes were more representative of the area as a whole than those
of the Yakima Valley workers, as well as distinctly better. In
both districts the houses were superior to the average farm dwellings
in many parts of the country. About one-third of the houses had
running water, a somewhat larger proportion had plumbing, and
about one-fourth had electric light. Some of the families lived near
enough to a town to avail themselves of the town water supply and
electric light; others had installed gasoline engines or other means
of pumping water. In both valleys, as in other rural districts studied
by the bureau, there were examples of room congestion. Ten per
cent of the families living in the Willamette Valley districts and
16 per cent of those in the Yakima Valley districts had two or more
persons per room. Although both the Willamette and the Yakima
Valley district were distinctly rural in character, there was little
isolation, as they were within a 25-mile radius of the cities of Salem
and Yakima, respectively. Moreover, telephones were fairly com
mon, at least in the Willamette Valley, and seven-tenths of the fam
ilies represented in the study in each locality owned automobiles.

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS
W O R E O F CH ILDREN

Although the majority of child workers in both localities were
children of farm owners or tenants and usually worked on the home
farm, 74 per cent of the farmers’ children included in the Yakima
Valley study and 77 per cent of those in the Willamette Valley
study, as well as most of the children of farm laborers and practically
all the children in the nonfarming families represented in the
survey, worked also as hired laborers for local fruit or hop growers.
(Table 2.) Nearly as large a proportion of the younger child workers
(those under 12 years) as of older child workers had been employed at
some time during the year as hired laborers. The distinction be
tween hired local workers and migratory workers is not rigid in
either valley, for some of the local child workers in the districts
surveyed had made migrations also. Local workers in 12 per cent
of the families included in the study in the Willamette Valley and in
6 per cent of those in the Yakima Valley had migrated at some time
during the year for work in other places.
Age and Sex o f Child W orkers.

Among the local child workers included in the study in each valley
the boys outnumbered the girls.
T a b l e 3.— Ages o f child workers in local and migratory families, by district in

which they were working at time o f interview; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16
Willamette Valley

Total

Yakima Valley

Age at time of interview
Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu- Number distribu- Number distribution
tion
tion
Local: Total.
Under 8 years.......
8 years, under 10..
10 years, under 12.
12 years, under 14.
14 years, under 16.
Not reported------Migratory: Total.
Under 8 years.......
8 years, under 10..
10 years, under 12.
12 years, under 14.
14 years, under 16.
Not reported____

517

100.0

268

100.0

249

100.0

13
49
106
163
183
3

2.5
9.5
20.5
31.5
35.4
.6

8
32
59
81
85
3

3.0
11.9
22.0
30.2
31.7
1.1

5
17
47
82
98

2.0
6.8
18.9
32.9
39.4

647

100.0

472

100.0

175

100.0

20
78
149
202
196
2

3.1
12.1
23.0
31.2
30.3
.3

12
57
116
141
144
2

2.5
12.1
24.6
29.9
30.5
.4

8
21
33
61
52

4.6
12.0
18.9
34.9
29.7

The majority of the children were under 14 years. (Table 3.)
Unlike the children in small-fruit and truck-raising sections of the
Atlantic coast, few were under 10— only 9 per cent of the workers in
the Yakima Valley and only 15 per cent of those in the Willamette
Valley as compared with 34 per cent and 20 per cent of the local
child workers included in studies made b y the Children’s Bureau
in Maryland and southern New Jersey, respectively.1 More than
i
Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, p. 7; Child. Labor on
Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 8,41.

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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OKEG.

two-fifths of the children of the Yakima Valley who were 14 and 15
years of age and more than three-fifths of the children of the Willa
mette Valley of these ages had worked four or more seasons, however,
including the season of the survey.
Kinds o f Work.

Harvesting is the principal work of most local children. During
the hop and fruit seasons children help their parents on the home
farm and also work b y the day for other growers. In both valleys a
large proportion of the children included in the study helped to
harvest hops. In the Willamette Valley the majority of children but
in the Yakima Valley only a small proportion picked berries. A
majority of children in both valleys harvested orchard fruit. In the
Yakima Valley they harvested apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and
prunes, and in the Willamette Valley, chiefly prunes and cherries.
Besides harvesting, a considerable number of children in each area
hoed or weeded, and some of the older boys who lived on farms
harrowed or cultivated. (Table 4.)
T a b l e 4. — Principal kinds o f work done at various times during year by children

in local families, by sex; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16 doing each specified kind of work
Willamette Valley.
•

Yakima Valley

Kind of work
Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per
ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber Cent ber cent
T otal1■____________
General farm work:
Preparing ground2.......
Hoeing...........................
Weeding and thinning.
Harvesting hops or fruits:
Picking—
H op s......................
Small fruits 3______
Strawberries...
Loganberries...
Orchard fruits4___
Cherries______
Apples..............
Pears
and
peaches.........
Prunes.............
Picking up prunes____
Harvesting vegetables
Harvesting general farm
crops....... ..........................
Other kinds of work:
Thinning orchard fruit.
Packing, loading, driving.....................•_........
Training hops...............

268 100.0
53
76
37

19.8
28.4
13.8

123 45.9
180 67.2
130 48.5
146 54.5
86 32.1
66 24.6
2.2
6

151 100.0
51
61
27

33.8
40.4
17.9

66 43.7
98 64.9
72 47.7
80 53.0
43 28.5
37 24.5
4
2.6

117 100.0
2
15
10

249 100.0

136 100.0

113

100.0

1.7
12.8
8.5

20
59
41

8.0
23.7
16.5

20
40
24

14.7
29.4
17.6

19
17

16.8
15.0

57 48.7
82 70.1
58 49.6
66 56.4
43 36.8
29 24.8
2
L7

103
44
39

41.4
17.7
15.7

46
24
22

33.8
17.6
16.2

57
20
17

50.4
17.7
15.0

153
60
81

61.4
24.1
32.5

89
41
50

65.4
30.1
36.8

64
19
31

56.6
16.8
27.4

70
31

28.1
12.4

43
17

31.6
12,5

27
14

23.9
12.4
9.7

3.7

2.0

• 7

6.0

192
29

71.6
10.8

102
17

67.5
11.3

90
12

76.9
10.3

14.1

17.6

9.0

15.2

• 55

22.1

34.6

7.1

35.7

39.0

31.9

23
17

9.2
6.8

21
6

15.4
4.4

2
11

1.8
9.7

29
20

10.8
7.5

25
16

16.6
10.6

4
4

3.4
3.4

1 The reason that the items do not add to the totals is that most of the children did several kinds of work
during the year.
2 Includes plowing, harrowing, disking, dragging, dnd cultivating.
3 Small fruits include strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, blackberries, and currants. Children in
this group may have picked one or more varieties.
* Orchard fruits include apples, pears, prunes, peaches, and cherries.
Children in this group may have
picked one or more varieties.

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C H ILD LABOE IH F R U IT AN D H O P GEO W ING DISTRICTS

The work of many children who did harvesting only is like that of a
certain girl of 13 and her brother of 10 years, children of a farm owner
of the Willamette Valley. Both children had worked as hired laborers
picking strawberries and cherries, the girl picking hops also, and both
had worked in their father’s orchard picking prunes. The work done
b y some of the older boys may be illustrated b y that of a boy of 14
years of the same locality who reported that he had harrowed,
disked, dragged, and cultivated the home orchard, had hoed and
weeded throughout the growing season, and in the harvest season
had also baled and shocked hay and picked prunes.
Picking up prunes is the simplest form of orchard work that
children do. Of child workers included in the study in the Willa
mette Valley, 192, or more than seven-tenths, did this work, but none
in the Yakima Valley did it. Among those who picked up prunes
were many younger children, 16 per cent being under 10 yearn and
41 per cent under 12, and nearly as many girls as boys. (Table 5.)
T a b l e 5.— Principal crops harvested at various times during year by children in

local families, by age; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16 harvesting each specified crop

Crop harvested

Willamette V a l l e y :
Total2.....................
Picking—
Hops...............................
Small fruits5- . ....... ......
Loganberries-.........
Strawberries______
Orchard fruits7_______
Cherries__________
Picking up prunes................
Yakima Valley: Total!
P ickin gH o p s ................ —........
Small fruits5________.—
Strawberries............
Orchard fruits7_______
Apples....................
Pears and peaches..
Cherries__________
Prunes.....................

10 years,
under 12

Total

12 years,
under 14

Under
lOyears1

Number

Per
cent

Number

Per
cent1

Number

100.0

45.9
67.2
54.5
48.5
32.1
24.6
71.6

12
24
14
18
10
30

25
47
40
37
20
16
48

42.4
79.7
67.8
62.7
33.9
27.1
81.4

43
52
41
36
29
22
55

53.1
64.2
50.6
44.4
35.8
27.2
67.9

41
56
50
39
27
20
58

48.2
65.9
58.8
45.9
31.8
23. 5
68.2

100.0

41 4

12
5
5

28
11
10
18
9
4
7
4

........

33
17
15
52
25
22
21
10

40.2
20.7
18.3
63.4
30.5
26.8
25.6
12.2

30
11
9
75
45
41
25
16

30.6
11.2
9.2
76.5
45.9
41.8
25. 5
16.3

ber

Per
cent

8268

100.0

5 123
5 180
« 146
130
86
66
« 192
249

17 7
15 7
61 4

70
60
31

Per
cent

14 years,
under 16

32 6
28.1

24 1

12.4

•

7
1
1

1 Not shown when base is less than 50.
....
,
, .
,.
2 The reason that the items do not add to the totals is that many of the children harvested more than one
crop.
.
,
, ,
2 Includes three children for whom age was not reported.
* Includes two children for whom age was not reported.
,_ , ,
,
.
5 Small fruits include strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, blackberries, and currants. Children m
this group may have picked one or more varieties.
5 Includes one child for whom age was not reported.
Children in this group may have
i Orchard fruits include apples, pears, prunes, peaches, and cherries,
picked one or more varieties.

Many of the children were working for their parents on the home
farm, but more than one-third of those who were picking up prunes
on the day before the interview were hired workers. In this region,
instead o f being picked and shipped green, as in the Yakima Valley,
prunes &re allowed, to ripen on tlie trees &nd &re picked up of ter they
have fallen to the ground. They are then dried m local driers before

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Y A K IM A V A LLEY

W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L LE Y , OEEG.

shipment. Some of the older boys were employed to go through the
orchards and shake the trees gently in order to loosen the fruit, but
most of the children just picked up the prunes from the ground and
put them into pails. The heavy work o f dumping the pails of prunes
into boxes and loading them on trucks is usually done by adults.
Picking, however, causes considerable strain on the backs and knees
of the pickers, as they must crawl or squat on the ground, and unless
the harvest is completed before the autumn rains set in the ground
may be damp and muddy.
Picking fruit from the trees is more difficult than picking it up
from the ground. Three-fifths of the children of the Yakima Valley
and one-third of those of the Willamette Valley had picked some
kind of fruit from the trees. Few children in either valley, however,
had picked apples, pears, or peaches. Although apples are the prin
cipal fruit crop of the Yakima Valley only, about one-third of the
children studied in this valley had picked apples. Picking apples,
pears, and peaches, particularly in orchards where fruit is carefully
graded for shipping, is usually regarded as too difficult for children,
at least for those under 14 years. (Table 5.) Children are not strong
enough to manage the ladders and are not sufficiently careful in han
dling the fruit, for care must be taken not to drop it nor to bruise the
skin or injure it in any way. Apple picking is particularly hard for
children because apple pickers in this locality carry the containers in
which they put the apples. The container, a burlap sack, is attached
bv straps which pass over the back of the neck and around the waist
of the worker. One mother said that neither she nor her 15-year-old
boy could pick apples because the sack was so heavy that the pressure
of the strap hurt the back of the neck. In picking pears or peaches
the worker is usually not hampered by a sack, but tf the trees are not
to be stripped at one picking, he must use judgment in selecting the
fruit to be picked. A pear picker is often provided with a wire ring
with which to measure the pears. If the pears are too large to slip
through the ring they are picked; otherwise they are left on the tree
for a later picking. Peach pickers must select fruit of a certain color
and firmness. On account of the fuzz from the peaches, which irri
tates the hands and arms of the workers and because of the excessive
heat at the time of the harvest, in August, the work is disagreeable
as well as difficult.
One hundred and twenty-six children (one-fourth of those living in
each of the valleys) picked cherries, one of the minor fruit crops of
each area. Many of these children were under 12 years of age.
Besides picking cherries some of the Yakima children picked prunes
from the trees. Cherries and prunes are easier than other orchard
fruits for children to pick because the fruit is not so heavy and
because no judgment is necessary in selecting the fruit as the trees
are stripped at one picking. One grower employed children to pick
prunes when most of his adult workers were busy picking peaches.
Many growers will not employ children in any kind of orchard.
When picking fruit from the trees children break the branches, and,
as they are not strong enough to move the stepladders, it is necessary
to employ adults to do this work and to clear the tops and upper
branches of the trees. That some growers, however, consider child
workers valuable is indicated by the fact that 67 of the 93 children
who were picking some kind of orchard fruit on the day before the

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

interview were working as hired, laborers, and many of tbese were
picking pears and peaches.
„ TT11
,.
Two-thirds of the children living m the Willamette Valley and less
than one-fifth of those living in the Yakima Valley had picked ber
ries. More than half the children of the Willamette Valley had
picked loganberries, and nearly as many had picked strawberries.
Some Yakima Valley children had picked strawberries, and a few had
picked raspberries or other small fruits. Many of the younger chil
dren picked berries for canneries, which is much easier work than
picking them for long-distance shipment. In the Multnomah sec
tion of the Willamette Valley, where quantities of berries are picked
for canneries, an advertisement calling for 5,000 pickers stated that
“ boys and girls over 7 years old can do as well picking berries as
men and women.” In picking berries for canneries the worker can
pick all the ripe berries on the vines, soft as well as firm berries, hut
m picking for shipment he must discard all overripe or crushed ber
ries and must place the firm ones in the cup or basket instead of
dropping them into it. In selecting loganberries for the fresh-fruit
market the worker picks only those that are firm and of a light-red
color. On some ranches where strawberries grow very large, pickers
are required to “ face the berries,” that is, to place the berries in the
basket in such a way as to attract prospective buyers, and this the
younger children .can not be trusted to do.
More than two-fifths of the local workers in each valley had
picked hops. Except for a few children in the Yakima Valley
most of those who picked hops worked as hired laborers, often on
the same ranches where migratory workers were employed. Hop
picking is easy work and, like berry picking, can be done by children
under 10 or 12 years. (For description of picking see page 21.)
Besides harvesting fruits and hops a small number of children
(slightly more than one-tenth in each area) had harvested vegetables,
ana a few in the Yakima Valley had pulled and topped sugar beets.
Others (about one-fifth of those living in the Yakima Valley and
a smaller proportion of those in the Willamette Valley) had helped
to harvest general farm crops, mowing or raking hay and shocking
^ T h e only kind of orchard work except harvesting in which con
siderable numbers of children were employed was the removing of
surplus green fruit from the branches, which is known as thinning.
Practically all the children who did this work lived in the Yakima
Valley and were at least 12 years of age. The thinning of apples,
pears, and peaches, which is usually done before the beginning oi
July, allows the fruit left on the tree to grow larger and ripen uni
formly. Usually children thin only apples, although the growers
of this vicinity also make a practice of thinning pears and peaches.
When th in n in g apples the worker, who usually stands on a stepladder, either uses pliers or snaps off the surplus apples with thumb
and forefinger, leaving one apple on a spur and about 7 inches between
spurs. Children sometimes stand on the ground and thin the fruit
on the lower branches while adults thin it on the higher branches.
Other orchard work, such as pruning, spraying, whitewashingtrunks,
propping up limbs, or cutting sprouts, either requires skill or is
considered too heavy for children, and only 6 per cent of the children
living in either area reported doing this work.

