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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Frances Perkins, Secretary
CH ILDREN 'S BUREAU

K a t h a r i n e F. L e n r o o t , C hief

W ELFARE OF FAMILIES OF
SUGAR-BEET LABORERS
A Study of Child Labor and Its Relation to
Family Work, Income, and Living
Conditions in 1935

ELIZABETH S. JOHNSON

Bureau Publication No. 247

United States
Government Printing Office
W ashington : 1939

F or sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.

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Price IS cent

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CONTENTS
Letter of transmittal____________________________________
The problem_________________________________
Summary of findings____________________________________________________
Scope and method of study_____________________________________________
The sugar-beet industry________________________________________________
Hand-labor operations______________________________
The labor-contract system____________________________________________
Labor migration___________________________________
Characteristics of the families of sugar-beet laborers_______________________
Racial stock__________________________________________________________
Residence and migration______________________________________________
Previous experience in beet work______________________________________
Employment relation to growers______________________________________
Size and composition of families------------------------------------------------------Work of children in the sugar-beet fields___________________________________
Background of child labor in the industry._________________________
Attitudes toward work of children____________________________________
Methods of identifying child workers__________________________________
Ages of working children______________________________________________
Proportion working, by age_______________________________________
Area differences in observance of 14-year minimum-age standard. _
Effect of 14-year minimum-age standard— 1934 and 1935 com
pared__________________________________________________________
Work performed by children__________________________________
The processes at which children worked__________________________
Daily hours of work_________________________________________
Length of working periods________________________________________
Problems of effectuating compliance with child-labor standards_________
Interference of beet work with the schooling of children___________________
School enrollment and absence________________________________________
Application of compulsory-school-attendance standards________________
Special classes and modified school terms for beet workers’ children-----School progress_______________________________________________
Family work and income__________________________________________________
Amount of families’ work in the beet fields____________________________
Duration of work in beet fields___________________________________
Acreage handled_________________________________________________
Differences in acreage worked per family and in use of hired help, 1934
and 1935...........................................................................
Wage rates___________________________________________________________
Earnings for beet work_______________________________________________
Family earnings________________________________________
Individual earnings_______________________________________________
Supplementary work and income______________________________________
Total income_________________________________________________________
Relief and use of credit____________________________________________________
Methods of wage payment____________________________________________
Store credit___________________________________________________________
Relief_______ 1______________________________________________________
Living conditions__________________________________________________________
Food_________________________________________________________________
Housing______________________________________________________________
T y p e.....................................................................................................
Overcrowding____________________________________________________
Costs____________________________________________________________
Sanitation and water supply______________________________________

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CONTENTS

Living conditions—Continued.
Care and health of children_________________________________________
Position in the community__________________________________________
Conclusion_____________________________
Appendix I.— Tables________________________________________________
Appendix II.— Labor provisions of the Jones-Costigan Act and of the
sugar-beet production-adjustment contracts authorized by it __________
Appendix III.— Form used for labor contract between grower and beet
laborer in the factory districts of one sugar company___________________

Page

79
gO
g2
35
96
98

ILLUSTRATIONS
Page

Girl topping beets-------- ----------------------------------------------------------------Frontispiece
Acreage of sugar beets in the United States and location of areas visited____
7
Family of Mexican beet workers____________________________________ Facing 76
New housing for families of beet laborers constructed by a sugar company-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Facing 77
Shacks occupied by migratory beet laborers_____________ ___________Facing 77

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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

U n it e d S t a t e s D

epartm ent

L abor,
B ureau,

h il d r e n ’ s

Washington, M ay 15, 1989.
There is transmitted herewith Welfare of Families of
Sugar-Beet Laborers, the report of a study of conditions among
families of sugar-beet laborers made in 1935, the year in which labor
provisions were first applied to the production of sugar beets through
the contracts of the agricultural-adjustment program. It is the
second study made by the Children’s Bureau of the conditions of
children in the families of sugar-beet workers and of the effects of the
family occupation on their welfare. The earlier study, reportd in
Bureau Publication No. 115, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers
in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan, was made in 1920, when
there was substantially no regulation of labor conditions in sugar-beet
fields.
The Children’s Bureau is indebted to representatives of sugar com
panies, of growers’ associations, of labor organizations, of schools and
social agencies, as well as to the individual families of beet laborers,
for their cooperation and assistance in making available information
on which this report is based. Special acknowledgment is due to
officials of the Sugar Section and of the Tenure and Labor Relations
Sections of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration for the
advice and assistance which they have contributed.
The study was planned and carried on under the general direction
of Beatrice McConnell, Director of the Industrial Division of the
Bureau. The field work was conducted by Elizabeth S. Johnson,
Ruth Scandrett, Josephine Streit, Virginia Weston, Rosalie Williams,
Helen Wood, and Mary Zahrobsky, under the supervision of Mary
Skinner. The report was written by Elizabeth S. Johnson.
Respectfully submitted.
K a t h a r i n e F. L e n r o o t , Chiej.
Hon. F r a n c e s P e r k i n s ,
Secretary oj Labor.
M

adam

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HIHH

Farm Security Administration photograph by Lee.

Girl topping beets.

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Welfare o f Families of Sugar-Beet Laborers
THE PROBLEM

Families of sugar-beet laborers are largely dependent for their liveli
hood on wages for work performed in the sugar-beet fields at scattered
periods d u rin g 6 or 7 months of the year. Children labor beside their
parents in the attempt of the family to earn enough during the com
paratively brief working season to provide a living for the family
throughout the year. The effort to earn a living in this seasonal
industry exacts long hours of arduous labor from young and old.
It frequently involves the children’s absence from school ^and thus
contributes to their retarded educational progress and handicaps their
social adjustment. Despite these sacrifices of family well-being in the
performance of hand labor necessary for the production of. a beet crop,
the working families are often unable to earn from their beet labor,
supplemented by whatever other employment may be available to
them, enough money to provide for their maintenance. Dining and
since the depression, reduced wage rates and lessened opportunities
for supplementary employment have caused many families of beet
workers to resort to relief. Withal, they are inadequately fed,
poorly housed, ill provided with medical care, and deprived of the
means of satisfying other primary needs.
These families are a group in which the relationship of the family
occupation to the welfare of the children is particularly close. The
problems of the welfare of their children cannot be understood or
solved without reference to the family occupation and income. Not
only has the occupation of the father become the family occupation,
but the stability necessary for the child’s sense of security is often
interfered with bv the necessity for continually moving from place to
place in order to obtain work and a place to live.
So acute were the conditions of beet laborers’ families following the
reduction in wage rates in the period from 1931 to 1933, and so
pressing the burden of their support that fell upon public agencies in
1933 and 1934, that when sugar beets were made subject to the Agri
cultural Adjustment Act it was provided for the first time that pro
duction-adjustment contracts made between the growers and the
Government might contain provisions making the payment of Gov
ernment benefits to the growers dependent upon the observance of
certain labor practices with respect to wages and to child labor.
This amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, known as the
Jones-Costigan Act of 1934,1 provided for sugar quotas and marketing
allotments, for a processing tax on sugar, and for benefits to growers
making contracts with the Government regarding the production of
sugar beets. These contracts governing sugar-beet production and
» Public, No. 213, 73d Cong.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

providing for benefit payments under this act stipulated in 1935 that
the grower pay in full the wages due persons employed in the produc
tion of the crop, that in districts for which the Secretary of Agriculture
set m in im u m wages for labor on the beet crop the grower pay not
less than the established rate, and that the grower accept the decision
of the Secretary of Agriculture in the adjudication of any labor
dispute.2 The contracts also provided in 1935 that no children under
14 years of age should be employed in the production of sugar beets
and that no children between 14 and 16 years of age should be per
mitted to work longer than 8 hours a day, exception being made,
however, for children in the growers’ own families working on their
parents’ farms. Such children were exempted from the application
of both child-labor provisions.
In order to provide a factual basis for a constructive consideration
of the problems of families of sugar-beet laborers and to ascertain the
effects of the child-labor and wage provisions of the Jones-Costigan
Act on the families for whose benefit these provisions were established,
the Children’s Bureau undertook, in 1935, this survey of conditions
among the families of sugar-beet laborers. In undertaking this study
it was hoped that the findings would be helpful in the administration
of the production-adjustment contracts made between growers^ of
sugar beets and the Government as well as in the future consideration
of labor standards for other agricultural work. Although the produc
tion-adjustment contracts of the Jones-Costigan Act were invalidated
early in 1936, the findings are still pertinent and can serve a similar
purpose in connection with the administration of the Sugar Act of
1937, which establishes a sugar-quota program and provides benefit
payments to sugar-beet growers that are conditional on the observance
of child-labor and wage standards similar to those embodied in the
production-adjustment contracts of the Jones-Costigan Act of 1934.
» Sugar Beet Production Adjustment Contract (Form Sugar 3), U. 8. Department of Agriculture, Agri
cultural Adjustment Administration, approved October 16. 1934. Text of labor provisions appears in
Appendix II, p. 96.

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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
This study of a group of families shows clearly the gravity of the
problems that field workers of the sugar-beet industry face, involving
both themselves and their children. The following brief summary of
the outstanding factual findings of the survey makes apparent the
importance of child-labor standards and wage standards in this
agricultural industry. It concerns the characteristics of the families
that work in the beet fields, the work and school attendance of the
children, and the work, income, and living conditions of the families.
Scope of study.— The study is based chiefly on interviews with 946
families of sugar-beet laborers in the fall and early winter of 1935,
the first year m which labor provisions were included in the produc
tion-control contracts under the sugar-beet benefit program author
ized by the Jones-Costigan Act. Each family interviewed performed
hand labor in sugar-beet fields in that year and each had at least one
child under 16 years of age. These families worked in 10 beet-grow
ing areas in 6 States (Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Nebraska,
"Wyoming, and Montana) and comprised, it is believed, a representa
tive group of families of hired beet laborers from areas where hired
family labor is characteristic of the industry.
Race and nationality.— In the majority of the families (67 percent)
the head of the household was either Mexican or Spanish-American
(a native-born person of Spanish, Mexican, or Indian origin, whose fore
bears were Spanish-speakmg and lived in Mexico or the southwestern
part of the United States). The second most important group of
families identified by language and nationality stock was the RussianGerman, comprising 22 percent of those interviewed. The remaining
11 percent with various other racial backgrounds were about equally
divided between those with foreign-bom fathers and those whose
fathers were native bom.
Migration.— Fifty-nine percent of the 946 families were nonmigratory and 41 percent migratory, moving onto the beet farms for the
working season and leaving for the winter. This 41 percent com
prised 28 percent moving within the immediate beet-growing area in
which they worked and 13 percent migrating from outside that area.
Size of fam ilies.— The families of the beet laborers tended to be
large, almost half having seven or more members. In more than half
the families three or more members worked in the beet fields.
Child labor.— In the families of the beet laborers interviewed 670
children between 6 and 16 years of age were reported as working in
the beet fields in 1935, and these children numbered about one-fourth
of all the family members that did beet labor in that year. Of these
670 working children, 280 were known to be under 14 years of age
and they comprised 19 percent of all children of the age group 6 and
under 14 years in the families. Information obtained from these fam
ilies regarding the work of children in 1934, prior to the establishment
of the 14-year minimum age under the contracts, showed that a
3

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

marked reduction in the proportion working had occurred in 1935
with the application of the minimum-age standard. Altogether 43
percent of the children 6 and under 14 years of age were reported to
have worked in the beet fields in 1934. The decrease between the 2
years in the proportion working was most marked for the group of
children aged 6 and under 12 years, 28 percent of the children of these
ages working in 1934 and 9 percent in 1935. A less marked decrease
occurred for children 12 and under 14 years of age, the group just
under the minimum-age limit. Of this age group 83 percent worked
in 1934 and 50 percent in 1935.
Hours oj children's w ork— Despite the 8-hour maximum workday
established under the Government contracts for 14- and 15-year-old
children, more than half of the working children under 16 years of
age were reported to have worked usually for longer than 8 hours a
day in the beet fields. When engaged in thinning the beets, the first
process of the season and that at which hours tended to be longest, a
fourth of the children were reported to have worked usually 12 or
more hours a day.
School attendance and school progress — In these families of beet labor
ers only two-thirds of all the 2,014 children that were between 6 and
16 years of age on September 1,1935, enrolled in school or were expect
ing to enroll before the end of the 1935 harvest season; more than a
fifth delayed enrollment until after the harvest was completed; and
nearly one-tenth had not enrolled by the time of interview and were
not expecting to enroll during the ensuing school year. Slightly more
than half of all the children between 8 and 16 years of age that had
enrolled in school or were about to enroll were retarded or overage
for their grades; and nearly three-fourths of the children 15 years of
age that were still in school were retarded.
Family earnings fo r beet labor.— The family incomes were very low.
Average (median) earnings for beet work for the entire season were
$340 per family for 374 families interviewed after they knew the
amount of their entire earnings for work on the 1935 beet crop.
These families all worked in Michigan, Minnesota, Wyoming, and
Montana. The yearly earnings for this group of families were less
than $200 per family for 29 percent and $600 or more for only 22
percent. Considering only the 311 families among these that had
worked at all processes during the season, the average (median)
yearly earnings were $410.^
.
Supplementary work and income.— Seven-eighths of the families inter
viewed in all 10 areas obtained at least a little supplementary work and
income during the course of the year; but the amounts of supple
mentary income for those that had such income amounted to an
average (median) of only $51 in the year, exclusive of relief. Less
than a third reported supplementary money income of $100 or more
in the year. Including such supplementary income, the average
(median) total yearly income, exclusive of relief, was $430 for the 343
families reporting in the areas visited in Michigan, Minnesota,
Wyoming, and Montana, an average (median) of about $75 a year
per family member.
Belief.— Support from relief funds was received by 63 percent of
the families interviewed in all 10 areas during the period from Novem
ber 1, 1934, to October 31, 1935, or to the date of interview if earlier.
Many families (36 percent) were on relief rolls by the end of December

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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

1934, for they had little if any money left to buy supplies for the
winter after the harvest pay check had met the storekeepers’ bills for
necessities purchased during the working season.
Living conditions.— Along with meager family incomes and the
frequent need for assistance from relief agencies went poor living
conditions involving inadequate diet, insufficient clothing, poor
housing, and lack o f needed medical service for most of the families.
Their dwellmgs were frequently in poor repair. Forty-seven percent
of the famihes reporting on their dwellings during the beet season
lived in houses of not more than two rooms. Nearly two-fifths were
living with 3 or more persons to a room, and a few were living with
6 to 10 persons to a room.