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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., A N D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OEEG.

The child workers who did general work such as hoeing or weeding
or who helped in the tillage of orchards or berry fields were usually
boys who lived on farms and worked for their parents. Nearly
one-fourth of the children living in the Yakima Valley and a slightly
larger proportion of those in the Willamette Valley, including some
girls, had done hoeing, most of it in the berry fields or hop yards to
remove weeds left about the roots of the bushes or vines after the
cultivator had passed through. A few children in each valley—
twice as many boys as girls— weeded, thinned, and suckered, includ
ing suckering hops. Few boys, practically all of whom were 14 or
15 years of age, had harrowed or cultivated, and even fewer had
done plowing. The increasing use of tractors for plowing or cultivat
ing in the two areas may explain the comparatively small number
of children engaged in such work.
Many children had done other kinds'of work, but only a small
number reported any one kind. A few in each area had planted
or transplanted, a few Yakima children had helped with irrigating,
usually cleaning out ditches, some in each area had driven or loaded
a team, and many of these had worked in the orchards collecting
the filled fruit boxes. Twenty-five children, most of whom lived
in the Willamette Valley and were at least 14 years of age, had
trained and-pruned berry bushes, the work consisting of cutting out
old canes after they had fruited and weaving young canes on to the
trellises or training new shoots. Thirty-seven children (about
7 per cent in each valley) had done some work connected with train
ing hop vines— stripping surplus leaves from the stalks, tying strings
no the overhead wire trellises, or twining vines about the strings.
A few children who had worked in hop yards in the Willamette
Valley had done work which subjected them to considerable physical
strain. Nine children, for example, had stood on top of a 5-foot
platform on a sledge which was being driven through the rows to
work on the overhead wire trellis. Several others had “ bucked
sacks” during the picking season, including one boy of 12 years
who was employed nine hours a day hoisting 50-pound sacks onto
his back and carrying them to the end of the row.
Hours.

In the Yakima Valley the 10-hour day, from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m.,
is customary in both hop yards and orchards. In the Willamette
Valley hours in the hop yards are long, but they are much shorter
and more irregular in the prune orchards on account of the limited
capacity of prune driers, into which the prunes are put as soon as
picked. Alm ost all the Willamette Valley children were working in
prune orchards at the time of the study. Hence their working“hours
were short compared with those of the Yakima Valley children and are
more nearly comparable to the hours worked by children picking
berries and vegetables on the truck farms of the Atlantic Coast States.
For example, 10 per cent of the Willamette Valley child workers who
reported their hours of work on a sample day of the harvest season
(that is, on the last day they worked before the agent’s visit) had
worked at least 10 hours, as compared with 9 to 18 per cent of the
children working on home or neighborhood farms included in the
Children’s Bureau studies of truck-farm workers in New Jersey,
48287°— 26t----- 3

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AND H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

Maryland, and Virginia.2 On the other hand, 63 per cent of the
Yakima Valley children reported a 10-hour day. (Table 6.) Children
employed as hired workers in both districts worked longer hours
than children who were working for their parents. In the Willamette
Valley 45 per cent of the children who worked as hired laborers, comared with 33 per cent of the children who worked for their parents,
ad worked more than 8 hours on the sample day; in the Yakima
Valley most of the children who worked as hired laborers but only
about one-third of those working for their parents had worked at
least 10 hours. There was little difference in either valley between
the working hours of boys and girls, but older children worked longer
hours than younger children, particularly those younger children
who were working for their parents. Reliable reports of working
hours could be procured for only 39 children under 10 years of age,
but 12 of these, some in each valley, had worked more than 8 hours
on the sample day. No child who habitually worked less than 4
hours a day was included in the study.

T a b l e 6.— Hours o f work of children in local fam ilies on a sample day in the harvest

season, hy age; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16
Total
Hours of field work on sample day
Number

Willamette Valley: Total.................
Total reporting.. . .......................................
Less than 6 hours___________________
6hours, less than 8............................. ...
8 hours e v e n ......................................
More than 8 hours, less than 9_______
9 hours, less than 10------------- -----------10 hours, less than 11................— ____
Not reporting....................................... .......
Yakima Valley: T o ta l--..................
Total reporting.... ........................................
Less than 6 hours.............. ...... .............
6 hours, less than 8.......................... —
8 hours e v e n .........................................
More than 8 hours, less than 10. _ ___
10 hours, less than 11............................
Not reporting...............................................

» 268
3198
61
337
23
20
337
20
3 70
249
194

14
17
29
123
55

i Includes 3 children for whom age was not reported.
3 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.

Per cent
distri
bution

100.0
30.8
18.7
11.6
10.1
18.7
10.1

100.0
5.7
7.2
8.8
14.9
63.4

Under 10 years, 12 years, 14 years,
10 years under 12 under 14 under 16

40
25
10
4
7
2
1
1
15
22
14
3
2

3
5
8

59
41
18
4
4
4
9
2
18
47
36
3

5
5
22

81
61
12
18
5

6
6

20
82
66
4
4
7

40
16

85
69
21
10
7
8
12
11
16
98
78

7
4
10
56
20

3Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.

Duration o f W ork.

While harvesting a particular crop the children usually worked
regularly for three or four weeks until the harvest was completed.
The regularity of their work may be illustrated by the number of
hours that 385 children (about equal numbers in each area) had
worked the week before they were interviewed. More than twofifths in the Willamette Valley and nearly two-thirds in the Yakima
Valley had worked 48 hours or more. In the Yakima Valley twofifths had worked 56 or more hours but only about one-fifth in the
3
Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 14,44; Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
Truck Farms, p. 14; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, p. 15.

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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OREG.

Willamette Valley. Except older boys who had worked in orchards
or on general farm crops neither local nor migratory children worked
continuously throughout the summer.
All children were asked the total number of days they had worked
during the preceding 12 months. Among the 74 children who could
not remember the number of days they had worked were many who
had done general work at home and had probably worked the longest
periods; children who did harvesting only could usually give definite
information. (Table 7.) Every local child included in the study
had worked at least 12 days but not necessarily 12 consecutive days.
The majority of those reporting in each valley, like the majority of
the local child workers on eastern truck farms,3 had worked 30 or
more days, and more than one-fourth (approximately the same
proportion in each area) had worked 60 days or more. Children
who worked on the home farm as a rule worked longer periods than
children who worked only as hired laborers, and older children worked
longer than younger. Many more girls than boys in each area had
worked for the short periods of 12 to 30 days. Practically no girls
had worked 90 days or more, but 44 boys (about the same number
in each valley) had done so.
T a b l e 7.— Duration of field work of children in local families, by district; W illa

mette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16
Number of days of field work during year

Total

Willamette Valley

Yakima Valley

Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
517
Total reporting........ .......................... .........

268

249

443

100.0

211

100.0

232

100.0

189
133
71
36
14

42.7
30.0
16.0
8.1
3.2

82
73
30
15
11

38.9
34.6
14.2
7.1
5.2

107
60
41
21
3

46.1
25.9
17.7
9.1
1.3

Earnings.

The harvesting of fruit and hops is usually done on a piece-work
basis with the exception of the picking of pears and peaches, which
requires special care. In the Willamette Valley hop pickers were
paid b y quantity, and in the Yakima Valley by weight. In the
Willamette Valley the rate was 60 to 70 cents a box or sack, which
was supposed to contain 50 pounds but was not weighed; in the
Yakima Valley the rate was $1.50 per 100 pounds. On many Willa
mette Valley ranches pickers received an additional 10 cents for each
box if they remained until the end of the season. After filling a box
the picker received a check, which was cashed by some employers
on demand but by others at the end of the season or at the time the
picker left the ranch. For picking up prunes in the Willamette
Valley the workers received 8 or 10 cents per bushel box. Ther
8 Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, p. 46; Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
Truck Farms, p. 13; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, p. 16,

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AND H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

10-cent rate was usually paid only to pickers who shook the trees as
well as picked up the fruit. For picking pears or peaches m the
Yakima Valley the usual rates paid children for a 10-hour day were
$2.50 to $3, and the usual rate paid men was $3.50. Piece r^tes
berries in the Willamette Valley varied somewhat, but a rate ot z
cents a quart for both strawberries and loganberries was usual.
Although in some districts apple pickers are paid by the hour, m the
Yakima Valley-they were paid b y the piece, the rate being 5 cen s
for a box which weighed 40 to 50 pounds whenfull.
.«
j
Two hundred and four local workers in the Willamette valley and
185 in the Yakima Valley received pay for their work. Many ot
these children had been working for their parents. An attempt was
made to get information as to the earnings of the children the last
week they had worked, but the majority of children could not give
adequate^ information on this point. More of the older children
than of the younger reported the amount earned on the last day
they had worked Only a small proportion of the children who
picked up prunes reported their earnmgs, for many of the children
who did this work put the fruit into the same pail as that used by
their mothers and did not keep their earnmgs separate. Warnings ot
children who were 12 years of age or older were usually larger man
those of younger children, but earnings depended chiefly on the kind
of work the children did, as is shown in Table 8, which compares the
earnings of children in the two valleys. Children who picked hops
usually earned between $1 and $3 a day. Partly because of t e
irregularity of hours in prune orchards children who picked up prunes
earned much less than children who picked orchard fruit. Pear or
peach pickers often earned $3 or $4 a day.
T a b l e 8 — Earnings o f children in local fam ilies on a sample day, by kind o f work;

Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16 doing specified work on sample day
Total

Earnings on sample day

Willamette Valley: Total.
Total reporting.
Less than $1_____
$1, less than $1.50.
$1.50, less than $2.
$2, less than $3—
$3, less than $4—
$4 and o v e r .....—
No earnmgs...
Not reporting.
Yakima Valley: Total.
Total reporting.
Less than $1_____
$1, less than $1.50.
$1.50, less than $2.
$2, less than $3—
$3, less than $4—
$4 and over..........
No earnings.
Not reporting.

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Pick
ing up
Per
prunes
Num cent
or
distri nuts
ber
bution
163

268
98

100.0

13
21
23
26
12
3

13.3
21.4
23.5
26.5

Pick
ing
hops

Pick
ing
or
chard
iruits

Other
kinds
of
work
25

12.2

3.1

64
106
249
123

100.0
4.9
4.1

8.1

25.2
52.0
5.7

Not
re
ported

Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OREG.

SCH O O LIN G O F CH ILD W O RK ERS

The work of local children interferes little with their school attend
ance because the terms of most schools in this region are adjusted to
the harvest seasons and do not open until the harvest is over. The
year of the survey the schools in the hop districts of the Willamette
Valley, b y action of the local school boards, opened the last week in
September, and those in some of the prune districts not until October
9. They made up the time in the spring, as the Oregon law requires
an eight-month school session.4 In the hop districts of the Yakima
Valley*the public school opened about a week before the hop-picking
season was over, and a parochial school which many of the hop
pickers attended did not open until the end of the season. In most
apple districts of the area, especially in those where the orchards
were large and the growers hired adult workers, the schools were in
session during the harvest season, but in two districts where there
were many small apple orchards, one of which was selected for survey,
an “ apple vacation” was given, the schools opening the last of
August and closing for two or three weeks in October. There was
some difference of opinion among the families interviewed as to the
desirability of the “ vacation.” Some families thought that the
vacation for harvest work should be even longer than it was. On
the other hand, families whose children were under 10 or 12 years,
and therefore too young to pick apples, criticized the interruption of
the school year, saying that it benefited only children in the upper
grades and in the high school. Some mothers opposed the vacation
because they were themselves obliged to work in the orchards and
they wished to have their children in school, where they would be
cared for.
Owing largely to these readjustments in the school term the
children working on the farms of both the Willamette and the Yakima
Valley lost comparatively little time from school on account of thenwork. In the Willamette Valley districts, about 11 per cent of the
144 child workers who gave information on the subject had stayed
out of school for farm work; in the Yakima Valley districts, where
school terms were longer and where three of the four schools selected
for study were in session during the apple season, about 20 per cent
of 108 child workers had stayed out o f school for farm work. But
only 10 children in both districts had missed as much as 20 school
days on this account, whereas in the truck-farming districts of New
Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia from 35 to 74 per cent of the children
working on home farms or farms in the vicinity of their homes had
stayed out of school to work, and from 11 per cent to 30 per cent had
lost at least 20 school days on account of their farm work.5
Child workers living in these areas went to school much more
regularly than child workers in most of the other rural districts where
the Children’s Bureau has made similar surveys, and school officials
said that they had little trouble with truancy of local children.
Except for one boy, all the children between 7 and 15 years in the
two areas and most of those 15 years of age were enrolled in school
the year of the survey. More than four-fifths of the children for *
4 Oregon Laws 1920, sec. 5165. (School districts are not entitled to their proportion of the county school
fund unless school has been in session for at least eight months of the year.)
5 Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 18,47; Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
Truck Farms, p. 19; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, p. 19»

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

whom school records were obtained (88 per cent in the Willamette
Valley and 83 per cent in the Yakima Valley) had been in school at
least 80 per cent of the term; nearly seven-tenths (74 per cent in the
Willamette Valley and 65 per cent in the Yakima Valley) had attended
school at least 90 per cent of the term. Attendance records of many
children were good in spite of the fact that it was sometimes difficult
for them to travel to school. Of 121 children, some in each area,
who lived 2 or more miles from school, 85 were obliged either to walk
or to furnish their own transportation. Some rode bicycles, and
others came in the family automobiles.
In neither area was the proportion of child workers below the nor
mal grades for their ages so large as in most rural districts studied
by the bureau, nor was it much larger than the average even for
city school children. Among child workers of the Willamette Valley
between 8 and 16 years of age, 21 per cent were retarded in school.6
In the Yakima Valley districts, where more children stayed out of
school to do farm work and where there were Russian-German and
French-Canadian colonies, the percentage of retardation was 30, but
for children of native parentage it was about the same as for the
Willamette Valley children. The percentage of retardation even in
the Yakima Valley districts was but little higher than the average
among city school children of the same ages (26.6 per cent)7 and
was smaller than among children working on the home farm or on
farms near their homes in truck-farming districts of Eastern States—
for example, the rural districts in New Jersey, Maryland, and
Virginia surveyed by the Children’s Bureau.
In the Maryland
and the New Jersey districts from 38 to 57 per cent of the local
white child workers, and in the Virginia and the Maryland districts
from 72 to 85 per cent of the local colored child workers on the
farms were below normal grades for their ages.8 In connection
with the relative amounts of school time lost on account of farm
work by children in the two sections (see p. 15) these figures are
very significant in indicating the extent to which school progress is
interfered with by farm work, unless some special adaptation of the
school term to harvest seasons can be made. To provide harvest
vacations is more difficult, of course, where there is a succession of
crops, as in some of the truck-growing areas.
MIGRATORY WORKERS
TH E LABOR SUPPLY

Both the Yakima and Willamette Valleys have a large transient
population from which the growers recruit seasonal labor. The shift
ing of the population is reflected in the school enrollment. About
one-third of the children enrolled during the school year 1922-23 in
the Willamette Valley schools selected for study and nearly one-fourth
6
The age basis on which the retardation o f these children was calculated is that adopted b y the TJ. S.
Bureau of Education. Children of 6 or 7 years are expected to enter the first grade, children o f 7 or 8 the
second grade, etc. Normally a child is expected to complete one grade each year; children, therefore, were
. considered retarded if they had not entered the second grade by the time they reached the age of 8 years,
the third grade at 9 years, the fourth grade at 10 years, etc.
. A^
.
i The average percentage of retardation for city children was computed from age-grade statistics from
Statistical Survey of Education, 1921-22 (U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1924, No. 38, Washington,
1925)
8 child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 19, 49; Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
Truck Farms, p. 20; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, p. 20.