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SCOPE AND METHOD OF STUDY

This study of the welfare of the families of sugar-beet laborers is
based chiefly on interviews by representatives of the Children’s
Bureau with 946 families of sugar-beet laborers. It is concerned with
work in the beet fields by children and their parents, with the school
attendance of the children, with the amount of beet work done by
the family groups, with their income from beet work and other sources,
with whether they received relief, with their migration, and with their
living conditions. The information on the families’ personal situations
has been supplemented by information on the local characteristics of
the industry and on the communities visited, obtained from persons
connected with various organizations in the regions visited. These
included representatives of the Agricultural Adjustment Administra
tion, State departments of labor, education, and welfare, sugar-beet
processing companies, associations of sugar-beet growers, labor
organizations, schools, and also representatives of relief, health, and
other social agencies. Numerous individual beet growers were also
consulted.
The 946 families of sugar-beet laborers on which the statistical
findings of this study are based comprise sample groups of families
from three areas in the eastern beet region and from seven in the
Mountain States beet region. The areas visited and the number of
families interviewed that worked in each are as follows:
Number of

Eastern beet region:
families
Central Michigan_______________________________________ 115
Southern Michigan______________________________________ 42
Southern Minnesota____________________________________
75
Mountain States beet region:
Northern Colorado______________________________________ 193
Arkansas Valley, Colo___________________________________ 70
Western Slope, C olo____________________________________
51
Western Nebraska 1_____________________________________ 102
Northern Wyoming_____________________________________ 151
Southern Montana______________________________________ 90
Sidney, M ont___________________________________________ 57
1 In accordance with usage in the industry, western Nebraska is considered part of the Mountain States
beet region.

One or more factory districts in each of these areas were visited, a
factory district being that unit in a beet-growing region from which
all the sugar beets grown are sent to one factory for processing. The
location of each of the 10 areas visited is shown on the map on page 7.
The names of each factory district and of each county visited within
each of the 10 areas appear in appendix table I (p. 85). The areas in
cluded in the study were selected after consultation with officials of the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration and with representatives of
the sugar-processing companies as being characteristic of the beet
regions in which laborers in family groups customarily do the hand
6

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SCOPE AND METHOD OF STUDY
■<1

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

labor in the sugar-beet fields. The Pacific coast beet region, where the
laborers in the beet fields are reported to be chiefly unattached men,
is not represented in this study.
Within each of the 10 areas visited a preliminary survey of the char
acteristics of the beet-working population and of the places where
various groups lived was made by the representatives of the Children’s
Bureau with the assistance of persons in the localities who were thor
oughly familiar with the industry and the beet-laboring population.
On the basis of such a survey certain rural sections, colonies, villages,
and parts of towns were selected for intensive coverage as representa
tive of the areas. In such selected places every household of beet
laborers along each road or street was visited.
The study is limited to those families in which at least one adult did
hand labor in the beet fields for hire in 1935, and because emphasis
was placed on family and child welfare, the study is also limited to
those in which at least one child under 16 years of age on June 15,1935,
was part of the household during the working season. No family that
operated a farm in 1935 was included, even though the members also
performed beet labor for hire. It is believed that the 946 families
included in the study are representative of such families in areas where
beet-field labor is characteristically done by family workers. In con
sidering the findings of this study, especially with respect to size of
families, amount of work performed, and earnings, it should be borne
in mind, however, that families without children under 16 have been
excluded.
The field visits in the selected areas were made between early Sep
tember and late December 1935. The Colorado areas were visited
before the harvest work began; western N ebraska during the height of
the harvest season; northern Wyoming at the end of the harvest sea
son; the Montana area after practically all harvest work was com
pleted ; and the Minnesota and Michigan areas after all harvest work
was completed. The selection of families visited was unavoidably in
fluenced by the migration of some families to winter quarters. In
Minnesota" all the families included in the study were interviewed in
Minneapolis and St. Paul since most of the beet workers from the south
ern Minnesota beet-growing localities had already moved to these cities
for the winter. In Michigan the families included in the study were
visited in several rural beet-growing localities, where the families were
remaining through the winter, and in the city of Saginaw, where a sugar
factory is located. Some beet workers lived in Saginaw the year
around and others lived on nearby farms during the summer beet
season and moved into the city for the winter. In this way both
migratory and nonmigratory families were included for Michigan, but
not those families that left the State immediately after the completion
of the harvest work

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THE SUGAR-BEET INDUSTRY

The production of sugar beets and the manufacture of beet sugar
are comparatively new industries in the United States, their rapid
expansion having occurred in the first 20 years of the present century.
In 1935 approximately 1,200,000 tons of sugar, nearly one-fourth of
the total amount of sugar consumed in the United States, including
cane sugar, were made from the 7,900,000 tons of sugar beets produced
in this country.
Sugar beets are a cash crop raised by farmers under contract with
sugar-beet processing companies. The localities that produce sugar
beets extend from Ohio to California, and in 1935 were concentrated
around the 76 sugar-beet processing factories which were operated
that year by 27 companies. The localities in the United States where
sugar beets are grown lie in three regions: (1) The eastern beet
region, comprising the Middle Western States of Ohio, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and so forth; (2) the Mountain States beet
region, from southern Colorado to Montana and from Nebraska to
Idaho, where beets are grown in irrigated valleys; and (3) the Pacific
coast region, where beets are also an irrigated crop. Chief sugarbeet-producing States in each region are Michigan in the eastern beet
region; Colorado in the Mountain States beet region; and California
on the Pacific coast. Colorado is the most important beet-producing
State with about one-fifth of the entire sugar-beet acreage of the
United States.
In 1935 the 76 factories processing sugar beets were supplied by
approximately 75,000 growers with beets harvested from 763,000
acres of land, an average of about 10 acres of beets for each operator.
The best available indication of the number of persons performing the
hand-labor operations on the total acreage in beets in the United
States is an estimate for 1933, at which time the number of workers
involved was estimated to be approximately 160,000, including both
hired workers and members of farmers’ families.1
This report is concerned only with the agricultural industry of
sugar-beet production and not with the processing industry, which
manufactures sugar from sugar beets.
HAND-LABOR OPERATIONS

Labor requirements in the beet fields involve several hand-labor
operations peculiar to sugar-beet production in addition to the work
of plowing, planting, and mechanical cultivation usual for other crops.
The hand-labor operations must be performed during short periods
scattered over about 6 months of the year. The first hand-labor
process of the season consists of blocking and thinning the young
sugar-beet plants that come up very thickly from seed planted in
1 Report for the Committee on Labor Conditions in the Growing of Sugar Beets, by W. Lewis Abbott,
p. iii. Washington, March 1934. (Mimeographed.)

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

rows. These operations taken together are referred to as the thinning
process in this report. The hand worker removes a group of the
small plants with the use of a short-handled hoe and then thins out
the resulting bunches of beets in the row with his fingers so that one
strong plant remains from each bunch. The plants left standing are
usually spaced about 10 inches apart. This work, which usually lasts
3 to 5 weeks during the latter part of May and much of June,2 must
be done before the plants become too large and crowded.
The second hand operation is hoeing, also called weeding, which is
begun immediately after the thinning is completed. Although a
strip of soil between the rows is cultivated by machinery, the cultiva
tion close to the beet plants must be done by hand. In many areas a
second hoeing and occasionally a third is required. This cultivation
is usually completed by early August. No hand work is then done
on the crop until the harvesting of the beets, which requires another
period of intensive work of 3 to 5 weeks, usually in October and early
November. The hand labor at this time consists of pulling the beets
from the soil, which has been loosened by a horse-drawn lifter, knock
ing the beets together to remove the adhering soil, and throwing them
in piles. The leaves and crown of the beets are then cut from the
root by the use of a large, specially designed knife. The harvesting
work of pulling and topping, which operations are together referred
to as the topping process in this report, is telescoped into a few weeks
in order that the beets may remain in the ground as long as possible
to secure the maximum sugar content and yet may be harvested before
they are frozen into the ground.
According to the workers’ reports, the hand-labor operations in the
beet fields as performed in the thinning and in the topping process
are two of the most arduous types of agricultural labor because of the
necessity for almost constant kneeling or stooping over the rows of
plants. The pressure for speed and the exposure to the hot sun in
the early summer and to cold and disagreeable weather in the late fall
add to the fatiguing and trying nature of the work. The hoeing and
weeding process is performed in substantially the same manner as
on other farm crops, and, though hard, is considered less trying than
the thinning and topping work.
THE LABOR-CONTRACT SYSTEM

So seasonal and time consuming are the hand-labor requirements of
beet raising that farmers usually find it necessary to hire extra labor to
do the hand work. The required hand-labor operations on at least
three-fourths of the total acreage of sugar beets grown in the United
States are performed by hired laborers.3
The usual method of hiring labor for the hand work in the beet fields
is by the use of seasonal labor contracts made between grower and
laborer for the performance of hand-labor operations only. After
contracting with the sugar company of the district for the purchase
of the crop of beets on a specified acreage, the grower makes a con
tract with a laborer for the performance of the hand work on all or a
portion of the acreage of sugar beets which the grower plants. This
1 The months here stated for the various processes apply for most beet-producing localities except those
in California, where the operations are performed earlier in the year.
* Report for the Committee on Labor Conditions in the Growjng of Sugar Beets, p. 2.

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THE SUGAR-BEET INDUSTRY

contract with the laborer specifies the maimer in which the work shall
be done, the rate of wages per acre, and the time of payment. A
labor contract may cover only one or two hand-labor operations, as is
customary in California, where solo labor predominates; but it is
more likely to cover all the hand-labor operations of the season, the
usual type of contract in all the areas visited for this study where
family labor was characteristic.
Where family labor is used under a labor contract the working group
is composed typically of the members of one family but may mclude
members of two or more families. Sometimes two or more families
contract jointly for the work and share responsibility. Sometimes a
second family may be hired as extra help by the contracting family;
but in this case the family so hired is likely to be paid the same wage
rate as the contracting family is paid by the grower. The contracting
family also may hire unattached or solo workers as extra help. The
labor-contract system lends itself particularly to the use of the labor
of wives and children. The father of a family relies on the labor of his
wife or children or both in order to handle as many acres as possible
in an effort to support his family at the wages paid. It is thought by
many that the widespread use of the labor of women and children in
the families has a depressing effect on wage rates paid for this type of
work, because it is not expected that most families would be able to
support themselves if only the father and grown children worked in
the beet fields.
An important advantage to the industry of the labor-contract sys
tem is the assurance of a sufficient supply of hand labor through all the
scattered work periods of the season. A distinct preference for family
labor has developed in many places, due in part to the fact that men
with families are considered more reliable and more likely to see the
work through to completion than solo workers.
The total number of persons performing beet work under the laborcontract system has been roughly estimated for the year 1933 as ap
proximately 110,000, of whom about 80,000 were men, about 15,000
women, and about 15,000 children under 16 years of age.4
LABOR M IGRATION

The seasonal demand for labor has made labor recruiting and sea
sonal migration of labor important features of the industry, which
vitally affect family welfare. As the sugar-beet industry developed
and expanded thousands of laborers, usually family groups, were
annually recruited and transported into beet-growing localities by the
sugar-processing companies to provide the work force needed to per
form the hand labor in the beet fields. These families sometimes
returned after the harvest to the homes they had left in the spring,
but there has been an increasing tendency over a period of years for
the families to remain in the beet-growing localities over the winter
and indeed to settle there. This trend has been encouraged by the
sugar companies, since the annual recruiting and shipping of labor
is expensive. Important recruiting centers for beet workers have
4 Ham, William T.: Regulation of Labour Conditions in Sugar Cultivation Under the Agricultural Adjust
ment Act. International Labour Review, Geneva, vol. 33, No. 1 (January 1936), p. 76. (These figures are
rough estimates of numbers of contract workers based on reports to U. S. Tariff Commission from sugar
manufacturing companies. They do not include persons hired on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis by the
farm operator and assigned to hand labor in the beet fields.)

135807°— 39----- 2

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

been Lincoln, Nebr., the center of a large Russian-German population,
and various centers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas with large
populations of Spanish-speaking persons, some of Mexican and some
of American birth. Prior to present immigration restrictions, many of
the families came from Mexico. After 1930, when unemployment was
increasing, labor recruiting declined, and in 1935 it was relatively un
important, since large numbers of beet workers were on hand in the
beet-growing localities the year around, and some had migrated for
beet work on their own initiative.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET
LABORERS

Beet laborers are a distinctive group in the agricultural wage
earning population. The 946 families included in this study were
almost all of Mexican-Indian or other foreign extraction. The families
tended to be large. The vast majority had done hand labor m sugarbeet fields for a number of years and relied on such work for their
livelihood. A sizeable minority were migrants in the sense that they
lived in a different place during the winter than during the working
season. The labor policies of the industry have tended to bring about
a selection of families with these characteristics.
RACIAL STOCK

The racial stock of the father or other head of the family was either
Mexican or Spanish-American in two-thirds of the families reporting.
The proportion of families in which the head of the household was
Mexican-born was 48 percent. The proportion of families in which
the head of the household was Spanish-American, that is, a native-born
person of Spanish, Indian, or Mexican origin, whose forebears were
Spanish speaking and lived in Mexico or the Southwestern States of
the United States, was 19 percent of all families interviewed. Persons
in these two Spanish-speaking groups have many common character
istics. When grouped together the Mexicans and Spamsh-Amencans
will be referred to as Spanish-speaking people in this report. The
other important group, identified by the language and nationality
stock of the head of the family, was the Russian-German, which com
prised 22 percent of the families interviewed. Russian-Germans are
persons o f German descent who settled in Russia. MAny migrated
from there to the United States during the first decade of the twentieth
century, and it is those immigrants and their children who comprise
the group defined as Russian-German in this report. The remaining
11 percent of the families comprised 6 percent whose heads were
foreign-bom of other nationalities and 5 percent whose heads were
native-born. Bohemians, Germans, and Belgians were represented
among the 6 percent of foreign-bom persons from countries where
they may have been accustomed to sugar-beet culture in their youth,
as had many of the Russian-German immigrants.
The arduous and fatiguing labor involved in beet work and the
comparatively low economic and social status of the beet workers have
tended to keep native-born Americans from replacing the foreignlanguage groups recruited by the industry.
Although the group was very largely of Spanish-speaking or Kussian-German stock, the father or other head of the family spoke Eng
lish in three-fourths of the families interviewed. In slightly less than
half the families, however, was it reported that the father could read
English. Inability to read English was a definite handicap to a family
because labor contracts were sdmost always printed in English. The
13

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

language handicap was greater among the Mexicans than among the
other families. Only about one-fifth of the Mexican fathers both
spoke and read English, while nearly two-thirds of the RussianGerman and about the same proportion of Spanish-American fathers
could both speak and read the language.
RESIDENCE AND MIGRATION

Permanent settlement was found to be more characteristic of the
beet laborers’ families interviewed for this study than seasonal mi
gration. Fifty-nine percent, or 561 of the 946 families interviewed,
lived through the winter in the same dwelling as during the working
season. Many of these nonmigratory families lived on the farms
where they worked (45 percent). A considerable number (31 percent)
lived the year round in colonies (that is, in groups of dwellings built
especially for beet workers by the sugar companies); and some (23
percent) lived in towns where they provided their own living quarters
independently of the farmer employing them or of the sugar company
to whom the farmer sold the beets.
Forty-one percent^ (385) of all the families interviewed were migratory; that is, they lived at the beet farms only during the working
season. These families all lived in a different place while working
beets in 1935 from that in which they expected to live during the
coming winter, or, if uncertain as to their winter plans, from that in
which they lived during the preceding winter. Many migratory
families, altogether 268, or 28 percent of all families interviewed, had
moved only within the beet-growing area where they worked, a dis
tance of perhaps only 5 or 10 miles from the settlement where they
had their winter quarters. The change in environment for the children,
involving frequently a different school, removal from accustomed
social contacts, and a high degree of concentration of the family’s
interest in the beet-field work made the fact of moving significant in
the family’s living even though the distance may not have been great.
Some 117, or 12 percent of all interviewed, had migrated from places
outside the beet-growing area where they worked in 1935. The 385
families that moved either within or from outside the beet-growing
area where they worked are grouped together in this report, and for
lack of a better name, are called migratory even though some of them
were permanently resident in the general area of their beet employ
ment and, though moving from one dwelling to another for the purpose
of being near seasonal work, were scarcely migratory in the sense in
which the word is often used. The number of families interviewed
in each area is shown according to migratory status in appendix
table II (p. 85).
The migratory families almost invariably lived on their employers’
farms during the working season. Those moving within the area
usually spent the winter in colonies or towns among beet workers who
dwelt in these settlements the yeai around, and about half of them
returned temporarily to their winter dwellings for the period between
the completion of the summer work of hoeing and weeding and the
beginning of the harvesting work.
Interstate migration for beet work in the spring of 1935 was reported
by only 50, or about 5 percent, of the 946 families included m this
study. Half these families expected to remain in the State to

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FAMILIES

which they had come for beet work and so were considered as nonmigratory at the time of interview and have been so classified in this
report. This 5 percent of families migrating across State lines in the
spring of 1935, however, probably is below the proportion of all beet
workers who were interstate migrants that spring, because a part of
the field work of the study was done after migrant families had left
the State where they worked, and because a number of areas on the
border line between two States were not included in the study. In
this connection it may be noted also that in 1935 little recruiting was
done by the sugar companies and considerable public opposition to
out-of-State labor had developed. Border patrols, for instance, were
reported to be refusing admittance to migrants seeking beet work in
Colorado. More than half of the 50 families that were interstate
migrants in the spring of 1935 had gone to Wyoming. The largest
number of interstate migrants coming from a smgle State were from
Colorado, where the acreage of beets planted in 1935 was below normal
and where the Spanish-speaking population is large.1
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE IN BEET W ORK

Beet laborers are closely attached to their particular occupation,
and those experienced in the work customarily return to it year after
year as their chief means of livelihood. A large proportion of the
families included in this study, 7 out of 8, reported that the father, or
other head of the household, had worked at hand labor in the beet
fields of the United States for at least 3 years previous to 1935. About
half had done beet work in 10 or more previous seasons and more than
one-fourth in 15 or more previous seasons. The large number of sea
sons at beet work frequently reported is accounted for in part by the
fact that many fathers had, as children, worked in the beet fields with
their parents. Long periods of service were most common among the
families of Russian-German stock, nearly one-third of the fathers in
this group having worked in the beet fields of the United States for 20
or more years.
The relatively low turn-over in the occupation in 1935 is shown by
the fact that the heads of only 3 percent of all the families visited were
working in the beet fields for the first time in that year. This small
proportion is doubtless to be explained in part by the fact that the
acreage of sugar beets grown in several of the States included in the
study was substantially less in 1935 than in the preceding few years
and m part by the unemployment resulting from the depression.
EMPLOYMENT RELATION TO GROWERS

A labor contract between the head of the family and the beet grower
was the basis of the employment relation for 81 percent of the families
of beet laborers included in this study. This was a written and signed
agreement for two-thirds and an oral agreement for one-third of the
families having contracts. Written contracts, the forms for which
were provided by the sugar company or beet growers’ association of
the locality, were used quite generally by the families visited in the
1 Greater detail on the migration of the families than is included in this report is contained in the pre
liminary report of the Secretary of Labor to the Senate in response to S. Res. 298, 74th Cong., a resolution
to make certain investigations concerning the social and economic needs of laborers migrating across State
lines.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

Mountain States beet region, but by barely a third of the families
visited in the eastern beet region.
Families without a contractual agreement with a beet grower for any
part of the beet labor performed in the 1935 season comprised 19
percent of the 946 families included in the study. These worked
generally as extra help for other laborers who did have contracts with
growers. Nearly a fourth (23 percent) of all families interviewed in the
Mountain States areas, but only 6 percent in the eastern beet region,
worked as extra help. It was much more common among Spanish
speaking families to work as extra help (25 percent) than among
Russian-Germans (8 percent). The typical relationship between
contract families and the families that were their extra help was one
in which the extra help shared on an equal basis with the contracting
family in the total wages for the work, division between families being
made in proportion to the number of persons and working time
credited to each family. Beet work was done only on the basis of a
daily wage by 23 of the families working as extra help. These were
usually hired for short periods only and were nearly always paid by a
contract worker rather than directly by a grower, although the grower
probably had required that the extra worker be hired.
SIZE AND COMPOSITION OF FAMILIES

The families of the beet workers were found in general to be large,
to have several children who were under 16 years of age, and to average
a large number of workers per family. Nearly one-third of all
the families visited had eight or more members living together as an
economic unit, exclusive of boarders or other families living in the
same dwelling; only one-fourth had four or fewer members. The
beet workers’ families were distinctly larger than the average for rural
families in the United States, the median number of persons per family
of beet workers included in this study being 6.2, contrasted with a
median of 4.5 for all rural families in the United States having three
or more members.*
T able 1.— Number of persona in fam ilies of beet-field laborers, 1985
Number of fami
lies
Number in fam ily1

2 persons............................. ........
3 persons..'___________________
4 persons____________________
5 persons............................. ........
6 persons____________________

Total

Percent
distribu
tion

946

100.0

3
106
139
131
140

.3
11.2
14.7
13.8
14.8

Number of fami
lies
Number in family1
Total

7 persons.....................................
8 persons.............. .......................
10’ persons......... ..........................

134
100
80
51
36
26

Percent
distribu
tion
14.2
10.6
8.5
5.4
3.8
2.7

i On June 15, 1935.

The fact that there are many large families among beet workers
results to some extent from the recruiting and employment policies of
the industry under which families with several children old enough to
* Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Population, vol. 6, Families, pp. 7,14-16.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FAMILIES

help with the beet work have been preferred to smaller families or to
those with no children old enough to work in the fields.
The total number of persons comprising the membership of the 946
families of beet laborers that were interviewed for this study was 6,071
as of June 15,1935. Slightly over half, or 3,231, of these were children
known to be under 16 years of age; and approximately one-fifth, or
1,199, were children known to be under 6 years of age. It is with these
children, who are representative of all children whose families work
in the beet fields, that the Children’s Bureau is chiefly concerned in
this study.
. .
There was some difference in family size and composition between
the Spanish-speaking families, with an average of 6.3 members, and
the families of Russian-German stock, with an average of 7.1 members.
The age composition of the families was somewhat different, the
Spanish-speaking families tending to have more children under 6 years
of age (1.5 average per family) than the Russian-German families
(0.9 average per family). The Russian-Germans, on the other hand,
tended to have a few more members between 6 and 16 years per
family and also more members per family 16 years of age and over than
did the Spanish-speaking families. It will be shown later that this
difference in family composition had a marked influence on the
amount of work performed and on the incomes of the families in these
two groups.
T able 2.— Age and composition of fam ilies of beet laborers, 1935
Number of persons in—

Age and composition of
family 1

All families
(946)

Total

Span ish-speak ing
families (630)

Russian-German
families (207)

Other families
(109)

Average
per
family

Total

Average
per
family

Total

Average
per
family

Total

Average
per
family

Total members________

6,071

6.4

3,997

6.3

1,460

7.1

614

5.6

16 years and over__________

2,832

3.0

1,776

2.8

735

3.6

321

2.9

Father________________
Mother........ .............. .
Others........ ....................

901
908
1,023

1.0
1.0
1.0

606
602
568

1.0
.9
.9

196
201
338

1.0
1.0
1.6

99
105
117

.9
.9
1. 1

Under 16 years.......................

3,231

3.4

2,213

3.5

725

3.5

293

2.7

6 years, under 16_______
Under 6......... .................