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of the children enrolled in the selected Yakima Valley schools had
moved out of the districts by the time the study was begun, in the
summer of 1923* Some families come into thé districts to “ look for a
place to settle,” and, “ hoping to find a better place,” move on;
others are traveling “ to see the country” and wish “ to earn money
along the way.” B y the end of March some families come into the
Willamette Valley to train hops, but the great increase of population
is in September, during the hop harvest. The low shacks or bunk
houses, deserted at other seasons, are swarming with people, and
tent colonies spring up overnight. In the Yakima Valley the change
in population is more gradual. There the harvest season begins m
August with the pear picking and ends in November with the apple
picking.
In the Willamette Valley bureau agents made a canvass of 15 hop
yards which employed approximately 3,300 pickers at the time of the
visit, according to owners’ estimates, and 12 hop yards in the Yakima
Valley which employed much smaller numbers of workers. All
peach, pear, and prune orchards in the selected school districts of both
areas were also visited. All children in both areas who worked were
included in the study except those employed in the largest three hop
yards of the districts selected in the Willamette Valley. Proportion
ately few migratory child workers were found in the Yakima Valley
because orchard growers prefer adult workers and because the hop
district is small. Of the 175 child workers interviewed in the Yakima
Valley about three-fifths were picking hops, and of the 472 interviewed
in the Willamette Valley more than three-fourths were picking hops.
The remainder in each valley were working in orchards.
The families of transient laborers in both areas surveyed are of
two distinct types— those who work on only one crop a season and
those who follow the fruit harvest from one district to another.
Families that work on only one crop are more likely to come from
another part of the same county or from adj acent counties than
families that make a practice of harvesting fruit, many of whom
come from a distance. The homes of more than four-fifths of the
265 families included in the study in the Willamette Valley, and the
homes of two-thirds of the 83 families in the Yakima Valley were in
the State in which they were working at the time they were inter
viewed; the homes of a considerable proportion of the families in
each valley were in other parts of the same county. A small pro
portion in each area had migrated from Washington to Oregon or
vice versa, or from Idaho, Montana, or other States, or from Canada.
Some of the families had come from Portland, Salem, or Yakima,
but the majority of those included in the study in each area were
from small towns or rural districts in Washington or Oregon. Chil
dren from 108 places in 28 counties in Washington and Oregon had
migrated to the Yakima and Willamette Valleys. (Table 9.)

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CHILD LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

T a b l e 9. — Localities from which migratory fam ilies came, by district in which

they were working at time o f interview; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Migratory families with children under 16 working in orchards
or hop fields
Willamette Valley

Total

Locality from which family came

Yakima Valley

Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu- Number distribu- Number distribution
tion
tion
T o t a l..* ..,— ......... — .........
Same county__________________—
Cities over 10,000............ ............
Smaller cities and rural districts.
Other counties in State— ...............
Washington to Oregon......................
Oregon to Washington......................
Other localities___________________
Not reported.......................................

348
127
53
74
152
18
6
42
3

100.0
36.5
15.2
21.3
43.7
5.2
1.7
12.1
0.9

100.0

83
38
45
140
18

31.3
14.3
17.0
52.8
6.8

44
15
29
12

53.0
18.1
34.9
14.5

21
3

7.9
1.1

6
21

7.2
25.3

265

A considerable number of families made a practice of “ following
the fruit.” Fifty-seven of 265 families included in the study in the
Willamette Valley, and 28 of 83 in the Yakima Valley had made
three or more migrations within the 12 months preceding the inter
view. The majority of these had made migrations in previous
years also. (Table 10.) Many families working in each valley,
however, had migrated only once, or at the most, twice during the
year; about half in each area were having their first experience in
hop yards or orchards. Comparatively few families had left their
homes for the purpose of harvesting orchard fruit, but many families
had migrated for the purpose of picking hops. Families who had
made two or three migrations had generally picked hops and in
addition either berries or orchard fruit.
T a b l e 10.— Number o f migrations made by fam ilies during year, by district in

which they were working at time o f interview; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Migratory families with children under l 6 working in orchards
or hop fields
Willamette Valley

Total

Number of migrations during year

Yakima Valley

Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
Total.................................... ........... .
One migration----- ------------- ------------------Tw o migrations.............................—..........Three migrations and more............. ...........

1 348
141
126
80

100.0

1 265

100.0

40.5
36.2
23.0

105
102
57

39.6
38.5
21.5

36
24
23

43.4
28.9
27.7

1 Includes one family for which number of migrations was not reported.

The families who were working in the Willamette or the Yakima
Valley at the time of the interview had been working during the
year in many localities. Some had worked in southern California
and others in western Washington. Some had worked in several

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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L L E Y , OREG.

States. Many families began to work in June, picking strawberries
either in the Hood River Valley or in eastern Multnomah County,
Oreg.; in July they picked loganberries or raspberries in Multnomah
or Marion County, Oreg., or in other localities; in August, unless
they harvested peaches or pears in Washington or flax in Marion
County, they returned home or camped out until September when
the hop harvest began. At the end of the hop harvest some of the
workers harvested prunes or apples.
An example may make the character of the migrations clearer.
The mother and child in one family arrived home in Clackamas
County, Oreg., at the end of September, 1922, after the hop harvest
in Marion County, the father arriving home later after the apple
season. In May, 1923, the whole family started out in their auto
mobile with their camping outfit. They stopped first in the Hood
River Valley to pick strawberries and cherries and in July arrived
in Multnomah County to pick loganberries; when interviewed in
August they had traveled over 200 miles across the mountains into
eastern Washington and were picking pears and peaches in the
Yakima Valley.
Unlike the migratory workers of the Eastern States, most of whom
are of Italian, Polish, or other foreign-born parentage, the migratory
workers in both the Willamette and the Yakima Valley are chiefly
of native white parentage— the families who make a practice of
“ following the fruit” as well as those who make but one migration.
No Japanese were found working in either of the districts surveyed,
and only 3 per cent of the families included in the study in the two
areas were Indian or Negro. In one-fourth of the f amities interviewed
(a slightly larger proportion in the Yakima Valley than in the Wil
lamette) the father was of foreign birth. In the Yakima Valley these
families were chiefly Russian Germans; in the Willamette Valley
there were Russian Germans and many other nationalities also.
The majority of fathers in each area had been in the United States
15 years or more, and most of them were literate and English speak
ing. Some of the parents in Russian-German families in each valley,
however, were illiterate; a few of the mothers were unable to speak
English.
Pew migratory families depend on harvesting fruit or hops or on
other farm labor for their only source of income. Many of the
families interviewed said that they wished to supplement their
regular incomes, and some added that hop picking was an opportunity
for “ all the children to work too.” A considerable proportion of
fathers do not migrate with their families but remain at home to
work, but in families which make a practice of migrating the men
are likely to accompany the women and children. They usually do
general work in the hop yards or hop kilns or in fruit-packing houses,
put sometimes they pick. In practically every family interviewed
in each’ valley the father had been employed during the year in an
occupation other than harvesting. In about one-fourth of the
families which had migrated to each valley the fathers owned or
rented farms at home; but the majority were engaged in nonagricultural work, and these included factory workers, skilled mechanics in
building trades, and laborers in lumber camps.
48287°—26f----- 4

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AN D H O P GRO W ING DISTRICTS
RECRU ITIN G W O R K E RS

Fruit and hop growers obtain seasonal workers in several ways,
perhaps the most important of which is newspaper advertising.
Some growers advertise only in papers which circulate in rural
districts; others advertise .in city papers. The advertisement usually
states in full the conditions of work and the attractions offered.
The following example is quoted from a Portland paper:
Hop pickers wanted. 100 new camp houses, 54 acres finest hops in valley,
60 cts. a box paid; homes furnished everybody, stoves, tables, wood, straw, fine
water; a store on the grounds, Salem prices; ranch on river, bathing beach;
come prepared to buy ticket, special reduced rates.

Some of the large hop companies have offices in Portland or Salem,
and they register prospective pickers who have been attracted through
the newspapers or obtained through employment agencies; other
companies and individual growers employ agents, often former
pickers, to engage new workers, and they pay the agent 50 cents for
each new worker engaged. Some owners put up signs in local stores
or on the highways to attract passing automobilists, and others
canvass the automobile tourist camps for workers.
According to many of the owners who were interviewed in both
areas there was no actual labor shortage, but it was difficult to get
reliable workers. There are no formal contracts or agreements
between employers and pickers. Most owners of hop yards in the
Willamette valley offer a bonus as an inducement to pickers to
remain until the end of the season. In the Willamette valley hop
ranchers furnish each family with either a tent or one or two rooms
in a bunk house, but in the Yakima Valley families are expected to
provide their own tents. In both valleys the ranch owners provide
water and fuel; the families bring their camp outfits, consisting of
bedding, dishes, and often some kind of stove. The former practice
of furnishing transportation, either from the workers’ homes to the
ranch, or at least from the railroad station to the ranch, is decreasing
with the growing prevalence of the “ automobile tramp.” Twothirds of the families included in the study in the two areas provided
their own transportation, more than half of them coming in their
own oars. Some owners complained about the instability of workers
who owned automobiles, and several stated that it was necessary to
have three crews of pickers, “ one coming, one going, and one
working.”
W O R K O F CH ILDREN

Age and Sex of Child Workers.

Harvesting is the only work of most migratory child workers.
The work on the various fruit and hop crops is concentrated in periods
of several weeks at a time, a working day of 10 hours being customary
in the Yakima Valley and of 9 or 10 hours in the hop yards of the
Willamette Valley. Most of the 472 migratory child workers inter
viewed in the Willamette Valley and of the 175 migratory workers
in the Yakima Valley had picked hops; the majority in each of the
sections had also harvested some kind of fruit. The majority in the
Willamette Valley and some in the Yakima Valley had picked berries.
Girls and boys did much the same kind of work. Children under 12
years harvested hops, small fruits, and prunes but seldom picked

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other orchard fruits. Many of the migratory workers had worked
during the year on fruit crops in other parts of the same State or in
the adjacent State as well as in the valley in which they happened
to ha at work at the time the survey was made.
Among the migratory workers in each valley was a slightly greater
number of boys than of girls. (Table 1.) About 70 per cent m each
valley were under 14 years of age, and about 15 per cent in each valley
were under 10. More boys than girls were under 10. Nearly 60
per cent of the children in the Willamette Valley and a smaller pro
portion of those in the Yakima Valley had worked in the fields before
the season the survey was made. Of 144 children of the Willamette
Valley 14 or 15 years of age, more than two-fifths (45 per cent) had
worked three or more seasons and nearly one-fourth (22 per cent)
had worked four or more seasons, including some who had not mi
grated for work before the present season but had worked on farms
in the localities where they lived. During the 12 months preceding
the interview two-fifths of the children in each district had worked on
farms while living at home as well as during migrations.
Kinds o f W ork.

The great majority of the migratory workers in each valley picked
hops. (Table 11.) The Willamette Valley hop yards are extensive
fields of vines, hung on overhead wire trellises stretched between
posts from 12 to 20 feet high and in rows about 10 feet wide. At
the height of the season many hundreds of family groups—men,
women, and children— work in these yards. In one yard of 80 acres,
for example, there were 160 pickers concentrated in a small section
of the field at the time of the visit. The women and girls usually
wear broad-brimmed straw hats and overalls, and all the workers
wear heavy cotton gloves to protect their hands from the rough
leaves and stems. The hop yards of the Yakima Valley are smaller
than those of the Willamette Valley, but the children do the same
kind of work in both areas. The work of picking hops is simple, as
“ yard m en” are employed to do the heavy work of lifting and load
ing hop sacks and to lower the wire trellises so that the vines are
within reach of all except the smaller children. The pickers grasp
several clusters of the yellowish-green hops at a time and, stripping
them from the vines, drop them into a basket which stands on the
ground. This basket, when full, weighs about 25 pounds. (See
illustration facing p. 32.) One picker is usually assigned to a row,
but children under 12 years usually work in the same row as their
mothers or older brothers and sisters. In each valley the majority
of the working children under 10 picked hops. Some managers said
that children did not pick “ clean” (that is, they allowed too many
leaves to fall into the basket), but they'made the same complaint
about many of the adult pickers. The chief hardship in picking is
the standing for long hours in the hot sun; but a few workers had a
rash called “ hop poisoning,” and others said they were affected by
the acrid odor of the hops.
Berry picking is next in importance to hop picking from the point
of view of the migratory workers. In the Willamette Valley berries
had been picked by 180 children (more than three-fifths of those inter
viewed), and in the Yakima Valley, by 44 (more than one-fifth).

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AND H O P GRO W ING DISTRICTS

Practically all had done this work early in the summer, and few had
picked berries in. the districts selected for survey. Many children
had picked raspberries or loganberries in eastern Multnomah County,
about 50 miles from the section of the Willamette Valley chosen for
survey. Considerable numbers of the children interviewed in the
Willamette Valley had picked strawberries or raspberries or both,
and two-fifths had picked loganberries. Only a few children in the
Yakima Valley had picked loganberries. (Table 11.) Undoubtedly
in normal seasons a larger proportion of the migratory workers in
Oregon pick loganberries; but in the season of the survey “ the bottom
had dropped out of the loganberry market,” and many growers,
rather than hire labor, allowed the berries to rot on the vines.
T a b l e 11.—Principal crops harvested at various times during year by children in

migratory fam ilies, by age; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16 harvesting each specified crop

Crop harvested

Total

Under 10
years

10 years,
under 12

12 years,
under 14

14 years,
under 16

Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per
ber cent ber cent1 ber cent1 ber cent ber cent
Willamette Valley: T otal3_______ 3472 100.0
Picking—
H o p s..................................................
Small fruits4______________ _______
Loganberries..________________
Strawberries..________________
Raspberries..................................
Other small fruits____________
Orchard fruits6. . . .............................
Cherries________ ________ _____
Picking up prunes_______ _______ _____

3440 93.2
«291 61.7
6182 38.6
5156 33.1
107 22.7
52 11.0
71 15.0
44
9.3
119 25.2

Yakima Valley: T otal3.................

175 100.0

Picking—

125
39
90
59
41
34

71.4
22. 3
51.4
33. 7
23.4
19.4

69 100.0
59
34
20
19
15
6
3
3
17

85.5
49.3
29.0
27.5
21.7
8.7
4.3
4.3
24.6

116 100.0

141 100.0

144

100.0

108
82
52
43
29
18
13
9
29

134
90
. 59
48
33
17
27
16
36

95.0
63.8
41.8
34.0
23.4
12.1
19.1
11.3
25.5

137
84
50
45
30
11
28
16
37

95.1
58.3
34.7
31.2
20.8
7.6
19.4
11.1
25.7

93.1
70.7
44.8
37.1
25.0
15.5
11.2
7.8
25.0

29 100.0

33 100.0

61 100.0

100.0

26
2
6
3
2
2

26
9
11
4
6
5

42
16
36
22
20
11

31
12
38
30
13
16

59.6
23.1
73.1
57.7
25.0
30.8

68.9
26.2
59.0
36.1
32.8
18.0

1 Not shown where base is less than 60.
3 The reason that the items do not add to the totals is that many of the children harvested more than
one crop.
3 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.
4 Small fruits include strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, blackberries, and currant^. Children in
this group may have picked one or more varieties.
3 Including 1 child for whom age was not reported.
6 Orchard fruits include apples, pears, primes, peaches, and cherries. Children in this group may have
picked one or more varieties.