2,004
1,199
28

2.1
1.3
(i)

1,266
925
22

2.0
1.5
(*)

531
188
6

2.6
.9
(»)

207
86

1.9
.8

(«)

(«)
—

i On June 15,1935.
» Less than yio per family.

Large as the families of beet laborers often were, a characteristic at
least of those included in this study is that the number of working
members tended to be high in relation to the dependent nonworkers.
More than half the families had had three or more members working
in the beet fields in 1935, although a significant minority (24 percent)
had only one beet worker. It may be pointed out by way of contrast
that the one-worker family is typical of urban families of wage
earners and clerical workers, according to recent studies of family

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

income and expenditures made by the United States Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
T able 3.— Number of beet workers in fam ily, 19S5
Number of families
Number of beet workers in
family
Total

Percent
distribu
tion

Total families...................

946

100.0

1...................................................
2............................................... .

227
212

24.0
22.4

Number of families
Number of beet workers in
family
Total

3....................................
4_______________ ___________
6........

Percent
distribu
tion

164
162
107
84

17.3
16.1
11.3
8.9

The number of persons in the 946 families who worked in the beet
fields in 1935 totaled 2,830, as follows:
Number

Total............................................................... 2,830
Father, or other male head of family__________
Mother, or other female head of family________
Other members 16 years of age or over________
Children 6 and under 16 years________________
Children 15 or 16 years_______________________

854
442
857
670
7

Percent
distribution

100.0
30. 2
15. 6
30. 3
23. 7
.2

It is evident that children comprised a significant part of the labor
force drawn from these families, for nearly one-fourth of all beet
workers in these families were children under 16 years of age.
The presentation of the findings of the study with respect to child
labor and school attendance follow at this point. The problems of
low family income and poor living conditions, which in a sense are
both cause and result of child labor, will be discussed in a later section
of the report.

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS
BACKGROUND OF CHILD LABOR IN THE INDUSTRY

Young children have long been numbered among the hand laborers
of the sugar-beet fields wherever the working force has been drawn
from family groups. With the pressure upon the families to earn as
much as possible in a short working season and in the absence of legal
standards for the protection of young children from too early and
from excessive labor, too often it has been taken for granted by work
ing parents and employing farmers alike that every member of the
laborer’s family regardless of age must do whatever he or she possibly
can to assist with the field labor by which the family makes its living.
Consequences in fatigue and physical strain, in loss of schooling for
children, and in lack of normal home and community fife have been
disregarded. Before the Jones-Costigan Act the legal regulation of
child labor in the sugar-beet fields was almost nonexistent in the
United States.1
In 1920 a survey of child labor in the sugar-beet industry made by
the Children’s Bureau showed that it was almost universally accepted
that young children in beet workers’ families labor in the fields with
their parents. This survey, made in northern Colorado and central
Michigan, showed that about one-tenth of the childem 6 years of age,
more than half the children 8 years of age, and nearly all the children
10 years of age and over were working in the beet fields.2 This study
was based on 1,053 families doing hand work in the raising of sugar
beets, in which children under 16 years of age, or mothers of children
under 6 years, performed a part of the work. In these families there
were 2,531 children between 6 and 16 years of age, of whom 1,836, or 73
percent, worked in the beet fields that year.
Occasional reference to this earlier study is made to suggest com
parison of conditions in 1935 with those in 1920. It should be pointed
out, however, that the findings of the 1920 study are not statistically
comparable with those of the present study, because the earlier study
is not based on the same type of family as the 1935 survey. The
base of the earlier study was narrower in one respect— that is, only
families of beet workers with working mothers of young children or
with working children under 16 years of age were included, rather
than all families of beet workers with children under 16, regardless of
the work of women and children. It was on a broader base, however,
* In Nebraska, which was included in the study, the State child-labor law has since 1907 applied the 8-hourmaximum workday to employment of children under 16 years of age in beet fields, although there has been no
program for the enforcement of the 8-hour provision as it applied specifically to sugar-beet work. In Wis
consin, which was not included in the scope of the study, an order of the industrial commission of the State,
issued in 1926, provided for some control of child labor in the sugar-beet fields through school-attendance
requirements and an 8-hour-day limitation, both of which affected only children under 14 years of age and
which imposed duties on the parents but not on the growers. In a number of beet-growing States the childlabor law applies a minimum age to the work of children in any service or occupation; but the application of
these laws to work in the sugar-beet fields is not specific in the law, and in general practice these provisions
have not been interpreted to apply to this work.
>Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan, pp. 34, 94.
Children’s Bureau Publication No. 115. Washington, 1923.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

in another respect, namely that it included families of farm owners and
farm tenants doing hand work in the beet fields as well as laborers
hired to do this work. No farm-owner or farm-tenant families were
included in the 1935 study. The proportion of children working in
1920, if shown on the base of the 1935 study, would probably have
been somewhat smaller than that reported.
ATTITUDES TOW ARD W ORK OF CHILDREN

’With a background of general acceptance of child labor in beet
growing localities, the establishment of child-labor standards for the
industry in 1935 by the agricultural-adjustment program called for a
change in attitude on the part of many people if the child-labor pro
visions were to be well observed. The fact that the Government con
tracts conditioned the payment of financial benefits to growers on
observance of the child-labor provisions served in many quarters to
stimulate a critical consideration of the use of child labor in the beet
fields. When the field work of this study was being carried on in the fall
of 1935, after the child-labor provisions of the Government contracts had
been in effect for several months, the attitudes of many persons inter
viewed— growers, workers, and representatives of social agencies—
toward the use of child labor were found to be changing, and in many
localities the attitudes were very different from those prevailing in
1920. In the Mountain States areas and in southern Michigan
the attitude toward the child-labor restriction of the contracts was
frequently found to be favorable. In the southern Minnesota and
central Michigan areas, however, the common attitude was one of
indifference toward the use of young children in the fields and indeed of
opposition to the child-labor provisions of the contracts. In general, it
may be said that the attitudes of persons in the beet areas visited
were frequently favorable to the child-labor provisions of the contracts,
but that even in areas where many individuals regarded these provi
sions favorably full compliance with the child-labor terms did not
result from rehance on voluntary action by the growers.
A number of considerations contributed to the favorable attitudes
frequently found. The relief officials of one county were expressing
the opinion of other persons interviewed when they said that the pro
hibition of child labor in the beet fields was one of the most valuable
social gains under the Jones-Costigan Act and that the standard of
living of the Mexicans would be raised and the group would become an
integrated part of the community as a result of prohibiting child
labor. A few growers supported this point of view, and many favored
the elimination of child labor as a help to them in obtaining betterquality work in their fields and as a measure of justice to the children.
Growers said: “ We pay for mature labor and do not like to get child
labor.” It was explained, for instance, that at the thinning process
children are likely to leave too few or too many beets, to space them
poorly, or to leave a less strong plant than they could have left. The
telling comment was also made that “ we do not like the kids to work
because they get tired and then they do not thin well.” It was
frequently remarked by growers as well as laborers and other persons
in the communities visited that children who work in the beet fields
are deprived of their full school opportunities and that they valued

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN TH E SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

the child-labor provisions under the Jones-Costigan Act as a means of
helping to keep the children in school.
Despite the immediate hardship experienced by particular families
whose children were affected, many laborers approved the child-labor
provisions of the Government contracts as a means of increasing work
opportunity for adults and of advancing the economic status and
general welfare of the workers in this occupation. In southern M ich
igan the Jones-Costigan Act standards of a 14-year minimum age and
an 8-hour maximum workday for children between 14 and 16 years of
age were in fact a demand of the beet workers’ union in that locality
in 1935.
By no means was all local opinion favorable to the new child-labor
standards. Some growers, persons representing sugar companies, and
others in the communities disapproved of them, saying that the talk
of child labor in the beet fields was exaggerated; that the children
were not regular in school attendance anyway; that the work they did
in the fields was not hard; and that the children would get lazy if they
did not start working at 10 or 12 years of age. Such statements
were not, however, supported by the facts obtained in this study nor
by present-day knowledge of child development.
A more cogent argument advanced by many laborers, representa
tives of growers and of sugar companies, and even by school teachers,
was that the income of the families under present conditions in the
industry was so low that a man working alone or even a husband and
wife working together could hardly expect to support a family without
assistance from their children. Many parents explained that they
thought the child-labor standards fair to the children but hard on the
man with a big family. “ It is pretty good if they gave us a chance to
live, but it is hard for some of the large families.” There was a definite
correlation between the presence of children of 10 to 14 years of age
in a family and the attitude of the family toward the child-labor pro
visions for beet-field work. The families with such children were less
likely to favor the provisions than families without them. However,
many families that thought their children should work for whatever
they could earn said that they wished they could spare their children
from the hard work of the fields.
Division of opinion as to whether the children’s earnings or the chil
dren’s protection was more important extended to representatives of
relief agencies and of schools. One relief administrator, who heartily
approved the value and ultimate economy of eliminating child labor
from the beet fields, remarked: “ Of course most of the township
supervisors think that the children should be allowed to work for
what they can earn at the beets and think only of what is paid out now
in relief to the specific family.”
A number of workers said that the present wage was not high enough
to enable parents to support their children and that the rate should be
raised so that parents would not feel that they must use their children
in order to earn enough to live on. On the other hand, belief that the
industry could not afford to support a higher wage level for beet
laborers and “ pay a man 50 cents an hour” contributed to the critical
attitude toward the child-labor provisions on the part of some repre
sentatives of the industry.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

It was among the Russian-German laborers that the strongest dis
approval of the regulation was found, many of them feeling that the
work was good training for the children as well as that the children’s
earnings were essential ta family support. One Russian-German
father said of his 11-year-old daughter: “ Take Mary there. If we
do not let her work until she is 14, we might as well knock her on the
head and throw her in the ditch. She is lazy now and will never work
if she does not start until she is 14. It does not do her any harm.
She has worked since she was 6. With Katharine [10] it is not so bad.
She is not so lazy; so not working will not do her so much harm.”
The provision of the Government contracts specifying an 8-hour
day for children between 14 and 16 years of age was approved less
often than the 14-year minimum-age provision. While the principle
of shorter hours was favored in most localities, the legal limitation of
hours of work was thought by many growers to be impractical on the
ground that “ if a person is going to work he just must work farm
hours.” Others disapproved of the provision on the ground that it
was not fair to require a grower “ to police his workers,” especially as
it was extremely difficult to determine at all times if children were
kept off fields that were some distance from the farmer’s house.
The sugar-manufacturing companies played an important part in
influencing the prevailing attitudes of the growers toward minimumage and hour standards of the Government contracts and toward their
obligation to observe strictly these provisions. Since the growers have
been accustomed to accept from the sugar companies supervision of
their agricultural practices in the growing of beets and assistance with
respect to their labor supply it was only natural that the sugar com
panies were influential in this matter also. Three sugar companies
operating in the areas visited had incorporated a clause in the contract
that they made with a grower for the production and purchase of
sugar beets to the effect that the grower agreed to comply with the
child-labor provisions incorporated in the Government contracts.
The sugar-manufacturing companies are deserving of much credit in
those areas visited where the prevailing sentiment toward the childlabor provisions of the contracts was favorable and where compliance
with them was relatively good, namely southern Michigan and many
localities in the Mountain States region.
M ETH ODS OF IDENTIFYING CHILD WORKERS

It has been mentioned that the families interviewed included 670
children under 16 years of age who were working in the beet fields; and
the discussion of attitudes toward child labor has indicated that the
14-year minimum-age provision of the Government contracts did not
result in the entire exclusion of children under that age from work in
the beet fields.
The children under 16 years of age that were reported in this study
as working in the beet fields are only those children for whom the
Children’s Bureau investigators obtained definite information on
work done. The chief source of information was the statements of
the parents, who for the most part were interviewed in their own
homes but occasionally in the fields where they were working. It was
not feasible to inspect fields systematically for child labor, partly
because many of the interviews were necessarily carried on during the
time between working periods and also because less satisfactory inter
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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

views could be obtained from families when their work was being
interrupted than when they were seen at their leisure. No child has
been counted as working in the beet fields if the parents said that he
worked on only 1 or 2 days in the season or that he worked “ only a
little,” giving no indication as to the number of hours or number of
days worked.
Such a method of determining which children were working has
undoubtedly resulted in the omission from the count of a few who did
work in the fields with some degree of regularity. Reference to one
child excluded from the number listed as working illustrates the doubt
ful cases excluded. A 4-year-old boy was seen by the investigator
pulling beets and piling them in rows. The speed and adeptness with
which the child handled the beets made it appear that he had had
considerable practice at the operation. However, his father and
mother, who happened to be interviewed in the field where the whole
family was working, denied that this small boy worked more than
“ a little” and would give no indication that the child worked more
than occasionally “ for play.” Because of uncertainty whether this
child’s pulling of beets really was more than sport, he was excluded
from the number of children considered to be working for the purposes
of this study.
“ He is really just 13, but for the work he passes for 14.” Such
comments as this, frequently heard by the investigators during the
course of the field work, suggest the ever-present problem of proof of
age wherever a minimum age for employment is involved. The fact
that the production-adjustment contracts set a 14-year minimum age
for work done in the beet fields by hired help made the problem of age
determination an immediate one in this survey.
Information obtained for this study on the ages of children was
limited to that readily obtainable, since the purpose of the survey was
to obtain a picture of working and living conditions of the families
rather than to check specifically on compliance with the 14-year
minimum-age standard with respect to particular children. The age
information for individual children is based chiefly on the mothers’
oral statements of date of birth made to the representatives of the
Children’s Bureau. These statements were corroborated in many
cases, however, by documentary evidence such as a birth certificate
or a baptismal certificate which the families had at hand. Since no
method of age determination had been developed for administrative
purposes under the production-adjustment program, no such satis
factory records as employment certificates were available to provide
evidence of age. The likelihood of misrepresentation to the Chil
dren’s Bureau representatives was minimized by obtaining the birth
date of each child under 16 without immediate reference to whether
the child worked in the beet fields. It was also found helpful to review
school records of age, although these could not be thoroughly relied
upon, since they were sometimes carelessly collected and were rarely
based on documentary evidence. Sometimes different dates of birth
would be shown on different records of the same school for the same
child; sometimes the date of birth on the school record was inconsistent
with the date shown on a birth or baptismal certificate seen by the Chil
dren’s Bureau representative in the child’s home. When such a certifi
cate was seen it was of course used as the basis of the age reported in
this study.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

The fact that age was not always accurately reported is indicated in
the figures on total number of children reported to be of each age in
the families. The number reported as 14 years of age was 12 percent
greater than the average number of children at 12, 13, and 14 years
(table 4). It is thus evident that the number of working children
under 14 years shown in this report is probably a slight understate
ment of the actual number because of errors both in age and in report
ing whether a particular child worked. Even so it is believed that
the reported number is not grossly out of line with the actual number
of such children working in the families interviewed.
AGES OF WORKING CHILDREN
Proportion working, by age.

The year in which this study was made was significant in that it
was marked by the application of a Nation-wide legislative restriction
on the use of child labor in the beet fields. The study shows that
marked changes took place under the influence of the agriculturaladjustment program in the prevalence of the use of young children
in the fields as well as in the attitudes of people toward the use of
children in the fields.
Among the 946 families included in this study, 748 had, on June 15,
1935, one or more children known to be between 6 and 16 years of
age. There was a total of 2,004 children of these ages, of whom 670,
or one-third, were reported to be working in the beet fields in 1935.
The ages of the working children and of the total number of children
between 6 and 16 are shown in table 4, together with the percentage of
working children of each year of age.
T able 4.— Percentage working in the beet fields of children 6 and under 16 years
of age, by age of child, 1986
Children 6 and under 16
years of age
Age of child 1

Working in beet
fields

Children 6 and under 16
years of age
Age of child >

Total

Total
Number

Percent

Working in beet
fields
Number Percent

Total__________

2,004

670

33.4

191

22 0

6 years.______________
7 years...........................
8 years..........................
9 years...................... .
10 years........................

161
199
183
202
195

2
2
8
21
24

1.2
1.0
4.4
10.4
12.3

189
215
185
113

lift
194
168
28

fil 4
9ft 2
9ft K
24! 8

6 years, under 16, n. o. s.

1Age on June 15, 1935.

The youngest children reported as working in the beet fields were
two of 6 years. These two 6-year-old children, however, comprised
only 1 percent of all the children of this age in the families. Of the
children 10 years of age, 12 percent worked in the fields with their
parents. The proportion working increased at each year of age until
at 13 years of age the majority of the children were reported as
working in the fields. Nearly all of the 14- and 15-year-old children
worked.

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

Both boys and girls “ worked at beets,” the boys somewhat more
frequently than the girls. Of the 670 children between 6 and 16
years of age working m the beet fields, 404 were boys and 266 were
girls. This difference is to be accounted for partly because it was
sometimes felt that the field work was less suitable for girls and
partly because girls were more likely to be assigned duties of house
work and of caring for babies and other young children. The higher
proportion of boys working was characteristic of all ages under 16 but
chiefly of children under 12. The youngest girl reported working was
7 years of age. At 13 years of age the majority of the girls, as well as
of the boys, were working in the fields.
The racial stock of the family appeared to have relatively little
effect on the prevalence of work by children under 14 years of age in
1935, when a legal minimum-age standard of 14 years was in effect,
even though the Russian-Germans were more likely than the Spanish
speaking parents to approve the idea of children working in beet
fields. The one point at which there was a noticeable difference
between children of Russian-German stock and those from Spanish
speaking families was among children 14 and 15 years of age, espe
cially among girls. In the Russian-German families substantially every
girl of these ages worked in the fields as well as every boy; but the
girls of 14 ana 15 among the Spanish-speaking families were not so
universally required to work in the fields.
The migration of the family for beet work appeared to be an im
portant factor in determining whether the younger children worked
m the fields. Among children between 6 and 14 years of age in the
migratory families, 24 percent were working in the beet fields, whereas
for the children of this age group in families that were not migratory
the proportion working was 16 percent. The greater prevalence of
working children in migratory families was due in part to the greater
use of the very young children, the proportion working of those
between 6 and 12 years being nearly twice as high for children in
migratory as for those in nonmigratory families (table 5).
T able 5 .— Percentage working in beet fields o f children in migratory and nonmigra
tory fa m ilies, by age o f child, 1 9 36
Children 6 and under 16 years of age
Working in beet fields

Age of child 1 and migratory status of family
Total

Number
Total children-------------------- ----------------------------------------------

6 years, under 12_______________________________________________
In migratory families_______________________________________
In nonmigratory families__________________________________ _
12 years, under 14_________________ _____________ ________ ______
In migratory families..................... ..................... ................. ........
In nonmigratory families-------- --------------------------------------------14 years, under 16---------- --------- ---------- ----------------------------- --------In migratory families.......................................................................
6 years, under 18, n. o. s------------------------------------------------------------1 Age on June 16, 1936.

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2,004
824
1,180
1,131
462
679
360
150
210
400
163
237
113

670
308
362
99
52
47
181
90
91
362
160
212
28

Percent
33.4
37.4
30.7
8.8
11.5
6.9
60.3
60.0
43.3
90.5
92.0
89. 5
24.8

WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

This tendency to greater prevalence of child labor among the
young children in migrant families doubtless reflects the fact that
families willing to use their children in the fields would have more
financial incentive to migrate to the fields than those not wishing to
have the children work toward the support of the family. It may be
also that children in families living in their year-round home were
more established in both home and neighborhood life, and that the
children in these families would therefore be more likely to continue
their customary home, play, and school activities than if they were
put into a new environment where the interests and activities of the
family were focused intensely on the beet-field work that was to be
done.
Area differences in observance of 14-year minimum-age standard.

The extent to which the 14-year minimum-age provision of the
Government contracts was observed was found to differ greatly from
area to area. In general there was a greater degree of compliance
with the 14-year minimum-age provision of the contracts in the
areas of the Mountain States beet region that were visited than in
those of the eastern beet region.
For the 10 areas included in the study the proportion of children
reported to be working to all children between 6 and 14 years of age
in the families interviewed ranged from 4 to 41 percent, as follows:
Percent working in beet
field» of all children
6 and under 14years
of age >

All a r e a s ..__________________________________

Southern Montana_____________________________
Sidney, M ont__________________________________
Southern Michigan______________________________
Northern Colorado______________________________
Western Nebraska_____________________________
Western Slope, Colo_________________________
Northern Wyoming____________________________
Arkansas Valley, Colo___________________________
Southern Minnesota_____________________________
Central Michigan________________________________

4
9
12
12
13
18
19
19
30
41

•The numbers on which these percentages are based appear in appendix table III, p. 86.

It is noted that the two Montana areas, northern Colorado, western
Nebraska, and also one area of the eastern beet region— southern
Michigan— were definitely better than average in compliance with
the minimum-age provision of the contracts. The two areas ranking
markedly below average in compliance were the two eastern areas of
central Michigan and southern Minnesota.
The explanation of the large differences between areas with respect
to child labor in 1935 appeared to lie chiefly in the attitudes prevailing
in the communities toward the observance of the child-labor standards
included in the Government contracts. To a lesser extent they are
attributable to the relative abundance of adult labor. For instance,
the extremely low proportion of children under 14 years of age work
ing in southern Montana is undoubtedly due in some part to the
“ farmers’ strike” against the growing of sugar beets in that area in
1935 and the resulting oversupply of adult labor. On the other hand,
in southern Michigan the use of child labor was conspicuously small
and yet the supply of adult labor was not excessive in relation to
available work, for the beet workers of that area had organized into

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

a labor union and included in their collective agreement with the
growers a provision that “ no outside help shall be employed as long
as local labor is available.” As a result, they had the fullest employ
ment of any area visited.
Effect o f 14-year minim um -age standard— 1934 and 1935 com pared.

In order to ascertain what effect the 14-year minimum-age stand
ard of the Government contracts, authorized by the Jones-Costigan
Act, had on the prevalence of child labor in terms of conditions im
mediately preceding the application of Federal standards, each family
visited was asked whether it had done beet work in 1934 and if so
whether the children had worked in the beet fields that year.
Of the families interviewed, 847 had worked in the beet fields in
1934 was well as in 1935. In these 847 families the number of children
reported as being between 6 and 16 years of age on June 15, 1934,
was 1,821. Of these, 933, or 51 percent, were reported to have
worked in the beet fields that year. It is thus indicated that child
labor was much more prevalent in 1934 than in 1935, when the restric
tion of the Government contracts on child labor existed and the pro
portion working of all children between 6 and 16 years of age in the
families was 33 percent.
Among 10-year-old children in the families, for example, the pro
portion reported to be working was 44 percent in 1934 as compared
with 12 percent in 1935. The youngest age at which a majority of
the children were working in 1934 was 11 years, in contrast to 13
years in 1935. The proportions of children of each age working in
1934 and 1935 are shown in table 6.
T a b l e 6 .— Percentage working in beet fields o f children 6 and under 16 years o f
age, by age o f child, 1 9 84 ond 1985
Percentage working
In—
Age of child1
1934 ’

lO"years------ -----------------------

Percentage working
in—
Age of child1
1934 *

1935

51.2

33.4

1.1
10.8
20.7
31.3
44.0

1.2
1.0
4.4
10.4
12.3

13 years............................. ......

65.2
76 2
89.8
91.3
96.4
40.4

1935
22.0
38.0
61.4
90.2
90.8
24.8

* Age on j une 10.

* Based on children whose families did beet work in both 1934 and 1935. For numbers on which percent
ages are based see appendix table VI, p. 89.

The effect of the Jones-Costigan Act on the frequency of work by
children of various age groups may be stated briefly as follows: Of
the age group 6 and under 12 years, 28 percent worked in the beet fields
in 1934, compared with 9 percent in 1935, a decrease of 68 percent for
this group oi child workers. Among children of the next older group,
those 12 and 13 years of age, 83 percent had worked in 1934 compared
with 50 percent in 1935, a drop of 40 percent in the proportion of
children of this age group working in the beet fields. The difference
between 1934 and 1935 for the 14- and 15-year-old group, that is
those immediately above the minimum-age limit, was relatively
slight, 94 percent working in 1934 and 91 percent in 1935.
135807°— 39----- 3

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T able 7.— Percentage working in beet fields of children 6 and under 16 years of
age, by age of child, 1984 and 1986
Children 6 and under 16
years of age

Children 6 and under 16
years of age
Age of child and year
of w ork1

Total

Working in beet
fields

Age of child and year
of work

Total

Number Percent

Number Percent
Total children:
1934
1935
6 years, under 12:
1934
103fi
12 years, under 14:
1934 ...........- ........
1935 .....................

1,821
2,004

033
670

51.2
33.4

1,042
1,131

294
99

28.2
8.8

368
360

307
181

83.4
50.3

Working in beet
fields

14 years, under 16:
1934.........................
1935.........................
6 years, under 16,
D. o. s.:
1934.........................
1935.........................