In the Yakima Valley 90 children (about half), and in thè Willa
mette Valley 71 children (a much smaller proportion), had picked
some kind of orchard fruit during the year but not necessarily in the
locality in which they were working at the time of the interview.,
(Table 11.) A considerable number of children interviewed in the
Willamette Valley, relatively as many younger as older children, had
picked up prunes for drying. A small number of children in the
Yakima Valley, mostly children at least 12 years old, had also

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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y / W A S H .; AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L LE Y , OREG.

harvested prunes, but had picked them green from the tree for the
iresh-fruit market, more difficult work than picking them up from
the ground. A small number of children interviewed in each area
had picked cherries. Although the study was made in the Yakima
Valley during the peach and pear picking season and large numbers
ot migratory pickers were employed in the orchards visited there
were comparatively few child pickers. Of the child workers included
m the study in this area, 59 (about one-third) had picked either pears
or peaches or both. At some time during the year a few children
(17 m the Yakima Valley and 18 in the Willamette Valley) had picked
apples. Children m families that “ follow the fruit” often accom
pany their families to apple districts, but only some of the older
children are hired to pick; the other children stay in camp while
their parents work in the orchards.
Besides harvesting fruit or hops, 29 children (6 per cent of the
migratory children working in the Willamette Valley) had pulled or
l i / u v i • ax’ an<^ 46 (nearly 20 per cent of the migratory children in
the Yakima Valley and a few of those in the Willamette Valley) had
thinned apples. Other children (5 to 10 per cent, some in each area),
especially children who had worked at their homes in other counties
and btates, had harvested vegetables or general farm crops or had
done hoeing or weeding. Some had worked at several of these
operations.
Hours.

The migratory children, like other hired workers, worked long
hours in both the Willamette and the Yakima districts. In most of
the Yakima Valley hop yards and orchards a 10-hour day—from
J a- 51-t° 6 p. m. with an hour for lunch— was strictly observed. In
the Willamette Valley hop yards there was more elasticity— manv
pickem began work about 7.30 a. m. and stopped at 5.30 p. m.
t ough in some yards any picker who wished to uegin work at 6.30
w en the yard men did, could do so— and in the orchards hours were
^ e da7 ^or which hours were reported fourffitiis ot the Willamette Valley children and more than one-half of
those in the Yakima Valley districts had worked in hop yards, the
remainder in orchards. Most of the Yakima Valley children who
reported their hours had worked at least 10. (Table 12.) Twotnirds ot the children reporting their hours in the Willamette Valiev
hop yards and prune orchards had worked more than 8 hours, but
only one-third had worked 10 or more. Even in the Willamette
Valley however the child workers had longer hours than in Eastern
™ c“ 4 :arpung districts, _where a bare majority of the migratorv
children included in Children’s Bureau surveys worked more than
8 hours a day, and very few reported a 10-hour day.9
t o S t o & t e S S “! » ! TmCk

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P' “ i Work010hUd« " « Truck“ 1 Small-Fruit Far™

C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AN D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

T a b l e 12.— Hours of field work o f children in migratory fam ilies on sample day in

the harvest season, by age; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children rnder 16

Hours of field work on sample day

To tal

Number

Per cent
distri
bution

Under 10 10 years, 12 years, 14 years,
years
under 12 under 14 under 16

Willamette Valley: Total.................

i 472

116

141

144

Total reporting_____ _____ _____________

1415

100.0

131

139

a 74
52
16
14
2 121
121
17

17.8
12.5
3.9
3.4
29.2
29. 2
4.1

10
5
1
1
14
15

14
12
5
3
31
26
6

25
18
5
4
39
37
3

24
17
5
6
36
43
8

Less than 6 hours_______________ _
6 horns, less than 8___________ ______
8 hours even_____________ ______ ___
More than 8 horns, less than 9.............
9 hours, less than 10____________ ____
10 hours, less than 11_____ ___________

Yakima Valley: Total____________

175

Total reporting.............................................

160

100.0

Less than 6 hours..................................
6 hours, less than 8.........•.....................

6
3
7
5
112
20
7

3.8
1.9
4.4
3.1
70.0
12. 5
4.4

1
1

2
1
5
1
43
6
2

16
2
2

1
1
1
2
14
5
2

10 hours, less than 11. . . ................. ......
11 hours, less than 12. . ____ __________
12 hours and over________________ _

1
2
39
7
1

1Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.
2Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.

There was practically no difference in the working hours of boys
and girls and only a slight tendency for older children to work longer
than younger children. The whole family—father, mother, and
children— usually came to the field together, sometimes bringing their
lunch. They usually walked, but in some of the Willamette valley
hop yards where the camps were a mile or more from the fields
they rode, either in their own cars or in the owner’s truck. For some
of the younger children under 10 years it was impossible to obtain
information concerning the number of hours of work. Many of
these children stayed in the fields all day with their parents but worked
irregularly. The mothers sometimes allowed the children to work
desultorily, or, after they had completed a certain task such as pick
ing two baskets of hops, allowed them to play or sleep in the shadow
of the vines. On the whole, however, younger as well as older
children worked steadily, and a considerable number of children
under 10 years in each valley had worked a 10-hour day. (Table 12.)
Children of Russian-German parentage, regardless of the locality
where they worked, practically always reported long hours. Of
108 children who reported their hours (equal numbers in the two
valleys), nearly four-fifths had worked 10 hours or longer on the day
before the interview.
Duration.

During the hop harvest most of the migratory workers worked every
day except Sunday, as there were no rains at this season in either local
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Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AND W IL L A M E T T E V A L LE Y , OREG.

ity to interfere with the work. About 10 per cent of the children
(a percentage slightly smaller in the Yakima than in the Willamette
Valley) had worked on Sunday as well as week days the week preceding
the interview. Reports of the approximate number of hours the
children had worked the week before the agent’s visit were obtained
for 401 children in the Willamette Valley and 155 in the Yakima
Valley. The majority of the children (88 per cent in the Yakima
Valley and 68 per cent in the Willamette Valley) had worked 48 hours
or more; 70 per cent in the Yakima Valley but only 41 per cent in
the Willamette Valley had worked 56 hours or more. Some in each
valley had worked 64 hours or more. The majority of the children
had worked much longer than the standard of 48 hours a week, which
Washington and Oregon, like many other States, have adopted for
children under 16 years of age employed in nearly all occupations
other than farm work and domestic service.10
Although the children usually worked long hours during the three
weeks of the hop season, some in each area had done no other kinds
of work, and even those who had picked berries or other fruits in
addition to hops had not worked continuously throughout the summer.
All the children were questioned concerning the number of days they
had worked during the 12 months preceding the interview, and all
who had worked less than 6 days in that time were excluded from the
survey. Most of the children in each area had worked at least 12 days.
Nearly half (a slightly smaller proportion in the Yakima than in the'
Willamette Valley) had worked 30 days or more, including some
children in each valley who had worked 90 days or more. Children
who were 12 years of age and older, especially those who had worked
at home besides working as hired laborers during the migrations,
reported the longest working periods. (Table 13.)
T a b l e 13.— Duration o f field work o f children in migratory families, by district;

Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Children under 16

Number of days’ work during year

Total

Number

Willamette Valley

Yakima Valley

Per cent
Per cent
distri Number
distri Number
bution
bution

Per cent
distri
bution

Total..................................................

647

100.0

472

100.0

175

100.0

Less than 30 days.....................................
30 days, less than 60......................... ...... ...
60 days, less than 90...................................
90 days, less than 120...................................
120 days and over.........................................
Not reported............ ............... ...................

328
180
95
12
25
7

50.7
27.8
14.7
1.9
3.9
1.1

232
144
62
9
25

49.2
30.5
13.1
1.9
5.3

96
36
33
3

54.9
20.6
18.9
1.7

* 4.0

Earnings.

There
Yakima
day and
most of

was little difference in the earnings of hop pickers in the
and Willamette Valleys; most of them earned at least $1 a
a large proportion $2 or more, not including the bonus which
them expected to receive. Table 14 shows the amounts

io Oregon, Industrial Welfare Commission Order No. 46, dated Aug. 12, 1919; Washington, Industrial
Welfare Committee Order No. 31, dated Aug. 28,1922.

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AND H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

which 309 children in the Willamette Valley and 68 in the Yakima
Valley earned on the sample day for which data for hours were
obtained. Reports of earnings of some of the younger children could
not be obtained because many of them put the fruit or hops into the
containers used b y their mothers or older members of the family and
did not keep their earnings separate. As a rule, however, the older
children earned much more than children under 10 or 12 years. In
the Yakima Valley children who picked orchard fruits usually earned
more than children who did other kinds of harvesting. Most of the
64 children who had picked apples, pears, and peaches or prunes the
day before the interview had earned at least $2, and 30 had earned $3
or more. Of 86 children in the Yakima Valley who reported weekly
earnings and who had worked 48 hours or more the previous week
early two-thirds (65 per cent) had earned $12 or more, and of 134
children in the Willamette Valley about half (51 per cent) who had
worked the same hours and reported weekly earnings had earned this
amount.
Some migratory families said that they could make “ good money ”
at picking hops. Reports of seasonal earnings for family groups
were not obtained, but when both parents and several children were
working it is obvious that their earnings might be substantial. One
father working in a Willamette Valley hop yard who did not keep
his earnings separate from those of his 12-year-old son said that he
and his boy, both of whom picked faster than average workers, had
made $54.60 the previous week. The earnings of another family of
father, mother, and two children, working in the same district, who
had kept track of all checks received, are probably more nearly
typical. In three weeks the whole family had made $107.30.
T a b l e 14.— Earnings at hop picking on sample day of children in migratory families,

by age; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
■ Children under 16 picking hops on sample day
To tal
Earnings at hop picking on sample day
Number

Willamette Valley: Total____ _______

1367

Total reporting---------------- - - - - - ..............
Less than $1-----------------------------------$1, less than $1.50------------------ .............
$1.50, less than $2----------------------------.
$2, less than $3______________ _____ _

1309
52
271
70
280
30
6
58

Yakima Valley: Total.................. .
Total reporting____________ _______ _____
$1.50, less than $2....................... ...........
$2, less than $3_______________ _____ Not reporting......... ........... - ........... - ...........

100.0
16.8
23.0
22.7
25.9
9.7
1.9

103
68
12
7
16
16
16
1
35

1 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.
2 Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.

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Per cent
distri
bution

100.0
17. 6
10.3
23.5
23.5
23.5
1.5

Under 10 10 years, 12 years, 14 years,
years
under 12 under 14 under 16

110

112

37
21
8
5
2
1

69
18
27
16
8

97
7
22
25
33
8
2
13

104
6
13
24
36
21
4
8

12
9

14
3
2
3
5
i

3
8
7
5

2
3
3
10
1
5

2
1
12

Y A K IM A V A L L E Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L LE Y , OREG.

SCHOOLIN G OF CHILD W O R K E RS

Migratory life seriously interferes with the children’s school at
tendance. The beginning of the hop harvest in September in both
£e -u a^-ima and the Williamette Valley coincides with the opening
of the schools in many places from which the children come, and the
strawberry season in June in some sections of Washington and
Oregon begins before all the schools are closed. Children in famihes who “ follow the crops” suffer most from irregular attendance
as they either do not go to school at all in the districts where their
parents find work or else go irregularly to several schools in one year.
All except four of the child workers between the ages of 8 and 15
according to their parents’ statements, had been enrolled in one or
more schools durmg the year. Some of the children who were
Oregon at the time of the interview had attended school
m Washington, and some of these who were working in Washington
had last attended school in Oregon; others had attended school in
other States. The length of the school terms in the places from
which the children came varied greatly; in both States, city schools
usually had longer sessions than rural schools. The Portland schools
W^ Gi1IiiSess]i0-T1i^^^: daYs‘ But many of the rural schools in Oregon
which the children attended were in session from 145 to 174 davs
and many in Washington from 170 to 180 days. Because the sch ool
and prune raising districts of Oregon did not open until
alter the season was over, children from Salem who picked hops
missed no school, but all children from Portland, where the schools
opened the first week of September, missed about three school weeks
if they remained m the hop district until the end of the season.
An attempt was made to obtain attendance records for all child
workers interviewed in the Yakima and Willamette Valleys who had
been enrolled in schools of Washington and Oregon, either b y visit
ing the schools or, where the schools were inaccessible, b y corres
pond'ence-' Records were obtained for somewhat more than half the
children interviewed, including 258 children working in the Willamette Va ley and 95 in the Yakima, and for proportionately more
oi y children than rural. Records for the child workers whose
schooling was the most irregular could not be found, as a rule be
cause these children had attended several schools during the year
or because they had attended isolated schools, or because they cam<5
from outside the two States.
J
Of children for whom school records were obtained (that is, those
vmo had gone to school with some regularity the previous year)
about half (48 per cent) in the Willamette Valley had attended
l^ o p U e ss than 90 per cent of the school term, and more than onefiith (21 per cent) less than 80 per cent of the term. Child workers
m the Yakima Valley, especially Russian-German children were
absent longer periods. (Table 15.) Children 14 and 15 years of
age m both areas went to school with about the same regularity
as children under 14. The regularity of their attendance depended
on the permanency of the parents’ residence more than on other
1actors. JNearly twice as many migratory workers as local workers
m tlie two valleys (51 per cent of migratory workers and 27 per cent
ot local workers) had missed at least one school month. The poor

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AND H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

school attendance of child workers who were in the habit of migrat
ing is also partly indicated by a comparison of the number of days
of absence reported b y children who had made three or more mi
grations with the numner of days reported b y those who had made
one or two migrations only. About two-fifths of the children who
had made one or two migrations and three-fourths of those who had
made three or more migrations had missed 20 or more days of school)
about one-seventh of the children in the former group as compared
with nearly one-third in the latter group had been absent 50 days or
more.
T a b l e 15.— Per cent o f school attendance o f children under 16 years o f age in

migratory families, by district in which they were working at time of interview;
Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Working children under 16 attending school

Per cent of school attendance1

Willamette Valley

Total

Yakima Valley

Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Number distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion

Total reporting............................- ..............
5Ch59
60-69
70-79
¿0-89
90-99
ioo

......... ..............................
...........................- ........... ........
..................................- .........
.................................. ........
............................................
- ......... ...................................

169

632

463

353

100.0

258

100.0

3.4
3.4
8.8
14.4
25.2
40.2
4.5

5
7
20
23
70
120
13
205

1.9
2.7
7.8
8.9
27.1
46.5
5.0

7
5
11
28
19
22
3
74

7.4
5.3
11.6
29.5
20.0
23.2
3.2

12
12
31
51
89
142
16
279

i Per cent of school attendance was computed by dividing the number of days attended by the number
of days in the school term.

Although no statistics are available, some idea of the school prob
lem among children for whom no school records could be found may
be obtained from their parents’ statements. One father, for example,
said that his child, a girl of 12, had been out of school about two
months every fall for the last five years and that sometimes she
missed a month and a half in the spring also. A family in which
there were four children of school age had arrived in Portland about
Christmas time and had left the city the end of the following April
to go to eastern Washington for the strawberry picking. Members
of another family which had moved from Idaho in their automobile
were interviewed in Oregon in September. They said they had left
home in February and had been “ on the road ever since.” None of
the children in the three families had attended school since leaving
home; parents in other families, however, reported that they sent
their children to school in the districts where they were temporarily
working. One family, for example, which had left home in March
to train hops in the Willamette Valley had had the children enrolled
in the local school in April, and five other families which had har
vested apples in October in the Hood River Valley or the Yakima
Valley reported that they had sent their children to school in the
apple districts.
In most of the localities in both valleys where the study was made
school officials recognize the attendance problem among migratory

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children and interpret the law to apply to children who reside tem
porarily in the district. County attendance officers and local
school boards in these districts feel the responsibility of getting
such children to go to school. The number of children temporarily
enrolled m such districts is shown by the flux of the school population
m hop and fruit districts noted on pages 16 and 17. But when
families move from county to county and from State to State the
children’s schooling depends largely on their parents’ standards.
A considerable proportion of the children included in the study, as
would be expected from their poor school attendance, were in grades
lower than children of their ages are expected normally to be in.
In this connection it should be remembered that children in about
half the families had not migrated in previous years, so that the school
progress had not been affected by a migratory life. The amount
of retardation among these children as shown in Table 16 may be
underestimated, because the children’s statements as to grades
completed could not be verified in nearly half the cases. Of the
total number of migratory workers in both valleys between the
ages of 8 and 16 almost two-fifths were retarded one or more years,
of both valleys being more retarded than younger
ohildren. (Table 16.) A much larger proportion of the migratory
child workers in the Yakima Valley were behind average grades for
their ages than of migratory child workers in the Willamette Valley—
59 and 31 per cent, respectively. The percentage of retardation
among the Willamette Valley children was considerably higher
than the average for children attending city schools, and that of
the Yakima Valley children was more than twice the average. (See
p. 16.) The higher percentage of retardation among children of
the Yakima Valley is probably due to two causes: First, relatively
more Russian-German children, whose progress in school was es
pecially slow, were interviewed in the Yakima Valley; and, second,
relatively more children of native parentage belonged to families
that made a practice of “ following the fruit” in the Yakima Valley
than in the Willamette Valley.
T a b l e 16.— Progress in school o f working children in migratory families, by age;

Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Working children between 8 and 16 years of age attending school
Age at the time of interview

Retarded

Normal

Advanced

Total
Num
ber

Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Progress not
reported
Num
ber

Per
cent

Total...........................

1617

238

38.6

324

52.5

7.6

1.3

8 years, under 12. ............
12 years, under 14____
14 years, under 16........
Willamette Valley.......

225
200
190
1454

64
81
93
142

28.4
40.5
48.9
31.3

137
105
82
262

60.9
52.5
43.2
57.7

22
12
13
45

9.8
6.0
6.8
9.9

2
2
2
15

0.9
1.0
1.1
1.1

8 years, under 12..........
12 years, under 14.......
14 years, under 16........
Yakima Valley...........

171
140
141
163

41
44
57
96

24.0
31.4
40.4
58. 9

106
85
71
62

62.0
60. 7
50.4
38.0

22
11
12
2

12. 9
79
8.5
1.2

L_2

i
3

0.7
1.8

54
60
49

23
37
36

42.6
61.7
73.5

31
20
11

57.4
33. 3
22.4

1
1

1. 7
2.0

2
i

33
2.0

8 years, under 12___
12 years, under 14.......
14 years, under 16..........

1Includes 2 children whose exact ages were not learned.

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C H IL D LABOR I N F R U IT A N D H O P GRO W ING DISTRICTS
C AM PS FO R M IG R A TO R Y W O R K E R S

The living conditions of children who travel about with their
families, especially of those in families which move from camp to
camp and are absent from their homes for long periods, constitute
an important problem. In the hop yards and orchards, as in other
districts where seasonal workers are engaged, the workers are housed
in labor camps on the owners’ premises. The hop pickers’ camps
in the Willamette Valley are villages in themselves; these camps
usually house several hundred persons, and the camp on one ranch
visited housed more than 1,000. In most of the camps there were
tents, frame shacks, a store, and sometimes a meat market, a res
taurant, a company office, and a dance hall. In the prune orchards
of the Willamette Valley only a few families were encamped. In
the Yakima Valley camps for both hop pickers and orchard workers
were small, accommodating usually from 50 to 100 persons. In all
the camps except the orchard camps of the Yakima Valley there
appeared to be a preponderance of families with children. In most
of the larger camps it was impossible to obtain estimates of the
numbers of adults and children; in the smaller camps for hop
pickers, 8 in the Willamette Valley and 9 in the Yakima Valley,
however, there were 1,696 persons at the time of the interview,
including 726 under 16 years of age.
Housing.

Overcrowded conditions in bunk houses and tents prevailed.
Nearly three-fifths of the families working in the Willamette Valley
and nearly all those in the Yakima Valley lived in tents, which in
the Willamette Valley were usually provided by the growers and
in the Yakima Valley b y the families. In the Willamette Valley
as a rule they were either 10 by 12 feet or 12 by 14 feet, had canvas
sides and sloping roofs, and were pitched on the ground, although
occasionally they had wooden floors. In the Yakima Valley tents
were of all sizes and varieties including makeshift awnings rigged
over automobiles. The type of frame house most common in the
Willamette Valley was the row house, 1 room wide and 6 to 12 rooms
long, each room being about 10 by 12 feet. The houses were roughly
constructed, weatherboarded outside and not ceiled, and the par
titions between the rooms sometimes had cracks between the boards.
Each room had one window (which in some rooms, but not all,
could be opened and shut), a door opening outdoors, and, except
in one or two shacks which had no floor but the ground, a board
flooring. Most owners provided housing free of charge, but a few
charged a moderate rental. In one camp, where the accommodations
were unusually good, there was one large building, containing 68
rooms, each of which was supplied with running water and electric
light. Rent for each of these rooms was $3 for the season.
Generally every available space was utilized for sleeping. The
great majority of the 83 families in the Yakima Valley had only one
tent each, and more than half of the 265 families in the Willamette
Valley had only one room or one tent each; the remainder had two or
occasionally three. Some families in the Willamette Valley who had
brought a tent with them used the grower’s tent for eating and living
purposes and their own tent for sleeping. No owners in either valley

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provided beds for tents. Many families slept on the ground on straw
which they covered with a piece of old carpet or blanket; other
famihes brought camp cots with them or set up bed springs on boxes.
Some families slept in their automobiles, one family o f 11 having
two mattresses in their truck and two underneath it. In another
family the six children were sleeping in an old-fashioned covered wagon
and their parents on the ground under an awning. Row houses of
the Willamette Valley were usually provided with two built-in bunks,
one on top of the other, and these were filled with straw.
Tents and row houses in camps of both areas were extremely
crowded, but in the Yakima Valley, where many large families had
only one small tent, they were more congested than in the Willamette
Valley. Two-thirds of the famihes in the Willamette Valley and
practically all in the Yakima Valley had three or more persons per
tent or room; in the Willamette Valley only 20 per cent but in the
Yakima Valley 63 per cent had five or more persons per room. (Table
17.) Native as well as foreign-bom families had extremely crowded
quarters. Sixteen native and ten Russian-German families in the
Yakima area had seven or more persons to a tent, and many of these
tents were scarcely large enough to allow father, mother, and five
children to lie side b y side. No camps were found in either valley
like those on certain truck farms of Maryland where migratory
pickers and their families lived and slept in one large room, but
more crowded conditions prevailed than in camps for cranberry
pickers in New Jersey, where, as in the present study, each family
had one or more separate rooms.11
T a b l e 17.— Average number o f persons per room in migratory fam ilies living in

camps; Willamette and Yakima Valleys
Migratory families living in camps
Average number of persons per room
or tent

Total

Number

Willamette Valley

Per cent
distriNumber
bution

Yakima Valley

Per cent
distri Number
bution

Per cent
distri
bution

Total. _

336

100.0

256

100.0

1, less than 2.
2, less than 3.
3, less than 4 _
4,lessthan5.
5,less than 6 .
6,less than 7.
7,lessthan8_
8,lessthan9_
9,less than 10.
10 and over...

6.0
21.1

7.4
26.6
31.3
14.5

1.3
3.8
13.8
18.8
15.0
15.0
12.5

71
91
52
33
28

27.1
15.5
9.8
8.3

80
37

6.0

10
2
2

9
6
6

2.7

1.8
1.8

8.2

6.3
3.9
0.8
0.8

0.4

3
11

15
12
12
10

7
4
5

8.8

5.0
6.3

The cooking and other living arrangements were more adequate.
The space allotted each family and the resulting degree of privacy
varied greatly in the different camps of the two areas. Usually there
was enough space about the tents, which in the Willamette Valley
were often arranged in rows under a grove of trees, to set up benches,
a table, and a stove, and sometimes to park an automobile. Each
11 Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 25-29; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit
Farms m Southern New Jersey, pp. 53-56.

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family had some kind of stove, some using sheet-iron stoves provided
by the owner, which were set on poles about 2 feet from the ground;
others brought camp stoves, and still others used an iron cover
placed over a hole in the ground. In one large camp of the Willamette
Valley community stoves were provided, but most families preferred
to use their own. Some families who had brought canvas flies to
rig up in front of their tents also arranged canvas or burlap sides
about their tables; others lived and ate in the open.
Sanitation.

Sanitation of labor camps in Washington and Oregon is regulated.
The Washington State Board of Health and the Oregon State Indus
trial Welfare Commission have made regulations in respect to labor
camps which have the force of law.12 The Oregon regulations apply
only to camps in berry fields^ hop yards, and orchards, and the
Washington regulations specifically include these among the labor
camps subject to regulation. In Washington the site and the water
supply of all labor camps housing five or more persons, whether
temporary or permanent camps, must be approved by State and
local board-of-health officials. There are also certain specifications
concerning the construction of bunk houses and the amount of air
space to be provided per person, which, however, do not apply to
tent colonies like those in which the families included in the Yakima
study lived. In Oregon there are no specifications regarding the
construction of buildings in camps for hop and fruit pickers, but the
regulations apply to drinking water, toilets, and garbage disposal.
Inspections to enforce the regulations were not made, so far as could
be ascertained, in the districts studied in Washington. In the hop
yards and prune orchards of Oregon, however, the State industrial
welfare commission made inspections of the sanitary conditions in
the camps.
Privies were provided in all camp grounds in both areas, but the
number was often inadequate. In one of the Willamette Valley camps
flush closets were furnished. The order of the Oregon Industrial
Welfare Commission provides for separate toilets for men and women
in camp grounds and fields, toilets to be provided “ on a basis of not
less than 1 seat for every 20 women employed.” In 10 of the 15
Willamette Valley hop camps visited the provision regarding sepa
rate toilets was observed. But of the 8 yards where a census was
taken of the number of campers, there were 4 which had only 1
privy for 40 or more persons, the others having somewhat more
adequate provision. Although most of the camps in the Yakima
Valley were small, some of them had very inadequate toilet arrange
ments; in two of these camps there was only 1 privy for 50 or
more persons.
In the camps of both the Yakima and Willamette Valleys the
water supply, from drilled wells either located on the grounds or
piped to the grounds, was as a rule adequate. In the largest camp
visited there had been some illness, ana complaint was current re
garding the water, but it had been declared safe by State officials
after tests had been made for typhoid bacilli. On the large ranches,
12 Washington, Rules and Regulations of the State Board of Health, adopted July 27, 1921, sees. 63, 64,
70 (a), 70 (b). State of Washington, Department of Health, Olympia, 1921. Oregon, Industrial Welfare
Commission Order No. 49, dated M ay 25, 1922.

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32—1

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P IC K IN G HOPS, W I L L A M E T T E VALLEY

I pi"

T Y P E S OF F R A M E SHACKS. PUYALLUP VALLEY

C O O K I N G A R R A N G E M E N T S , C A M P FO R H O P P IC K E R S , W I L L A M E T T E V A L L E Y

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Y A K IM A V A L LE Y , W A S H ., AN D W IL L A M E T T E V A L LE Y , OREG.

according to the requirement of the Oregon State Welfare Com
mission, water was carried to the pickers in the field, either in barrels
or in water wagons furnished with a tank and spigots. In one
Yakima orchard “ water b oys” carried the water m tin pails and
served it with tin dippers.13 In the smaller camps the maintenance
ot sanitary conditions was left to the individual campers, but in some
ot the large and well-organized hop-picking camps the owner care5 “ v supervised the sanitation, appointing an employee to clean and
disimect privies, empty garbage cans, and clean up camp grounds.
Other Features o f Camp Life.

Buying food supplies at reasonable prices was a problem, accord
ing to_ many pickers. With few exceptions employers furnished no
provisions, and prices at the stores on camp grounds, which were
run by local dealers through concessions, were high. In order to
buy supplies, pickers who owned cars and had ready money drove to
town, 3 to 6 miles from many of the hop camps; families with no
money were obhged to trade at the camp stores where tickets were
accepted. There they could buy fresh milk, fresh fruit, ice cream,
soltdrm ks, and staple groceries and could give orders for meat. In
the Yakima Valley most of the families who did not drive to town
bought their supplies from hucksters’ wagons.
Special provision for recreation in the evening was made in a few
camps of the Willamette Valley. Some camps had dances, either in
regular dance halls conducted by the management of the camps or
by outsiders through concessions. In two dance halls, where out
siders from the neighboring towns were admitted, the watchman or
deputy sheriff employed by the camps stated that the riffraff from
the towns made trouble and that whisky had been smuggled into one
camp. Several families said that, they did not allow their girls to
attend the dances. In camps of both areas where there was no
organized recreation the pickers often arranged bonfires or games.
I he manager of the largest camp in the Willamette Valley employed
a recreation director, two assistants, two nurses, and two matrons.
Ihe recreation workers directed the games and camp fires, organized
the musical talent of the pickers, and endeavorea to keep rowdy
persons out of the dance nail. The recreation director also had
general charge of the sanitary condition of the camp.14
H ^ h S p t S ^ 2 7 ? ^ 2 1 ^ ? t ) f d- WaShingt° n’ EuleS and Eegulations of «»*
Board of
«n
l
■ *i,aUsp*ces of the Council of Women for Home Missions health and recreation centers were
sumjPers .o f ¿924 and 1925 on a few ranches in hop and fruit growing sections in Oregon
w ^ p lid by thehcouncUerSm theSG centers were paid by the growers, and the cost of supervising the work

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CHILD LABOR IN BERRY FIELDS OF THE PUYALLUP
VALLEY, WASH.

In the berry fields of the Puyallup Valley, Wash., both local and
migratory child workers are employed during the three or four weeks
of the raspberry season in July and to a lesser extent during the
strawberry season in June and the blackberry season in August and
September. Some of the strawberry pickers remain for the rasp
berry season; but because the blackberry season does not begin
until the middle of August about three weeks after the raspberry
harvest, an entirely new set of migratory pickers is engaged for the
blackberry picking. Besides small fruits some vegetables are raised
in the district selected for the survey, principally lettuce, cabbage,
cauliflower, and celery. On the truck farms, which are generally
in the hands of Japanese tenant farmers, only local workers are
employed.
The berry “ ranches,” so called although they are usually only a
few acres in extent, are clustered near the Puyallup River on the
outskirts of two prosperous towns, not far from the cities of Tacoma
and Seattle, Tacoma being three-fourths of an hour away b y motor
bus and Seattle two hours. Both the berry ranches ana the truck
farms are small and are intensively cultivated. A few berry ranches
in the district are 20 acres or more in extent, and the largest ranch
visited had 60 acres of raspberries and 30 of strawberries; ranches of
3 or 4 acres on which raspberries only were grown were common.
About nine-tenths of the 117 farming families whose children worked
had 5 or more acres of berries or vegetables, but less than one-half
had 10 or more acres, and the size of their farms seldom exceeded
20 or 30 acres. Even for raspberry patches of 2 or 3 acres, however,
sufficient local workers could usually not be obtained for the har
vesting, and small as well as large growers were obliged to bring
additional help from the cities.
T H E LAB O R SUPPLY
LO C A L W O R K E R S

For the harvest season berry growers engage what local workers
they can find, but rely also on their own and their neighbors7children.
Of the 280 child workers who lived in the Puyallup Valley district
seven-tenths belonged to families of berry growers or truck farmers,
and small numbers, to families in which the head of the household
did no farm work. (Table 18.) Like the child workers of the
Yakima and of the Willamette Valley, the majority of the children
were of native white parentage, but 28 per cent were of foreign-born
white parentage and 17 per cent, of Japanese. A few were American
Indian. Among the white families in which the father was foreign
born, Scandinavians and Germans predominated. Most of these
had been in the United States many years and were to a large extent
34

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P U Y A L L U P VAL LE Y , W A S H .