312
400

292
362

93.6
90.5

99
113

40
28

40.4
24.8

1 Age on June 15.

The marked decreases from 1934 to 1935 for the age groups below 14
years resulted obviously from the desire of growers that employed the
families to comply with the 14-year minimum-age stipulation contained
in the production-control contracts, which substantially all of them
had signed with the Government. The slight decrease m the propor
tion working of the children 14 and 15 years of age may have been
influenced also by the growers’ concern with the child-labor provisions
of the Government contracts. A few farmers in 1935 were reported to
have forbidden children under 16 years of age to work in their beet
fields because of confusion over the minimum-age limit or because they
did not want to be responsible for seeing that a child of 14 or 15 did not
exceed the maximum 8-hour day stipulated in the contracts for chil
dren of that age.
Area differences in the proportion of working children 6 and under
14 were noticeable in 1934 as well as in 1935. In 1934 the proportion
of children of these ages working in the three eastern areas combined
was 49 percent and m the seven Mountain States areas combined,
40 percent. Though appreciable, this is a smaller difference than
that between the eastern and Mountain States regions in 1935, when
the proportion of children 6 and under 14 working in the areas visited
of each region was 34 and 13 percent, respectively.
T able 8.— Percentage working in beet fields of children 6 and under 14 years of
age in eastern and Mountain States areas, 1984 and 1985
Children 6 and under 14 years of age
Working in beet fields

Area1 and year

Total

All areas:
1934
1936_____________

___________

3 eastern areas:1
1934....................................................................................................
1935

_______

____

7 Mountain States areas:3
1934............................ .......................................................................
1035

Number

Percent

1,410
1,491

601
280

42.6
18.8

363
394

178
132

49.0
33.5

1,047
1,097

423
148

40.4
13.5

1 For individual areas see appendix table UJ, p. 86.
* Central Michigan, southern Michigan, and southern Minnesota.
>Northern Colorado; Arkansas Valley, Colo.; Western Slope, Colo.; western Nebraska; northern Wyo*
ming; southern Montana; and Sidney, Mont.

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN TH E SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

In this connection it is interesting to refer to the difference between
northern Colorado and central Michigan found in the 1920 survey,
which shows the reverse relationship between these two areas to that
found in 1934 and 1935. In 1920 in northern Colorado 73 percent
of the children between 6 and 14 years of age in the families included
in the study were reported to have worked in the beet fields; in Michi
gan, 63 percent.8 The corresponding percentages from the 1935
study, though based on a sample not strictly comparable with the
1920 sample, are 12 percent for northern Colorado and 41 percent
for central Michigan. An explanation of this reversal in relationship
existing between the two areas in 1920 may be found in part in the
exceptionally strong tendency of the Russian-German families to
have their children work and in the fact that the fathers of almost
three-fourths of the Colorado families included in the 1920 study were
Russian-Germans, whereas Russian-Germans had comprised a negligi
ble proportion of the fathers of the Michigan families mcluded in 1920
and a small proportion in northern Colorado families in 1935.4 A ten
dency for Russian-German families to have their children working at a
younger age than for other families of beet workers was observed for
1934, before the application of the Government minimum-age standard
for the use of children in the beet fields. The two racial groups were
found to be conforming with these standards about equally well m 1935.
Information on work done in 1934 showed that 57 percent of the chil
dren of the age group 6 to 14 in Russian-German families of beet
laborers visited were working, as compared with 37 percent in Spanish
speaking families and 42 percent in the others.
The noticeable reduction in the use of child labor which took place
between 1920 and 1934 in Colorado was undoubtedly influenced also
by public discussion of the evils of child labor during that period and
by the efforts of one large sugar-manufacturing company to discour
age the use of young children in the fields. Before the enactment of
the Jones-Costigan Act this company had inserted in the forms pre
pared for labor contracts between growers and laborers a provision
that “ children 11 years of age or under are not permitted to work
under this contract.” This company also stressed the importance of
complying with the child-labor provisions set by the Government
contracts in 1935.
W O R K P E R F O R M E D BY C H ILD R E N
The processes at which children worked.

“ Beets is hard work for a man. It is awful hard work for the little
children,” families would explain to the investigators. Yet for the
most part work performed by the children was identical with that
done by their parents.
In tne early work of the season, that of thinning the young plants,
many children performed the operations both of blocking and of
thinning. Each of these operations requires constant kneeling or
stooping, which contributes to the fatigmng nature of the work. An
added trying and doubtless injurious aspect of this work comes from
breathing^ the dust raised from the soil in the process. The th in n in g
work, which is carried on in late spring, is done under a hot sun that
* Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan, pp. 5,34,94. Chil
dren’s Bureau Publication 115. Washington, 1923.
< Ibid., pp. 15, 83.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

was very trying to many workers. Of the 670 children 6 and under
16 years of age working in 1935, 637, or 95 percent, worked at the
thinning process (table 9). Ninety-one of the ninety-nine working
children under 12 years of age thinned beets.
The hoeing and weeding work was done somewhat less frequently
by the children of the families of beet laborers visited than was the
thinning work. One, if not the chief, reason for this fact is that the
pressure to complete this work is usually not so great as for other
processes. The amount of work required per acre at this process is
less than at the other processes, and longer time may be taken to
complete the work without harm to the crop. However, 82 percent
of the child workers under 16 years of age included in this survey
worked at the hoeing and weedmg operations. The proportion that
worked at hoeing among the youngest age group of working children—
those 6 and under 12 years— was 57 percent, while among those 12
and under 14 the proportion was 79 percent. Almost all the working
children of the upper age group, those 14 and 15 years of age, worked
at hoeing.
T able 9.— Percentage o f working children 6 and under 16 years o f age who worked
at thinning and at hoeing, by age o f child and area, 19 35
Work ing children 6 and under 16 years of age
Who worked at—
Age of child 1 and area
Total

Thinning

Hoeing

Number

Percent

Number

Percent

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

670

637

95.1

549

81.9

3 eastern areas.......... ...................... . .............
7 Mountain States areas............ . ........... ........

231
439

216
421

93.5
95.9

196
353

84.8
80.4

6 years, under 12................................... ............. .............

91.9

56.6

3 eastern areas______ ______ - __________________
7 Mountain States areas...____ ____ ____ ________

61
38

63
38

86.9
<*)

37
19

60.7
(*)

12 years, under 14.................. ..........................................

181

166

91.7

143

79.0

3 eastern areas.................... ........... ...........................
7 Mountain States areas________________________

71
110

66
100

93.0
90.9

63
80

88.7
72.7

14 years, under 16...........................................................

362

363

97.5

326

90.1

3 eastern areas........................... ...... ..........................
7 Mountain States areas.................... .......................

97
265

95
268

97.9
97.4

94
232

96.9
87.5

6 years, under 16, n. o. s__________ ________

i Age on June 16,1936.
* Percent not shown because number of children was less than 50.

Harvest work is considered the hardest of all the hand-labor opera
tions in the beet fields, requiring the most strength and endurance in
the worker. The topping operation proper requires considerable skill
to manipulate the heavy topping knife, which weighs nearly a pound,
in such a way that only the proper amount of the crown of the beet is
removed with the leaves. It also requires continual rapid bending to
pick up the beets. The younger children could not do the actual
topping but did do the pulling, work which requires less skill. The

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

weight of the beets, typically 2 to 3 pounds each after they are topped,
adds to the fatiguing nature of the topping and pulling work, since
the beets are handled in very large numbers and with very’ great
rapidity.
Although the harvest work is hard and comes at a time when the
weather may be raw and cold and when school is in session, there is
always great urgency for applying as many hands as possible to the
work in order to be sure to finish it before the beets freeze in the
ground and to avoid the necessity of hiring extra help. Children were
found to work at the harvest operations of pulling, topping, or both,
nearly as frequently as at thinning. The vast majority, 91 percent,’
of the total number of working children who were under 16 years of
age at the time of harvesting (age as of October 15, 1935), and who
were in families that were interviewed after the topping season had
begun did harvest work in beet fields. This is shown in table 10,
which is based on those families that were interviewed during or after
the topping season and for whom information could be obtained.
T able 10.

Percentage that worked at topping, o f working children 6 and under
1 6 years o f age, in fa m ilies interviewed after topping season began, by aae of
child and by area, 1 9 3 5
Working children 6 and under 16
years of age
Age of child 1and area

Who worked at topping
Total
Number

Total....... ..................
3 eastern areas..............
4 Mountain States areas9 .
6 years, under 12......................
3 eastern areas.... .........
4 Mountain States areas9 .
12 years, under 14______ .
3 eastern areas...........__
4 Mountain States areas9 _ _
14 years, under 16________
3 eastern areas____ ____ _ _
4 Mountain States areas9 ...........
6 years, under 16 n. o. s___

Percent

440

400

90.9

214
226

202
198

94.4
87.6

81.3

50
14

45
7

90.0

111

66
45

62
35

263

249

94.7

97
166

94
155

96.9
93.4

(*)
87.4
93.9
(»)

1Age on Oct. 15,1935.
, , 1I°,cluK
det,i!,ester.n Nebraska, northern Wyoming, southern Montana, Sidney, Mont.: the figures also
include 5 children in the Western Slope, Colo., area. The families in the other 3 M o u n t a i n s S a r e l s
were visited before harvesting work began.
areas
> Percent not shown because number of children was less than 50.

Daily hoars o f work.

The working hours of beet laborers tend to be extremely long, re
flecting both the traditional 10-hour day for agricultural labor and
the pressure on the workers to perform a maximum amount of work
within a brief seasonal period. A workday from sunup to sundown
or, as aptly phrased by one worker, “ from kin see to can’t see,” has
not been uncommon among beet workers even for the children.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

The 8-hour standard provided in the sugar-beet production-adjust
ment contract as the maximum workday for children 14 and under 16
years of age arose from a very real need to remedy excessively long
daily hours of work customary among beet laborers for young and old
alike. Unfortunately it did not appear to result in shortening the
hours of work for more than a small proportion of the young workers
in 1935.
At the thinning process only 10 percent of the child workers under
16 were reported to work less than 8 hours and another 28 percent,
approximately 8 hours a day. The other 62 percent were reported to
have worked usually 9 or more hours a day despite the 8-hour maxi
mum specified for children 14 to 16 in the Government contracts.
One-fourth of the children under 16 were reported to work usually
12 to 15 hours a day at this process.
T able 11.— Usual daily hours o f work in beet fields o f children working in specified
processes, 19 35
Children 6 and under 16 years of age working at—
Hoeing

Thinning

Topping

Usual daily hours of work 1
Percent
distri
bution

Number

617

100.0

638

100.0

392

100.0

17
43
174
46
94
89
71
63
31

2.8
7.0
28.2
7.3
15.2
14.4
11.6
8.6
5.0

8
66
186
68
104
59
27
16
6

1.5
12.1
34.4
12.6
19.3
11.0
5.0
3.0
1.1

24
31
110
34
74
67
36
11
5

6.1
7.9
28.0
8.7
18.9
17.1
9.2
2.8
1.3

Number

649

637

8 ...................... .....................................
9..............................................................
10............................................................
11............................................................
12............................................................
13............................................................

Percent
distri
bution

>400

20
10

Percent
distri
bution

Number

8
9

1 Hours are reported to the nearest whole number.
1 Working children in families interviewed after topping season had begun.

Information on the number of hours that each child usually worked
in a day was obtained from his parents. The time taken out for meals
or other extended rest periods was deducted from the total time
spent in the fields. In the absence of any fixed schedule of work
ing hours on which exact data on working time could be based, the
figures given on daily working hours represent the length of the day
most commonly worked by the particular child in terms of the nearest
whole number. Therefore children reported as working 8 hours a day
actually worked from 7% to 8% hours a day. The few children reported
to have worked exactly 8% hours a day have been classed with the
9-hour group. It should also be noted that the hours given, repre
senting the usual length of workday, do not show the longest day
worked by the child.
Daily hours of work at hoeing and weeding tended to be somewhat
shorter than hours of work at thinning, but even so they were 9 or
more a day for slightly over half the children doing this work.

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN TH E SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

Hours of work at the topping process tended to be somewhat longer
than those at hoeing but shorter than those at thinning, the other
process at which the pressure is very great. A workday shorter at
topping than at thinning is due largely to the fact that the hours of
daylight at harvest season were fewer than in early summer. Yet at
topping work 58 percent of the children under 16 were reported to
work usually 9 or more hours a day and 11 percent, 12 or more hours
a day. In those cases where extremely long hours were reported for
topping— in one case a 16-hour day— the work was made possible
with the aid of illumination from the moon, a searchlight, or the head
lights of a truck.
A workday of less than 4 hours at topping was reported for 6 per
cent of the children, a larger proportion with such short hours than at
any of the other processes. This small group of children with short
hours includes a number who attended school regularly and worked
2 hours or so in the late afternoon and on Saturday.
The age of the working children naturally had some influence on
the length of the workday, the older children being more likely to
work the longer hours than the younger ones. At the thinning
process, for instance, 49 percent of the children 6 and less than 12
years of age worked 9 or more hours, while of the children 12 and
under 14 years, 61 percent usually worked such hours, and of those
14 and under 16 years 67 percent thinned with usual daily hours of
9 or more. However, the younger group of children was represented
to some extent among those working very long hours. Approxi
mately one-sixth of the children under 12 years of age were reported
to have worked 12 or more hours a day at the thinning process.
T a b l e 12.— Usual daily hours o f work at thinning fo r children o f specified ages, 1 9 8 6
Children 6 and under 16 years of age

Usual daily hours of
work •

6 years, under
12
Total
Num
ber

Percent
distri
bution

12 years, under
14
Percent
distri
bution

Num
ber

14 years, under
16
Percent
distri
bution

Num
ber
358

637

Hours reported____________

617

100.0

161

100.0

355

100.0

4, less than 8___________
8........- .............................
9.......................................
10......................................
11.....................................
12......................................
13......................................
14......................................

17
43
174
45
94
89
71
53
31

12
16
13
5
8
12
3
10
2

14.8
19.8
16.0
6.2
9.9
14.8
3.7
12.3
2.5

3
13
47
15
23
16
23
11
10

1.9
8.1
29.2
9.3
14.3
9.9
14.3
6.8
6.2

2
12
104
24
60
59
43
32
19

.6
3.4
29.3
6.8
16.9
16.6
12.1
9.0
5.3

2
10
1
3
2
2

Median hours........................

168

6 years,
under
16,
n. o. s.

7
9

3
11

1 Hours are reported to the nearest whole number.

The 8-hour limitation to daily working time for children under 16
prescribed in the Government contracts was found to be less fre
quently observed in the areas of the eastern beet region than in those
of the Mountain States beet region. Table 13 shows that only 29

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

percent of the working children in the families interviewed in the
eastern beet region reported a usual workday of approximately 8
hours or less, in conformity with the provision of the Government
contracts, while engaged in the thinning process, whereas 43 percent
of those in the Mountain States region were working a usual work
day at thinning of approximately 8 hours.
T able

13.— Usual daily hours o f work at thinning fo r children 6 and under 16 years
o f age m eastern and M ountain States areas, 19S6
Children 6 and under 16 years of age
In 7 Mountain States
areas

In 3 eastern areas
Usual daily hours of w ork1
Number

Total working at process.

Percent
distribu
tion

Number

Percent
distribu
tion

216

Hours reported______________

208

100.0

409

100.0

Less than 8________ _____
8............................
9, less than 12____________
12 or more_______________

34
26
72
76

16.4
12.5
34.6
36.5

26
148
156
79

6.4
36.2
38.1
19.3

Hours not reported__________

i Hours are reported to the nearest whole number.

Reference to the 1920 survey of child labor in the beet fields indi
cates that less progress has taken place in shortening the workday
than in keeping the younger children out of the fields. A workday
of 8 hours or less was reported for a larger proportion of the child
workers in 1935 than in 1920, but on the other hand a workday of 12
hours or more was found to be no less frequent in 1935 than in 1920.
Comparison of hours at thinning by children in laborers’ families for
the two regions in the 2 years is as follows:
Colorado
1920 i

Less than 8 hours_____________

3.
6.
9 hours, less than 12__________ 73.
12 or more hours______________ 16.

8 hours...............................

3
6
4
7

7 Mountain
States
areas, 19S6

6. 4
36. 2
38. 1
19. 3

Michigan
1920 «

5.
2.
60.
30.

7
9
6
8

S eastern

areas,
19S5

16.
12.
34.
36.

4
6
6
6

* Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan, pp. 28, 91. Chil
dren’s Bureau Publication 115. Washington, 1923.

At least half the children worked 10 or more hours a day when thin
ning in 1920 as well as in 1935.
The fatigue and strain of these long hours of work were increased
by the pressure for speed. One mother said: “ Beets is such hard work
for the big and for the little. It would not be so bad if you did not
have to work so fast. You have to hurry so much all the time for
fear the boss will say you do not have enough done and you have to
get [and pay for] help.” The strain of long hours of work, day after
day, was unrelieved for many of the children except for time off on
Sundays, and not all families rested from their work even then.
The majority of the working children worked the same daily hours

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN* THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

as did the adults in their families. Even among children under 12
years of age nearly half worked as long hours as their parents when
thinning and when topping and more than half when hoeing. In the
eastern areas, where the beets were not irrigated and where natural
rainfall was relied upon, the families occasionally had a whole day off
or worked a short day because of rainy weather. But such interrup
tions to labor were not often found in the Mountain States areas,
where there was little rainfall and the beet crop was an irrigated one.
Length o f working periods.

The drive of these extremely long hours of work would usually
last continuously over the full length of the period during which each
process was performed, the objective of the family being the com
pletion of the work in the shortest possible period of time. The
median number of days worked by children included in this study
for whom information could be obtained was 21 days for thinning,
14 days for hoeing, and 23 days for topping. The median number of
days worked in the entire 1935 season was 58 for the children under
16 in families interviewed after the completion of the harvest work.
The majority of them worked at least as many days as the adults in
their families did.
Children of the eastern areas of Michigan and Minnesota were found
to be working in the beet fields for more days in the season than those
in the three Mountain States areas for which the information could be
obtained, a median of 65 davs for the former in contrast to a median of
48 days for the latter. More than a fourth of the children in the
eastern areas worked in the beet fields 80 or more days in the year,
the equivalent of 13 or more weeks of 6 working days each (table 14).
T a b l e 14.— N um ber o f days worked by children in beet fields in the eastern and in
the M oun ta in States areas during the 1 9 8 5 season
Children 6 and under 16 years of age1

Total days worked

6 areas

3 eastern areas

Percent
Number distribu Number
tion

3 Mountain States
areas *

Percent
Percent
distribu Number distribu
tion
tion

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

383

Days reported_____ ____________________

335

100.0

205

100.0

130

100.0

Less than 20.............. ......... .................
20, less than 30_____________________
30, less than 40_____________________
40, less than 50...................... .............._
50, less than 60__________ ___________
60, less than 70........ ............................
70, less than 80.---------- -------------------80, less than 90___________ _____ ____
90 or more..............................................

28
24
33
44
46
61
34
32
33

8.4
7.2
9.9
13.1
13.7
18.2
10.1
9.6
9.8

20
7
13
19
23
40
25
30
28

9.8
3.4
6.3
9.3
11.2
19.5
12.2
14.6
13.7

8
17
20
25
23
21
9
2
5

6.2
13.1
15.4
19.2
17.7
16.2
6.9
1.5
3.8

Days not reported_____________________
Median number of d a y s ......... ............ .

214

169

48
58

39
65

1 Age on Oct. 15,1935.
1 Includes the 2 Montana areas and northern Wyoming, the only areas in the Mountain States region
visited after families had completed their harvest work.

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The corresponding proportion of working children in the Mountain
States beet region for which as long a working season was reported
was very small, only about 5 percent. The greater duration of em
ployment of children in the eastern beet fields reflects similar differ
ences between the two regions in the acreage handled per family and
in the working period o f adults. Whether or not a working child
had passed his fourteenth birthday appeared to have less effect on
the length of the working period than the region in which he worked.
Children under 14 years of age in the eastern areas for whom the infor
mation is reported tended to work more days in the season (a median
of 61 days) than those 14 and 15 years of age in the three Mountain
Slates areas (a median of 49 days).
Among the child workers under 14 years of age there was a small
but significant proportion who worked fewer days than adults in the
family because of the intervention of the child-labor provisions of the
Government contracts. Some comment was heard that such child
labor as had existed in violation of the terms of the Government con
tracts in 1935 occurred largely at the beginning of the thinning season,
just at the time the N. K. A. codes were declared unconstitutional,
but that before 2 or 3 weeks had passed this was cleared up. In
the course of the field work of the study, only 25 working children
under 14 were reported to have started work at the beginning of the
thinning period and then to have been forbidden to continue because
of the child-labor provisions. These comprised 10 percent of all
children under 14 reported as working 3 or more days in 1935. No
children were reported to have worked fewer days than adults in the
family at the hoeing process because of the child-labor provisions,
and only one child worked fewer days at the topping process for
this reason.
P R O B L E M S OF EFFE C TU A TIN G C O M P L IA N C E W IT H C H IL D -L A B O R
STANDARDS

Despite the approval frequently accorded the child-labor provisions
of the A. A. A. contracts, the foldings of this study show that ap
proval of the child-labor standards by numerous individuals and
reliance on voluntary compliance by the growers did not fully elim
inate child labor in violation of the legal standards. For instance, of
the families interviewed with children between 6 and 14 years of age,
30 percent were allowing their children to work in violation of the 14year minimum standard, and it is probable that a similar proportion
of growers employing families with children of these ages were in
volved. A few of the problems involved in obtaining compliance with
the A. A. A. child-labor standards will be discussed briefly at this point.
Determination of whether growers complied with the provisions of
their production-adjustment contracts was locally in the hands of the
sugar-beet-control committees that the A. A. A. had established in
each sugar-beet factory district. These committees usually had as
their agent a compliance officer, whose duties included measuring the
acreage of beets planted by the growers and handling matters regard
ing compliance with the child-labor and minimum-wage provisions.
The general plan followed with respect to the child-labor provisions
in the first year of this program was to give full publicity to the childlabor requirements and to rely on voluntary cooperation of the grow-

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN TH E SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

ers for compliance with them without providing specific administra
tive measures for aiding growers in determining the age of children
and for ascertaining whether particular growers did observe the childlabor provisions.
Essential to compliance with the child-labor provisions but least
difficult of the problems involved was informing all persons affected
of the terms of the child-labor provisions of the Government contracts
and warning them not to violate these terms. In most localities this
appeared to be well done. Repeated reminders to workers and grow
ers of the child-labor terms of the Government contracts had been
made in the localities visited through newspaper publicity, notices
sent through the mail, personal conversation, and other means. These
were made chiefly by representatives of the A. A. A. and by the
sugar companies. In one town the principal of the school reported
distributing notices to the children telling them that if they stayed
out of school to help with the beets they were jeopardizing their
farmer’s chance of getting a Government benefit. Conspicuous for
being the only case of its kind found, was that of one A. A. A. com
pliance officer who reported to the Children’s Bureau investigator
that he gave no publicity to information regarding the labor aspects
of the sugar-beet control program because he thought that such
publicity would be likely to cause labor trouble.
A less obvious and therefore more difficult problem to handle than
that of spreading information to persons affected was obtaining
evidence of the age of the children whom growers or parents wished
to put to work. It has been noted that there was a striking difference
in the extent of compliance with the minimum-age standard between
children under 12 years of age and those 12 and 13 years of age; that
is, those in the age group immediately below the minimum-age limit.
In several areas— northern Colorado, the two Montana areas, southern
Michigan, and western Nebraska— no children under 12 years of age,
or substantially none, were found to have worked; apparently in these
areas a very real and conscientious effort was made to eliminate child
labor in the beet fields. However, these very areas were not propor
tionately successful with respect to reducing the prevalence of work
in the beet fields bv children 12 or 13 years of age. In no area was the
proportion of children 12 and 13 years of age working less than onefifth of the number in the families. In some areas approximately half,
and in two about three-fourths, of the children of these ages were work
ing (see appendix table III, p. 86).
This very general lack of success in eliminating the labor of children
12 and 13 years of age from the beet fields even in areas where there
was success in eliminating the work of young children is clearly at
tributable in part to the absence of any system of checking the age
of children just below the 14-year limit. Since children under 14 years
of age are not readily identifiable by their appearance, many growers
may have violated the child-labor terms of their contract with the
Government unintentionally in accepting a parent’s unverified state
ment regarding the age of a child. An awareness of the problem was
widely met with, however, and a variety of attempts to solve it was
found.
One large sugar company operating in the Mountain States region
recognized the problem of identifying children by age. This company
therefore provided on the form prepared for use as the labor contract

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

between grower and laborer a place for listing the name and age of
each child under the age of 17 years who was to work under the con
tract. This form, which was used in northern Colorado, western
Nebraska, and southern Montana, of the areas visited, included the
following statement, to which the signature of the contracting laborer
was to be added:
I hereby certify and warrant that the following is a true and correct statement
of the age (at last birthday) of each laborer under the age of 17 years to be em
ployed on any work under this contract.