Americanized; they spoke English, and subscribed to American news
papers or periodicals. Most of the Japanese bad been in this country
as long as the Europeans, and most of the Japanese fathers could
speak English and were literate, but many of the Japanese mothers
could not speak English nor could they read and write.
M ost of the Japanese but practically none of the white farmers
were truck growers. The Japanese farmers as a rule were tenants
who paid cash rent for their holdings for a term of years restricted
by the State law. Most of the white farmers who raised berries
owned their land. Many of the farmers, both owners and tenants,
supported their families entirely b y raising berries or truck, but other
farmers supplemented their incomes b y working in the local industries.
In 86 families (nearly half of those included in the study) the head
of the household reported occupations other than farm work or in
addition to it. Twenty-one were employed in factories or mills,
some of them “ commuting” for work in Tacoma; others were skilled
mechanics, railroad employees, or storekeepers; and several were
clerical or professional workers.
T a b l e 18.— Economic status o f chief breadwinner in local fam ilies, by working

status of children; Puyallup Valley
Children under 16 working during year—

Total

Economic status o f chief
breadwinner

T o ta l..................................
Farm owner................ ..........
Farm tenant.......................
Farm laborer.........................
Nonagricultural..................................

On
home farm
only

On
other farms
only

On
home farm and
other farms

Num
ber

Per
cent
distri
bution

Num
ber

Per
cent
distri
bution

Num
ber

Per
cent
distri
bution

280

100.0

120

100.0

102

100.0

148
52
20
60

52.9
18.6
7.1
21.4

85
31
3
1

70.8
25.8
2.5
0.8

25
4
16
57

24.5
3.9
15.7
55.9

38
17
1
2

ßßfk
29 3
17
3.4

Num
ber

Per
cent
distri
bution

The majority of the white families whose children worked, whether
the parents were native or foreign born, lived in the thickly settled
valley in comfortable, substantially built bungalows of two stories.
Behind many of the houses were several acres of carefully cultivated
raspberry bushes, and on the edge of the field were low shacks which
served to house the migratory pickers. Japanese families were gen
erally not so well housed as the white families, some of them living
in unpainted shacks or sheds of three or four rooms with no modern
conveniences. Many families lived near enough to the towns to
use the town water supply and electric light. About half the families,
including only a few of the Japanese, had electric light, and a some
what larger proportion had running water and kitchen sinks. Over
crowding, although present in some houses, was not a serious problem,
at least among the white families. About one-tenth of the 173
families reporting (11 white and 8 Japanese) had two or more persons
per room.

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AN D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS
M IG R A T O R Y W O R K E R S

Migratory workers do a great deal of the berry picking; 359 migra
tory child workers (only a very small proportion of those present in
the districts surveyed) were included in the study. To find and keep
sufficient numbers of pickers for the raspberry season and to get
pickers with any previous experience is a problem, according to the
growers interviewed. Growers make little attempt to engage men
for picking berries but advertise for girls and for women with children
over 10 and 12 years. There is no concerted action b y the berry
growers’ associations to engage workers, and individual berry growers
are dependent on their own efforts to obtain an adequate number
of pickers. As in other districts, owners advertise extensively in the
city papers and sometimes also correspond with former pickers or
visit them. Owners of large ranches sometimes send a truck to the
docks and railroad stations of Seattle or Tacoma to pick up what
families they can find. Arrangements with pickers are usually made
informally, often over the telephone, but some of the larger employers
send out a form letter describing the conditions of the work, the
supplies provided, and the pay offered. Transportation, at least
from the end of the bus line to the ranch, is usually furnished families
who desire it. Two-fifths of the families included in the study, how
ever, had provided all their own transportation, either paying their
way in the bus or coming out in automobiles of friends or relatives.
Unlike workers in the other districts surveyed, the berry pickers are
not obliged to bring a great deal of baggage with them, as the growers
provide not only housing but also furnishings, except bedding and
dishes.
The families who migrate to this area for work in the berry fields
are of a different type from the transient families in the Yakima and
Willamette Valleys. Few families that make a practice of harvest
ing fruit come to the Puyallup Valley. The workers who come to
pick berries are usually women and children from neighboring towns
and cities who come “ to the country” for a few weeks “ for a summer
outing” and then return to their homes. Only 5 per cent of those
included in the study had come from a distance; that is, from other
States or Canada. Some had come from other parts of Pierce
County, from adjacent counties, or from localities bordering on Puget
Sound; seven-tenths had come from Tacoma or Seattle. The ma
jority had made but one migration during the year. (Table 19.)
Most of the families, including some of those who had migrated twice
during the 12 months preceding the interview, had picked raspberries
only, but a few had picked strawberries or blackberries. Large num
bers of the families had had no previous experience with berry picking,
and 71 per cent had never before migrated to the berry fields or to any
other district for field work.
The families differed from one another greatly in social and
economic status. Some of them were friends and relatives of the
berry growers. Although the majority were native white, in about
two-fifths of the white families— a larger proportion than among the
migratory families of the Yakima and Willamette Valleys—-the
fathers were of foreign birth, most of them Scandinavian, but a few of
various other nationalities. Four per cent were Indian. There were
no Japanese. Few of the foreign born were recent immigrants, and
practically all spoke English. Most of the white parents were literate,

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P U Y A L L U P VAL LE Y , W A S H .

but a few of the foreign-born fathers and some of the mothers could
not Yead and write even their own language. Both native and
foreign-born fathers were engaged in many different occupations,
ranging from professional pursuits to unskilled labor. Two-fifths of
them were employed in manufacturing or mechanical occupations.
A lew were foremen in factories or contractors, and the remainder
were skilled or unskilled operatives and laborers. Among those in
nonmanufacturing occupations were loggers, barbers, janitors, long
shoremen, motormen, conductors, store proprietors, traveling sales
men, and mail clerks.
W O R K OF LO CAL A N D M IG R A T O R Y C H ILD R EN

Tbe principal work of local children and the only work of migratory
children was berry picking. Practically all the children included in the
study had picked raspberries. A large number of local children, but
only a small number of migratory children, had picked strawberries
also. It was usual for children over 10 or 12 years of age, whose
were in the berry districts, both children of berry growers and
children in nonfarming families, to help with the berry picking. Of
374 children from 6 to 15 years of age living in the three selected
school districts at the time the study was made, 45 per cent had
worked during the year on fruit or truck crops. Many of the chil
dren were employed as hired laborers. (Table 18.) Even children
whose lathers were growers employing migratory workers did field
work. On some ranches, especially the larger ones, the older chil
dren ol the owners did not pick but helped their mothers inspect
the berries and give out pay tickets to the pickers.
T a b l e 19.

Localities from which fam ilies came, by number o f migrations during
the year; Puyallup Valley
Migratcfry families with children under 16 picking small fruits
Number of migrations during year

Sections from which migratory
families came

Total
One

Number

Total.............................
Pierce County..... .............
Tacoma...................
Other parts of county..
King County..... .............
Seattle____ _______
Other parts of county.
Other counties in State.......
Outside State...............

Per cent
distri Number
bution

Two

Three
Per cent
Per cent and more1
distri Number distri
bution
bution

2220

100.0

145

100.0

213

102
79
23
83
75
8
24
10

46.4
35.9
10.5
37.7
34.1
3.6
10.9
4.5

59
46
13
59
53
6
19
8

■ 40.7
31.7
9.0
40.7
36.6
4.1
13.1
5.5

38
30
8
21
20
1
3

61.3
48.4
12.9
33i 9
32.3
1.6
4.8

5
3
2
3
2
1
2
2

* Per cent distribution not shown where base is less than 50.
8Includes 1 family for which section was not reported.
A G E A N D S E X OF C H IL D W O R K E R S

T^e majority of the children included in the study (70 per cent of
the local workers and 62 per cent of the migratory) were under 14
years of age. As among the workers in the Willamette and Yakima

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GRO W ING DISTRICTS

Valleys, only a small percentage as compared with the children on
Eastern truck farms were under 10. Nine per cent of each group in
the Puyallup Valley districts had not reached their tenth birthday
at the time of the interview, whereas the proportions of workers
under 10 on truck and fruit farms in New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir
ginia ranged from 16 to 29 per cent.1 (Table 20.) Among both local
and migratory children under 12 years of age there were more boys
than girls, but among migratory children of 14 and 15 years there
were almost twice as many girls as boys. Growers advertise for girls
rather than for boys, because they say that girls of 14 years and older
pick faster and are more persevering in their work than boys of the
same ages. Among local children almost as large a proportion of
children under 12 as of those over 12 had worked as lured laborers.
The majority of the local workers, but only a small proportion o f the
migratory, had done field work in other years; four-fifths of the local
workers, but less than two-fifths of the migratory, had worked before
the season the survey was made. Among workers 14 and 15 years
of age 61 per cent oi the local workers, but only 16 per cent of the
migratory, had worked three seasons or more, and not necessarily
consecutively.
T a b l e 20.— Ages o f local and migratory child workers, by sex; Puyallup Valley

Chadren under 16
Girls

Boys

Total
Age at time of interview
Number

Per cent
distri- Number
button

Per cent
distributton

Local: Total....... .

280

100.0

146

100.0

134

100.0

Under 8 years.................
8 years, under 10. . _____
10 years, under 12_____
12 years, under 14......... .
14 years, under 16......... .
Not reported.................

4
21
76
92
84
3

1.-4
7.5
27.1
32.9
30.0
1.1

3
10
48
48
35
2

2.1
6.8
32.9
32.9
24.0
1.4

1
11
28
44
49
1

.7
8.2
20.9
32.8
36.6
.7

Migratory: Total.

359

100.0

162

100.0

197

100.0

Under 8 years...............
8 years, under 10...........
10 years, under 12....... .
12 years, under 14.........
14 years, under 16.........
Not reported...... ...........

3
30
78
112
134
2

.8
8.4
21.7
31.2
37.3
.6

3
13
44
52
48
2

1,9
8.0
27.2
32.1
29.6
1.2

17
34
60
86

8.6
17.3
30.5
43.7

K IN D S O F W O R K

Child workers of all ages do raspberry picking, although, according
to the rules of one of the berry growers’ associations, “ no children
under 10 years of age are allowed in the yards, as they destroy more
berries and vines than their services are worth.” Despite this rule
all the resident and migratory children under 10 included in the study
had picked raspberries. (Table 21.) Picking berries for shipment,
as is explained on page 10, requires care. In the Puyallup Valley
most of the berries picked during the early part of the season are
1 ChUd Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, pp. 8, 29; Chad Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
Truck Farms, p. 8; Work of Chadren on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New Jersey, pp. 7,33.

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P U Y A L L U P V A L LE Y , W A S H .

designed for shipment; berries picked in the latter part of the season
and those softened by rain are sent to canneries. Before shipment
they are usually inspected and graded at the shipping office of the
cooperative associations, and if not up to standard are shipped short
distances or consigned to canneries. Sometimes pickers are required
to sort the berries as they pick, choosing firm berries for the “ ship
ping cup 7; and soft, dark berries for th e 11cannery cup.77 Two “ cups77
or baskets are placed in a carrier worn about the picker’s waist, the
cannery cup holding 1 quart and the shipping cup 1 pint. Picking
raspberries is not hard work, however, because the canes, as the fruit
bearing branches are commonly called, are held in place b y wires and
are within easy reach of all except small children, and as the bushes
are from 6 to 8 feet high in the harvest season they afford some shade.
(See illustration facing p. 32.)
T a b l e 21. — Kinds o f harvesting done by children in local and migratory families,

by age; Puyallup Valley
Children under 16 doing each specified kind of harvesting
Kind of harvesting

Total

Num
ber

Per
cent

Under
10
years1

10 years,
under 12
Num
ber

Per
cent

12 years,
under 14
Num
ber

Per
cent

14 years,
under 16
Num
ber

Per
cent

Local: T otal8..............

3 280

100.0

Picking small fruits4_______
Easpberries____ _______
Strawberries....................
Other small fruits............

8261
8257
141
67

93.2
91.8
50.4
23.9

25
25
13
7

69
68
36
14

90.8
89.5
47.4
18.4

88
87
51
20

95.7
94.6
55.4
21.7

76
74
41
26

90.5
88.1
48.8
31.0

Migratory: Total8____

«359

100.0

112

100.0

134

100.0

Picking small fruits4.............
Easpberries____________
Strawberries....................
Other small fruits............

8 359
»359
50
37

100.0
100.0
13.9
10.3

33
33
5
3

78
78
11
10

100.0
100.0
14.1
12.8

112
112
12
12

100.0
100.0
10.7
10.7

134
134
22
12

100.0
100.0
16.4
9.0

1 Per cent not shown where base is less than 50.
8 The reason that the items do not add to the totals is that many of the children harvested more than
one crop.
8 Includes 3 children for whom age was not reported.
4 Small fruits include strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, blackberries, and currants. Children in
this group may have picked one or more varieties.
8 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.

Strawberries in this district must be picked carefully. One mother
remarked that the “ boss77 would not allow her boy of 7 years to work
in the strawberry patch but that she hoped he would be allowed to
pick raspberries.
Of the 191 local and migratory children who picked strawberries
9 per cent were under 10 years of age. This proportion is much smaller
than the proportion of child strawberry pickers under 10 in smallfruit growing areas of the Atlantic coast, where berries are not graded
so carefully for long-distance shipment. Near Norfolk, Va., for
example, the proportion is about one-fourth, and among certain
groups of child workers on Maryland truck farms it is between
one-fourth and one-third.2
8 Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Truck Farms, p. 8; and unpublished data regarding
children on Maryland truck farms.

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C H IL D LABOR I K F R U IT AND H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

Besides picking strawberries and raspberries, a small number of
children had picked other kinds of berries, mostly blackberries, but
some gooseberries, currants, and black raspberries. Cherries, other
orchard fruits, and hops are not raised in this area to any extent, and
the number of children who harvested orchard fruits or hops was
negligible.
. |1
Practically no migratory children had done any work except picking
fruit, and few local workers were hired for any other work. About
one-fourth of the children living in the districts studied, including
about twice as many boys as girls, did hoeing or weeding on their
fathers’ farms, and a smaller proportion, mostly boys of 12 years or
older, did plowing or cultivating, or pruned and trained berry bushes
on the home farm. (Table 22.) It might be expected that more
children of berry growers would have worked on the berry bushes,
doing such work as cutting out old canes, topping bushes, or tying
new canes to the wires, but this work requires both skill and strength
and is usually done by adults. Few children in this district reported
transplanting strawberry plants, an important part of children’s
work in some small-fruit districts. Most of the children in the Puyal
lup Valley who had done transplanting, or planting, or harvesting
vegetables and many of those who had done hoeing and weeding
were children of Japanese truck farmers. On the farms of the
Japanese truck growers the whole family—father, mother, and three
or four children—work together, getting down on their hands and
knees to weed or transplant the long rows of lettuce, cauliflower, and
celery.
T a b l e 22. — Principal kinds o f work done during year by children in local families,

by sex; Puyallup Valley
Children under 16 doing each specified kind of work
Kind of work

Number Per cent Number
T otal1....................................- ...........
General farm work:

Girls

Boys

Total

Per cent Number

Per cent

280

100.0

146

100.0

134

100.0

33
32
73
73
261
257
141
67

11.8
11.4
26.1
26.1
93.2
91.8
50.4
23.9

29
24
50
48
130
126
71
36

19.9
16.4
34.2
32.9
89.0
86.3
48.6
24.7

4
8
23
25
131
131
70
31

3.0
6.0
17.2
18.7
97.8
97.8
52.2
23.1

45
24

16.1
8.6

29
15

19.9
10.3

16
9

11.9
6.7

1 The reason that the items do not add to the totals is that most of the children did several kinds of work
during the year.
......................
, ...
* Includes plowing, harrowing, disking, dragging, and cultivating.
.
.
.
8 Small fruits include strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, blackberries, and currants. Children m
this group may have picked more than one variety.
HOURS

The hours the children worked in the Puyallup raspberry fields
were not, as a rule, nearly so long as the hours in the hop yards and
orchards of the other districts surveyed, although on many raspberry

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PU YALLU P VALLEY, W ASH .

ranches the nominal hours were from 7 or 8 a. m. until 6 p. m. On
only two or three ranches was a 9 hour or 10 hour day strictly enforced;
on these the field boss called the pickers or rang a gong in the camp
quarters in the morning and after the noon hour. On many ranches,
although the owners complained about the idleness of some of the
pickers, especially the girls who stayed in camp and the boys who
went swimming in the afternoons, they allowed them to work the
hours they wished.
Seven-tenths of the child workers (about equal proportions among
local and migratory workers) had worked six hours or more on the
last day before the agent’s visit, a day which may be taken as typical
of a working day in the harvest season because practically all the
migratory and more than three-fourths of the local workers had been
working in the raspberry fields on that day. Some children, however,
in these berry fields as well as in the hop yards of the other two areas
surveyed, had worked long hours. One-third of the migratory and
one-fourth of the local child workers in this area had worked more
than 8 hours a day; 12 per cent of the migratory and 9 per cent of the
local child workers had worked 10 hours a day or longer. Among
local children those who worked for their parents reported longer
hours than those who worked for other farmers. Few local berry
pickers under 12 years of age reported long hours, but nearly as large
a proportion of the migratory pickers under 12 as of children older
than this had worked more than 8 hours. (Table 23.)
T a b l e 23. — Hours o f work o f children in local and migratory fam ilies on sample

day in the harvest season, hy age; Puyallup Valley
Children under 16
10 years, under 12 years, under 14 years, under
14
12
16

Total
Hours of field work on
typical day

Under
10
Per
Per
Per
Per
years1
Num
Num
cent
Num
cent
cent
Num cent
distri
distri
ber
ber
ber
distri
distri
ber
bution
bution
bution
bution

Local: Total_________
Total reporting____________
Less than 6 hours______
6 hours, less than 8_____
More than 8 horns, less
9 hours, less than 10 . . .
10 hours, less than 11- ..
11 hours, less than 13___

Migratory: Total— —
Total reporting____________
Less than 6 hours........ .
6 hours, less than 8_____
8 hours even....................
More than 8 hours, less
9 hours, less than 10____
10 hours, less than 11___
11 hours, less than 13___

280
8204
59
8 55
37

100.0
28.9
27.0
18.1

14
4 21
13
5

6.9
10.3
6.4
2.5

25
11
4
6

76
57
22
19
8

100.0
38.6
33.3
14.0

92
69
20
16
15

100.0
29.0
23.2
21.7

84
64
13
13
14

100.0
20.3
20.3
21.9

1
3
3
1

1.8
5.3
5.3
1.8

5
5
5
3

7.2
7.2
7.2
4.3

8
10
5
1

12.5
15.6
7.8
1.6

4 359
4 338
105
71
850

100.0
31.1
21.0
14.8

33
26
13
5
1

78
70
25
15
7

100.0
35.7
21.4
10.0

112
109
32
24
16

100.0
29.4
22.0
14.7

134
131
35
27
25

100.0
26.7
20.6
19.1

8
865
35
4

2.4
19.2
10.4
1.2

4
3

3
11
8
1

4.3
15.7
11.4
1.4

3
20
12
2

2.8
18.3
11.0
1.8

2
29
12
1

1.5
22.1
9.2
0.8

1 Per cent not shown where base is less than 50.
2 Includes 3 children for whom age was not reported.
8Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.
4 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.

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—

C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS
D U R A T IO N

The majority of the child workers, both local and migratory,
worked at least six days a week, six or eight hours daily, and some of
them worked also on Sundays. Nearly half the migratory, and about
one-fifth of the local child workers had worked on the Sunday pre
ceding the interview. Nearly three-fifths of the migratory and
about half as large a proportion of the local children had worked 48
hours or longer the week preceding the interview.
Local workers, although not working relatively as many hours
daily or weekly as the migratory, worked many more days during the
ye&r. The migratory workers were usually employed only for three
weeks during the height of the raspberry season, in July, but the
local workers picked raspberries that ripened before the arrival of the
migratory workers and after their departure, besides picking straw
berries or helping with other farm work. Some of the migratory
workers interviewed at the beginning of the season had worked
fewer than 12 days, and the majority had worked fewer than 30 days
during the year. Almost three-fourths of the local children reported
at least 30 days’ work, and more than one-fourth, 60 days’ work or
more. (Table 24.) Local workers in this area worked about as
long as local child workers in the Yakima and Willamette Valleys.
In the Puyallup Valley, as in the other districts studied, it was the
children between 12 and 16 years of age, including most of the Japan
ese children of these ages, who worked the longest periods, some of
the Japanese children working every day on the truck farms from the
middle of May, when school closed, to the first week in September,
when school opened.
T a b l e 24.— Duration o f field work o f children in local and migratory families, by

age; Puyallup Valley
Children under 16
10 years, under 12 years, under 14 years, under
14
16
12

Total
Number of days of work
during year
Num
ber

Local: Total_________
Total reporting.......................
12 days, less than 30____
30 days, less than 60 . . .
60 days, less than 90____
90 days, less than 120___

8280
8237
* 66
* 102
32
17
20

Migratory: Total_____
Total reporting____________
6 days, less than 12_____
12 days, less than 30------30 days, less than 60____
60 days, less than 90____

Under
Per
Per
10
cent years1 Num
cent
distri
distri
ber
bution
bution

92
75
20
33
9
6
7

Per
Per
Num
cent
cent
distri
ber
distri
bution
bution
84
74
14
27
16
10
7

25
21
8
11
2

76
65
23
30
5
1
6

443

8 359
8 350
74
8 205
57
12
2

33
31
10
12
7
2

78
73
15
42
10
5
1

112
111
22
68
17
4

134
133
27
81
23
1
1

100.0
27.8
43.0
13.5
7.2
8.4

100.0
21.1
58.6
16.3
3.4
0.6

i Per cent not shown where base is less than 60.
a Includes 3 children for whom age was not reported.
8 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.
* Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.

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Num
ber

100.0
35.4
46.2
7.7
1.5
9.2

100.0
20. 5
57. 5
13. 7
6.8
1.4

100.0
26.7
44.0
12.0
8.0
9.3

100.0
19.8
61.3
15.3
3.6

100.0
18.9
36.5
21.6
13.5
9.5

100.0
20.3
60.9
17.3
0.8
0.8

PU Y ALLU P VALLEY, W ASH .

E A R N IN G S

The earnings of raspberry pickers in the Puyallup Valley were
comparatively small. The weekly earnings of 72 per cent of 150
children who had worked 48 hours or more were less than $8, and
only 17 per cent of the children who had worked these hours had
made as much as $10, whereas most of the children in both the hop
and the orchard districts who had worked 48 hours or more had
earned at least $10, and more than one-half had earned $12 or more.
Raspberry pickers usually earned from 50 cents to $1.50 a day.
(Table 25.) About one-third of the children who worked for their
parents received pay for their work. The earnings of both those
who “ hired ou t” and those who worked for their parents were about
the same as the earnings of migratory workers.
T a b l e 25. — Earnings on sample day o f children1 in local and migratory fam ilies

picking raspberries, by age; Puyallup Valley
Children1under 16 picking raspberries on sample day
10 years, under 12 years, under 14 years, under
12
14
16

Total
Earnings of children picking
raspberries on sample day
Number

Per
cent
distribution

Under
10 _
Number

Per
Per
Per
cent
Numcent
Numcent
distridistriber
ber
distribution2
bution2
bution3

Local: Total_____

3 187

Total reporting earnings.

380

100.0

Less than $0.50_____
$0.50, less than $1__
$1, less than $1.50__
$1.50, less than $2__
$2, less than $3........ .

9
333
26
11
1

11.3
41.3
32. 5
13.8
1.3

4
2

3
9
7
1

2
11
12
2

No earnings___________
Not reporting____ ____ _

57
50

6
8

14
22

23
11

9
7
8
1
14
9

Migratory: Total-

3 344

Total reporting earnings.

3 325

100.0

105
103

100.0

119

100.0

Less than $0.50_____
$0.50, less than $1__
$1, less than $1.50....
$1.50, less than $2__
$2, less than $3_____

4 29
4 126
122
38
10

8.9
38.8
37.5
11.7
3.1

11
13
6

12
31
20
6
2

16.9
43.7
28.2
8. 5
2.8

3
43
42
11
4

2.9
41.7
40.8
10. 7
3.9

2
38
54
21
4

1.7
31.9
45.4
17.6
3.4

Not reporting..................

127

1 Excludes 93 children in resident families and 15 in migratory families that were not picking raspberries
on sample day.
2 Per cent not shown where base is less than 50.
3 Includes 2 children for whom age was not reported.
4Includes 1 child for whom age was not reported.

All the pickers in the district surveyed were paid b y the piece.
The rate for a crate of raspberries, each crate containing 24 boxes,
varied from 50 to 60 cents and usually a 10-cent bonus per crate
was paid to pickers who stayed as long as they were needed. The
rates paid for picking “ cannery” and “ shipping” berries were usually
about equal, but occasionally 10 cents a crate extra was paid for
picking cannery berries because the baskets for cannery berries are
about twice as large as the baskets for shipping berries, although
the cannery berries are easier to pick. The rates for picking straw
berries and blackberries were somewhat lower. 35 cents for a crate

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT A N D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

of blackberries and 40 to 50 cents for a crate of strawberries. All
pickers were paid b y tickets which were punched after
each crate was picked and which on most ranches could be cashed
on demand but on some ranches not until the end of the season.
Although many of the pickers said they came to the valley for a
“ vacation” or to earn pm money, there was much dissatisfaction
because of the small amount of money they were able to make, as
even adults seldom earned more than $10 a week. Some stated that
they had tried berry picking “ to see what it was like, ” but that “ there
was no money in i t ” and that they would f‘ never try it again.”

m ig ra to ry

S C H O O L IN G OF LOCAL A N D M IG R A T O R Y W O R K E R S

The school attendance of few local or migratory berry pickers in
the Puyallup Valley district included in the study was interfered with
by then* work in the berry fields. Although the blackberry season,
which lasts from the middle of August to October, conflicts with part
of the school term, as schools in the Puyallup Valley and also those
in Seattle and Tacoma open the first week in September, only nine
local children said that they had been absent from school on account
of field work. The attendance records of most of the children, both
local and migratory, compare very favorably with attendance records
of child workers in the other districts surveyed. Practically all the
children of compulsory school age had been enrolled in school during
the year preceding the survey. Of the 8 children who had not
attended school 5 were from Indiana and 3 were members of a
migratory family from Kansas. Of the 250 local and 252 migratory
workers tor whom school records were obtained 86 per cent and 83
per cent, respectively, had attended school at least 90 per cent of
their respective school terms. Attendance records of the resident
Japanese children, many of whom worked on truck farms, where the
growing season lasts six or seven months, were particularly good;
44 of the 48 children for whom records were obtamed had attended
school 90 per cent or more of the term. Only 17 per cent of the migra
tory children in the Puyallup Valley, compared with 53 per cent of the
migratory children of the Yakima and Willamette Valleys for whom
school records were obtained, had missed as much as 20 days of
school for any cause. Consequently the progress in school of children
working in this area was not affected by their field work. Twentyone per cent of the local children between 8 and 16 years of age and
25 per cent of the migratory children of these ages were behind
average grades for their ages—proportions somewhat lower than the
average for city school children. (See p. 16.)
The migratory workers of the Puyallup Valley were less retarded
in school than any other group of migratory farm workers in
cluded in the Children’s Bureau surveys of child labor on farms,
rob ably because the majority are of native parentage as well as
ecause their work does not keep them out of school. Their per
centage of retardation was somewhat smaller than that for the
Willamette Valley workers, considerably less than half that of the
Polish children who go out from Baltimore to work on the Maryland
truck farms, and only one-third that of the Italian children who
migrate to southern New Jersey to pick berries and vegetables.3

3 Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms, p. 33; Work of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in
Southern New Jersey, pp. 42, 52.

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PU Y ALLU P VALLEY, W ASH .

B ER R Y P IC K E R S ’ C A M P S

As in other districts where migratory workers are employed, the
pickers in the Puyallup Valley are housed on the owners’ premises.
On the berry ranches the camps are generally small, housing an
average of about 20 persons per camp. In the largest camp visited
the exact number of campers could not be obtained, but it was
probably more than 250.
Although many of these children came to the camps with their
mothers, m nearly three-tenths of the 220 families represented they
were not accompanied by either parent. Fifty-seven children, about
half of whom were girls, had no responsible person with them, but
were usually with brothers or sisters, or with friends of their own age.
In a few camps visited there were no adult workers. One Japanese
grower who employed white pickers had three boys and four girls
between 14 and 17 years living in his row house, but no adults. Some
growers, however, would not employ girls unaccompanied by grown
persons.
In some of the smaller camps the pickers were housed in old shacks,
barns, or bungalow tents (see illustration facing p. 33), but in most
of the camps there were row houses built for the purpose. Many of
these houses were shingled and painted; generally they had water
tight roofs, wooden floors raised about 2 feet from the ground, and
solid partitions between the rooms. The size of the rooms varied
somewhat; most of them were 8 to 10 feet wide, 10 to 12 feet long,
and 8 to 10 feet high. Each room had at least one window about 2
feet square. Some of these windows were fitted with glass panes, and
some were screened. ^ Each room had also a separate entrance open
ing on the porch, wliich ran the entire length of the building. Most
of the rooms had two built-in bunks, one over the other, but some of
the larger rooms had three bunks, each bunk designed to accommodate
two persons. Most of the bunks were filled with straw, and in some
of the newer houses they had wire springs. A table was usually
supplied for each room, and one stove for every two rooms, the stove
usually being on the porch. In one or two houses the porch was
boarded in and partitioned, and each family had a stove and a
kitchen of its own.
One of the greatest difficulties with housing of this kind, where
each room can accommodate from four to six persons, is the fact that
a small family sometimes is obliged to share a room with another
family. In one camp, for example, a mother and three girls, aged 14,
11, and 9, shared the room with another mother and her boy of 13;
in another camp a boy of 13 and his sister of 15 shared their room
with a boy of 15. As in the camps of the Yakima and Willamette
Valleys, a large proportion of the rooms were overcrowded. In 61
per cent of the families there were three or more persons per room
and in 22 per cent, five or more. (Table 26.) The significance of
these figures is more apparent when the size of the rooms is taken into
consideration. B y the regulations of the Washington State Board of
Health air space of 500 cubic feet per person is required in bunk
houses.4 In one of the row houses in this district where the rooms
were of comparatively large size (12 feet square and 8 feet high), five
^Washington, Rules and Regulations of the State Board of Health, adopted July 27, 1921, sec. 64 (e),

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C H IL D LABOR IN F R U IT AN D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

rooms were occupied by seven family groups, including 10 adults
and 10 children between 8 and 16 years. The average air space per
person was 288 cubic feet, much less than the amount of space required
by the regulations. Although the regulations of the State board of
health have the force of law no attempt was made, as far as. could be
learned, to enforce them in berry pickers’ camps in this district.
T a b l e 26. — Average number o f persons per room in migratory fam ilies living in

camps; Puyallup Valley
Migratory families
living in camps
Average number of persons
per room
Number

Per cent
distribu
tion

Total_________________

213

100.0

1, less than 2............................
2 , less than 3..... ......................
3 , less than 4_______________
4, less than 5 ..._____________

30
50
50
33

14.1
23.5
23.5
15.5

Migratory families
living in camps
Average number of persons
per room

5, less than 6....................... .
6, less than 7____ ___________

Not reported_______________

Per cent
Number distribu
tion
25
12
8
1
2
2

11.7
5.6
3.8
.5
.9
.9

Sanitary conditions in most of the berry camps were good. Water,
either from the town supply or from private pumping plants, was
usually piped to the grounds of the larger camps, ana the smaller
camps usually had drilled or artesian wells. Toilet accommodations
were fairly adequate. One camp had only 1 privy for 40 persons and
another had 1 for 24 persons, but most of the camps had more ade
quate provision. Several of the camps provided shower baths for
the workers. One of these was built under the owner’s water tank;
it had two compartments and hot and cold running water. The camp
grounds usually looked clean, although in only a few camps was an
employee appointed to clean up the grounds, disinfect toilets, and
dispose of garbage, and the responsibility for the condition of the
camp usually was left to the campers.
Many workers said they came to pick berries because they wanted
an inexpensive “ summer vacation.
Owners made a special point
of advertising the agreeable locations of their camps, the provisions
furnished, such as potatoes or other vegetables, and the recreational
facilities. In one advertisement for 1,000 pickers it was stated that
“ the berry industry offers a fine opportunity for mother and children
to have the advantage of occupation which will mean an outing and
at the same time an earning capacity sufficient to pay expenses.”
In some camps there appeared to be little recreation except swim
ming for the boys. Mothers often went back to'the city on Saturday
nights to do the family washing and to buy supplies more cheaply
than they could buy them from the grocers and butchers who called
at camp. The lack of suitable recreation for girl pickers is one of the
outstanding problems in the camps and one which many berry
growers and other residents of the valley recognize. Some of the
public-spirited citizens attempted to stop girls from attending public
dances b y organizing street dances, but objections were raised to
these also, and they were later forbidden. For girls who come out
from the city unsupervised by any older person there is special need
for organized recreation.

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CONCLUSION

Children in great numbers work during the harvest season in the
hop yards and berry fields of the northern. Pacific coast. Some
children pick orchard fruits also, though except in some of the prune
raising districts comparatively few work in the orchards, for to pick
apples, pears, and peaches requires both more strength and more
judgment than to pick small fruits and hops. Many children work
on their home farms or on farms in the neighborhood of their homes,
or on both, receiving pay as hired laborers for their work away from
home. But the majority do not live in the districts where the work
is done. In some places, as in the berry-raising areas of the Puyallup
Valley in Washington, the migratory workers come chiefly from other
parts of the same State or even from the same county, spend a few
weeks in the district at the height of the harvest, and return to their
homes; in other sections, as in the Yakima Valley, Washington, and
the Willamette Valley, Oregon, a large number come from outside
the State, and these include many children in families that, with camp
ing outfit and in the family automobile, make a practice of “ following
the fruit” year after year from the strawberry season in M ay to the
apple harvest in November.
From one-third to two-thirds of the children under 16 years of age
enrolled in the schools of the three districts selected for study worked
on the farms. Although more than 1,000 migratory child workers
were included in the study they represented only a small proportion
of the migratory children at work in these three districts.
Unlike the child workers in the truck and small-fruit growing sec
tions of the Atlantic coast, the children working on the Washington
and Oregon farms, even those in migratory families, are chiefly of
native white parentage. The fathers of less than one-third of the
children included in the Children’s Bureau study were of European
birth, and these had been in the United States a number of years
and were as a rule English speaking; only 3 per cent of the families
included in the study were Japanese and even fewer were Indian.
Children in this section do not go to work so young nor do they do
such varied or difficult work as children who work on the truck farms
of the eastern States. Of the 1,803 children included in the study,
however, 12 per cent were under 10 years and 34 per cent were under
12 years. The work of both local and migratory children of all ages
is confined usually to picking small fruits or hops or harvesting prunes.
In the Puyallup Valley district surveyed most of the migratory
children were engaged only for raspberry picking, and local children
picked chiefly raspberries and strawberries. In the Willamette and
Yakima Valleys children harvest hops as well as fruit— 87 per cent
of the migratory children of this section included in the study and
44 per cent of the local children had picked hops. Comparatively
few had picked apples, pears, or peaches, though these are the
47

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CH ILD 1 LABOR IN F R U IT AN D H O P GROW ING DISTRICTS

principal fruit crops of the Yakima Valley districts. Some of the
older children living on farms help in the tillage of orchards or berry
fields, or thin fruit, and a few older boys do general farm work, but
it is not so customary as on the truck farms of New Jersey, Maryland,
and Virginia for children to plow, harrow, and cultivate or even to
help with planting, weeding, and hoeing.
Although most of the work was not in itself difficult the working
hours were long during the harvest seasons. The great majority of
the children who were employed in hop yards or orchards worked
more than 8 hours a day. On a sample day of the harvest season,
67 per cent of 967 local and migratory child workers in the Willamette
and Yakima Valleys who reported the length of their working day
worked more than 8 hours, and 43 per cent, 10 hours or more. A
larger proportion of children working as hired laborers than of children
working for their parents reported these long hours. The child
workers in the Puyallup Valley, most of whom picked raspberries,
did not as a rule have such a long working day. Of 542 children
reporting hours in this area, 30 per cent, however, had worked more
than 8 hours, and 11 per cent, 10 or more. The 10-hour (1 ly is
much more common in the hop yards and orchards of these districts
than on the New Jersey or Maryland truck farms, where 14 per cent
and 19 per cent, respectively, of children included in the Children’s
Bureau studies in these States reported a 10-hour day.
The school attendance of local workers is little affected by the
work they do on hops or fruit. Parents who live in the areas sur
veyed appear to have high standards with regard to their children’s
education, and many of the local school boards arrange the school
terms so that children can work during the prune, apple, and hop har
vests and still attend school the entire time it is in session. Absences
for farm work of local children living in the three districts were few
compared with those of children who work on Atlantic coast truck
farms. Four per cent of the 492 child workers of the Pacific coast
districts who reported on this question had been absent from school
10 days or more for farm work, compared with 44 per cent and 27
per cent, respectively, of the local child workers included in the New
Jersey and Maryland studies made by the Children’s Bureau.
On the other hand, the irregular attendance of children in migra
tory families of the Pacific coast is a particularly difficult problem.
Many children leave Portland for the hop-picking season just before
school opens and do not return until after the season is over, three
or four weeks later. Although children themselves seldom pick
apples or train hops, children in migratory families lose a large part
of the school year because they migrate with the adult members of
the family, leaving their homes for the hop training in March and not
returning until after the apple season in November. The most'
difficult phase of the problem is that relating to children who “ follow
the fruit ” from one county or State to another, staying only a short
time in any one place. The percentage of retardation among some
of these children was over twice the average among city school
children. Although many schools in the fruit and hop growing
districts of Washington and Oregon enroll children who are tem
porarily under their jurisdiction no system of intercounty or inter
state cooperation with the object of keeping track of the migrants
has been developed. In the districts surveyed there appeared to be

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CONCLUSION

no need for separate schools for children of seasonal workers such as the
schools provided for by the California school attendance law,1 though
special classes for these children in the local schools might be desirable.
Serious overcrowding exists in the camps both in the Puyallup and
the Yakima Valley in Washington and m the Willamette Valley in
Oregon. A regulation of the Washington Board of Health calls for
a specified amount of air space per person in frame houses in laborers’
camps, but the regulation does not extend to tents, as a similar one
in California does, and Oregon has no such regulation for either
houses or tents. The Washington regulation was not enforced in
the camps visited. The State Industrial Welfare Commission of
Oregon has demonstrated by the systematic inspection of camps for
fruit and hop pickers during the last two or three picking seasons
that State inspection can greatly improve sanitary conditions in
camps, and it is probably safe to assume that similar inspections to
enforce housing regulations would be equally successful.
In some of the camps for migratory workers in the Puyallup Valley
boys and girls hired for harvest work live without adult supervision.
In both the Puyallup Valley camps and the larger camps in the hop
districts there is great need for organized recreation. In only one
of the large camps visited was this need adequately met.
1 California, Statutes of 1921, eh. 691.

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Appendix.— WORK OF MOTHERS IN FRUIT AND HOP GROWING
DISTRICTS
As the welfare of children, both working children and those too young to work,
is to a large extent dependent on the amount of time their mothers can devote
to their care, a brief inquiry was made as to the nature and extent of mothers’
field work in the three districts. In making this inquiry the Children’s Bureau
worked in cooperation with the Women’s Bureau of the U. S. Department of
Labor, which was making a more extensive study of women’s work in small-fruit
and orchard districts in the State of Washington.1 Four hundred and seventeen
mothers of migratory child workers included in the study and 264 mothers of
child workers who lived in the districts surveyed did field work.
LOCAL WORKERS
Of the 264 working mothers whose homes were in the districts surveyed nearly
three-fifths were the wives of farm owners. Almost as large a proportion of
mothers in farm owners’ families as in farm laborers or tenants’ families (about
three-fifths in all) worked for wages, usually as fruit or hop pickers on neighboring
ranches, and many of them also helped on the home ranch. Nearly all the
mothers in Japanese and Indian families did field work; approximately half of
the mothers in native white families and in families where the father was foreign
born worked. Even those who had children under school age worked during
the fruit or hop harvest at least.
Like the children, the great majority of the mothers whose homes were in
the Yakima and the Willamette Valley districts worked only at harvest time,
but of the 94 who lived in the Puyallup Valley more than two-fifths, including
most of the Japanese mothers, did general farm work, such as hoeing and weeding,
and a few pruned or trained berry bushes. The only harvest work of the
majority of the mothers in the Puyallup Valley region was berry picking, but
in both the Yakima and the Willamette Valley the women did a great variety
of harvesting. Of the 170 mothers living in the districts studied in the Yakima
and Willamette Valleys, nearly half (considerable numbers in each valley) picked
hops; two-fifths (more in the Yakima than in the Willamette Valley) picked
orchard fruit; the majority in the Willamette Valley also picked berries or
prunes. In none of the districts was their work as a rule so continuous as that
of their older children, and it was concentrated in the rush seasons when the
help of everyone was needed to get the fruit to market. More than half of the
211 mothers in the three districts who reported the duration of their field work
had worked 30 days or more, about one-fifth had worked 60 days or more, and
some of the Japanese mothers in the Puyallup Valley had worked several months.
The working day of mothers in the berry fields of the Puyallup Valley and in
the prune orchards of the Willamette Valley was not very long (usually less
than eight or nine hours a day), but the working day of those who were picking
hops, in both the Willamette and Yakima Valleys, and of those who were picking
orchard fruit in the Yakima Valley were likely to be extremely long. (Table 27.)
1 Women’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor: Women in the Fruit-Growing and Canning Industries
in the State of Washington. Publication No. 47. (In press.)
50

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APPENDIX

27.— Hours o f field work o f mothers in local fam ilies on sample day in the
harvest season, by district; Willamette, Yakima, and Puyallup Valleys

T able

Working mothers

Hours of field work on sample day

Total
WillaPer cent
Number distribution

Total...................... ..............................................
Total reporting.......................................................
Less than 6 hours_______________ _____
6 hours, less than 8 __.............. ...............
8 hours even....... ................ ...................... ........
More than 8 hours, less than 9.............................
9 hours, less than 10__________________________
10 hours, less than 12_______________ ________
Not reporting...........................................................

264

Valley

Yakima
Valley

Puyallup
Valley

183

100.0

35
33
27
13
27
48

19.1
18.0
14.8
7.1
14.8
26.2

14
9
14
8
17
4

3
3
3
2
6
39

18
21
10
3
5
5

Because mothers living in the areas surveyed did not as a rule work more than
a month or so & r \i worked only during certain seasons, the problem of caring
for their children was not a difficult one. Mothers who worked on the home
farm, especially those who worked in prune orchards and berry fields where
hours were irregular, could take their children to the fields and look out for
them there. But mothers who worked in neighbors’ orchards or in large hop
yards were obliged to leave their younger children at home, usually in the care
of an older child. Twenty-eight of the 81 working mothers who had children
under 6 years of age left them at home while they worked, usually entrusting
them to the care of another child, sometimes to a child under 12 years of age;
other mothers took the children to the fields.
M IGRATORY WORKERS
In a considerable proportion of the families that migrated to the Puyallup
Valley and in a small proportion of those that migrated to the other areas the
mothers had remained at their homes, in some cases at least, to avoid bringing
young children to the camps. Of the 446 mothers in migratory families who
accompanied their children to the fruit districts, 417 (93 per cent) worked in
the fields. Occasionally mothers who had brought young children with them
did no field work but stayed in camp while their older children worked.
Whether or not the migratory mothers worked more than two or three weeks
on more than one crop depended, of course, on the number of places to which
they migrated and on whether they had worked on farms at home. The mothers
did much the same kind of work as their children and worked approximately
the same length of time. The majority of mothers who migrated to the Puy
allup Valley worked only during the three weeks of the raspberry harvest, though"
some also worked during the strawberry and blackberry harvests. The majority
of the 152 mothers who came to this district had worked less than 30 days during
the year, but one-fourth had worked longer than this, including 12 mothers
who had worked 60 days or more. In the other two districts, mothers, like
their children, did a greater variety of harvesting, the work extending over a
somewhat more prolonged period. Most of the 265 migratory mothers working
in the Yakima and Willamette Valleys had picked hops, more than two-fifths (43
per cent) had picked berries, and nearly one-fourth (23 per cent) some kind of
orchard fruit. Others had harvested prunes, and a few had harvested flax,
thinned apples, or trained hops. Nearly one-tenth had done general field work,
such as hoeing or weeding; these included some of the Russian-German mothers
who had worked on sugar beets at home. Although many of the mothers had
worked only during the three weeks of the hop season a considerable proportion
who had picked berries or orchard fruit as well as hops had worked longer.
More than two-fifths of the mothers migrating to these two districts had worked
30 or more days, and more than one-tenth 60 days or more.

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CHILD LABOE IST FRUIT AND HOP GROWING DISTRICTS

While living in camp mothers usually worked in the fields every day except
Sunday, although they sometimes took Saturdays or a half day now and then
to do washing and household chores. In the Yakima and Willamette Valleys,
on a sample day in the harvest season, when the majority of mothers were in
the hop yards but some were working in the orchards, seven-tenths had worked
9 hours or more, and more than two-fifths, including almost all the mothers
working in the Yakima Valley district, had worked 10 hours or more. In the
raspberry fields of the Puyallup Valley hours were as a rule not so long. Al
though mothers in this district were likely to work a longer day than their chil
dren, not quite half had worked as much as 9 hours. (Table 28.)
28.— Hours o f field work o f mothers in migratory fam ilies on sample day
in the harvest season, by district; Willamette, Yakima, and Puyallup Valleys

T able

Working mothers
Total

Hours of field work on sample day

Per cent
Number distribu
tion
T o ta l..................................................................

417

Willa
mette
Valley

Yakima
Valley

Puyallup
Valley

204

Total reporting...........................................................

401

100.0

'*191

152

Less than 6 hours_____________________ .
6 hours, less than 8_______ __________
8 hours even.......... ........................ ......... .
More than 8 hours, less than 9............ ........
9 hours, less than 10_________________
10 hours, less than 12______________
12 hours and over____________________

66
42
32
13
111
132
5

16.5
10.5
8.0
3.2
27.7
32.9
1.2

30
19
6
10
64
61
1

3
1
7

33
22
19

1
43
3

46
28
1

Not reporting..............................................

Of the 417 working mothers in the three districts 28 per cent had children under
Two day nurseries were provided by the management of
the largest hop yard in the area, equipped with swings, slides, and other apparatus
for the children’s amusement. A matron looked after the chi] dren and distributed
milk free twice a day. In no other camp was there any provision for the chil
dren’s care, but some of the camps were situated in open spaces where there was
plenty of room for children to play. One-third of the mothers included in the
study in the three districts left their children to play about the camp while they
went to work, sometimes in charge of an adult but usually in care of older chil
dren. In the large and well-organized hop yards workers are not allowed to bring
young children into the rows, but in the smaller hop yards and berry fields, where
the rules about bringing children to the field were not so strict, mothers brought
their children to work with them, allowing them to play in the rows or about the
edge of the fields where they could watch them. Sometimes babies were left
asleep with apparently no caretaker, in the automobiles in which pickers had
come to work, and 9 of the 115 working mothers in migratory families included
in the study left their children either alone or in charge of children under 8 years
o f age.

6 years of age in the area.

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Full text of Child Labor in Fruit and Hop Growing Districts of the Northern Pacific Coast, Bureau Publication No. 151

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