This attempt to check the age of children was doubtless of some value
in impressing the necessity of observing the child-labor provisions on
both growers and laborers and also in making misrepresentation of
age by families more difficult than through oral statement.
This method of ascertaining the age of children and their eligibility
to work by the signed statement of the parent was not, however, alto
gether satisfactory in frequency of use or in accuracy. In the course
of the survey the investigators saw copies of labor contracts on these
forms containing a place for children’s names and ages for 70 families
in which children under 16 were working. In 26 of these families
one or more children under 16 were working, although none of them
were listed on the contract. In one family a child was named but
the age not given. In the 43 others the contract showed the names
and ages of at least one working child. In 10, or nearly a fourth of
all the 43 families using the form for listing names and ages of working
children, it was found that a child less than 14 years was stated to be
14 or older. In almost as many cases children listed as 16 or older
were found by the Children’s Bureau investigators to be only 14 or 15.
A few growers in some localities attempted to verify the parent’s
statement of age by requesting the school to furnish information
from its records for a particular child. As was previously men
tioned, this type of evidence was not found to be wholly reliable,
although it was of definite value in the absence of a better system,
and its use illustrates the desire of the growers to have documentary
evidence of age.
In none of the States visited were employment certificates showing
age in general use for beet workers, although in these States such
certificates were provided for in the State child-labor laws for children
under 16 or under 18 years of age in industrial and commercial occu
pations. Montana was the only one of the six States visited that
had a State law making definite provision for employment or age
certificates for children in agriculture. But in that State the law
required them only for work during school hours. These certificates
were required by law to be based on prescribed types of documentary
evidence of age— a birth or baptismal certificate if obtainable. How
ever, there was no State supervision of the issuance of employment
certificates, and in practice they were in use in only a few of the
localities visited, informal permission for absence from school sufficing
in the others. The certification system of Montana was further
limited in usefulness to beet growers because no way had been devised
either by the schools administering the employment-certificate pro
visions or by the sugar-beet-control committees whereby the em
ployers would receive copies of the certificates issued and thus have

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WORK OF CHILDREN IN THE SUGAR-BEET FIELDS

the age information contained in them made available to them as a
routine matter.
The need of a definite system for determining the age of children
and the readiness with which some growers would accept such a sys
tem was shown by such comments as the following: “ M y laborer had
a girl 13 years and 7 months old who wanted to work. The compli
ance officer said she could not work unless she was 14. What if she
said she was 14 and was not? Will thev throw the responsibility on
the farmer? I do not like that. I wish they had someone to be
responsible for establishing age so the farmer could be sure he was
doing the right thing.”
Another problem in obtaining compliance with the 14-year mini
mum age was that of finding out officially whether children known to
be under 14 years of age actually worked in the fields. Although the
A. A. A., through its local compliance officers, assumed responsibility
for checking farmers’ statements of sugar-beet acreage by measuring
fields, it did not systematically inspect fields for the use of child labor.
Reliance for information on compliance with the child-labor provisions
was placed on the receipt of complaints. The compliance officers of
the A. A. A. who were interviewed in practically every locality visited,
reported that there were few cases in which they had known definitely
that children under 14 had been working, and that in such cases
threats to file a complaint against a grower were made if necessary
in order to persuade him to take steps toward the discontinuance of
the child’s work. No formal complaint against a grower for using
child labor contrary to the provisions of the production-adjustment
contracts was reported to have been filed by any compliance office
visited.5
It is evident from the findings of this study that the method of
relying on complaints for knowledge of violations of the child-labor
terms of the contract was not adequate for informing the administra
tors of the program of existing conditions. An illustration of the
limitations of that method is contained in one grower’s comment on
his reaction to reporting his neighbor to the A. A. A. if he knew
that his neighbor was violating the child-labor terms of his Govern
ment contract. He said: “ Well, it is just like seeing someone stealing
a horse. I know I would not report my neighbor because I would not
want any trouble. You might know it was wrong but you would not
do anything about it.”
School officials commented that they knew of cases where children
worked contrary to the child-labor provisions of the contracts, but
that “ of course we have said nothing.” From officials of schools
and of one beet growers’ association came the suggestion of a need
for the inspection of fields for child labor and for withholding of bene
fits from growers that violated the terms of their Government con
tracts. “ Then the farmers would be afraid of being caught, but now
they think they can take chances.”
The maximum 8-hour day specified for 14- and 15-year-old children
offered even more difficult problems from the point of view of com
pliance than the 14-year minimum age. It has already been noted
> Information obtained for this study on the use of children by particular growers was not made available
to the A. A. A. by the Children’s Bureau because the survey was undertaken as a research project and
the information was obtained with the understanding that identity of persons would not be disclosed.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

that the 8-hour day was not observed for even the majority of working
children under 16 years of age, and that in the opinion of many the
standard was impractical. Some farmers did, however, make a
conscientious effort to have children of 14 and 15 work no more than
8 hours a day. Compliance was achieved sometimes by impressing
upon parents their responsibility for seeing that children did not
work beyond 8 hours, thereby helping the grower to get his benefit
payment. In some cases the farmers themselves worked in fields
where they could watch over their laborers and keep track of the
time the children started and stopped work each day.
Efforts to establish clock hours between which the children under
16 years of age might work met with difficulty because the children
working fewer hours than their parents usually preferred taking a
prolonged rest during the middle of the day to working their allotted
hours straight through with only a brief stop for lunch. In some cases
where the field was not near the family’s home a child would have to
wait at the field for a ride home or else have to walk a considerable
distance at the end of his working day if he stopped work earlier than
the others.
Difficult problems are involved in developing a method for the
effective limitation of children’s daily hours oi work in an occupation
completely unstandardized as to working time, but the problems are a
challenge to those who believe that excessive hours of work are detri
mental to the health and well-being of children.

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK WITH THE SCHOOLING
OF CHILDREN

The work of young children in the beet fields is a matter of concern
not only because it is a physical tax on the children and because it
involves a violation of Federal child-labor standards established under
the A. A. A. program, but also because it interferes with their school
attendance and their assimilation in the community. Moreover,
problems of obtaining compliance with the child-labor standards of
the Government contracts are related closely to those of enforcing
school-attendance standards.
In some localities it was common for children to miss several days
or weeks of school at the end of the spring term because of their own
or their families’ beet work, although in many localities the spring
term closed about the middle of May, just before the spring work
began. The school time lost in the fall was much greater. Fall
absence because of beet work extended over the actual period of the
harvest work done by the family, usually 3 to 5 weeks, and it not un
commonly also involved failure to enroll in school for the period of 3
weeks or a month before the topping work began. This more extended
absence was found chiefly among children m migratory families but
sometimes among children that were permanent residents. In the
case of such extended absences the children or the parents or both
usually did not think it worth while to bother with school until after
topping work was out of the way, and sometimes they were waiting
until harvest pay day to get the children the clothes they needed for
school.
During the course of the survey information was obtained on the
school attendance of children in the preceding and current school years
(1934-35 and 1935-36) and on the school grades entered or to be
entered the fall of 1935. Data on school grades and absences were
obtained from the children’s parents and then were checked against
school records insofar as these were available. The information covers
all children in the families interviewed, whether or not they worked in
the beet fields. In order to facilitate consideration of the findings on
school attendance in relation to compulsory school-attendance require
ments and to retardation, the ages of the children, for the purposes of
this section of the report, are given as of September 1, in accordance
with the practice generally followed in school statistics. This section
of the report, with respect to findings for the school year 1935-36, is
therefore based on the 2,014 children in the families interviewed that
were 6 and under 16 years of age on September 1, 1935, and, with
respect to findings for the school year 1934-35, it is based on the 1,815
children 6 and under 16 years on September 1, 1934, in those families
that worked beets in 1934.
41

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS
S C H O O L E N R O L L M E N T A N D ABSENCE

Children who enrolled or expected to enroll in the fall term of school
in 1935 before the topping season closed numbered slightly more than
two-thirds of the 2,014 children that were 6 and under 16 years of age
on September 1. More than a fifth had not enrolled in school or were
not expecting to enroll until after the harvest period closed. This
period was not over until early November in most of the areas visited.
Moreover, nearly one-tenth of the children of this age group were not
expecting to attend school at all during the current school year.
These proportions of children enrolling before the harvest closed or not
enrolling at all in the 1935-36 school year are similar to those for the
previous school year, 1934-35, for the children in families doing beet
work in 1934, as shown in table 15. The proportions attending or
expecting to attend school and enrolling before the harvest was com
pleted were slightly higher in the fall of 1935 than in the fall of 1934,
but the differences are not sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the
child-labor provisions of the Government contracts effective in 1935
had served to any large extent to increase prompt school enrollment
among children of beet laborers in the areas visited. Several school
officials and teachers interviewed remarked to investigators of the
Children’s Bureau that contrary to their expectations the child-labor
regulations had not seemed to affect greatly the attendance at school of
children in laborers’ families.
T able 15.— School enrollment in school years 1 9 8 4 -8 5 and 1985—8 6 o f children in
fa m ilies working in beet fields

Children 6 and under 16 years of age 1in families
working in beet fields
School enrollment

School year 1934-36

Number

Percent
distribu
tion

School year 1936-36

Number

Percent
distribu
tion

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

1,816

Enrollment reported_____________________

1,781

100.0

1,969

100.0

1,604

90.1

1,802

91.6

1,107
423
74

62.2
23.8
4.1

1,322
419
61

67.1
21.3
3.1

177

9.9

167

8.6

Enrolled or expected to enroll________
Before close of topping season.............
After close of topping season__
Period not reported___________
Not enrolled or not expected to enroll__
Enrollment not reported.

2,014

‘ Age on Sept. 1, 1934, for school year 1934-36; age on Sept. 1, 1936, for school year 1936-36.

Prompt enrollment in the fall term of school was much more com
mon among children in nonmigratory families than among children in
migratory families. The real difference existed between children of
the nonmigratory families and those in the group of migratory
families that remained on the farms throughout the summer and did
not go back to their winter residences for August and September
between the times that they needed to be at the farm for hoeing and
for topping. In fact the families that did return to their winter homes

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W ITH SCHOOLING

for the 2-month period before topping began had nearly as good a
record for school enrollment as the nonmigratory families, one reason
for their return doubtless being the desire to start the children in
school. In migratory families remaining at their beet residences
throughout the summer, 43 percent of the children between 6 and 16
years of age were reported as not enrolled or not expecting to enroll in
school until after the harvest was completed; while only 13 percent of
the children in the nonmigratory families were reported to have so
delayed school enrollment. In some cases the migratory children
were on remote farms where no school was available, but usually a
rural school was available within walking distance, so that school
attendance was possible if the family very much wanted to send the
children. Sometimes, when the family worked on a farm near the
town where they lived in the winter months, school-bus transporta
tion from the farm to the town school made it possible for the children
to attend the same school whether they were staying on the farm or
in town. Failure to enroll in school at all, either before or after the
close of the topping season, was about equally common among chil
dren of the two groups of migratory famines, those remaining on the
farms the full season and those returning to town for early fall, and
among children in nonmigratory families— 8 to 9 percent of the total
number of children in each group.
Striking differences were found to exist between the various areas
in the time when children enrolled in school relative to the topping
period. In general the areas with the least migration and the least
child labor tended to have the largest proportions of children enrolling
early in school. The two Montana areas and southern Michigan
were outstanding for the large proportion of children in laborers’
famihes enrolling early in the fall and not waiting until after the top
ping season was closed— between 85 and 88 percent of the children
between 6 and 16 years of age in these areas. It will be recalled that
these are three of the four areas that had fewest children under 14
working in the beet fields. The smallest proportion of children en
rolled before the close of the harvest season were in areas of southern
Minnesota and western Nebraska. In each of these areas less than 60
percent of the children between 6 and 16 years were reported as hav
ing enrolled or as expecting to enroll before the topping season closed.
In connection with the exceptionally small proportion enrolling early
in southern Minnesota (19 percent) it is noted that only famihes that
migrated to St. Paul and Minneapolis for the winter were included in
the study for this area, and almost all of them remained on the farms
during September. In the three Colorado areas, central Michigan,
and northern Wyoming, 60 to 75 percent of the children in the labor
ers’ families enrolled or expected to enroll before the close of the top
ping period (table 16).

135807°— 39-------1

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T able

16.— School enrollment in school year 1 9 S 5 -S 6 , by area in which fa m ily was
interviewed
Children 6 and under 10 years of age1in beet laborers’
families
Percent enrolled or expected to
enroll—

Area in which family was interviewed
T ota l»

Before dose After dose
of topping of topping
season
season

Period
not re
ported

87.1

21.3

3.1

8.5

280
78
131

68.9
88.5
19.1

22.5

3.9

4.7
11.5
12.2

395
127
121
200
311
219
107

70.1
74.0
63.6
56.0
62.4
86.8
85.1

12.4
14.2
24.8
35.0
25.7
6.8
3.7

8.6
3.1

8.9
8.7
11.6
7.5
9.3
6.4
10.3

Total children for whom enrollment was
reported_________________________ ____ >1,969
3 eastern areas:
Central Michigan............................................
7 Mountain States areas:
Northern Colorado..........................................
Arkansas Valley, C o lo ...................................
Western Nebraska________________________
Northern W yom in g ......................................
Sidney, M ont...................................................

Percent not
enrolled nor
expected to
enroll

68.7

1.6
2.6
.9

1 Age on Sept. 1, 1936.
i School enrollment was not reported for 46 children.

The frequency of failure to enroll in school at all, either before or
after the completion of harvest, likewise varied between areas but not
in the same pattern as the areas varied with respect to tardy enroll
ment. Central Michigan was the area with the smallest proportion
of children (5 percent) reported as not enrolled or not intending to
enroll at any time during the school year. Southern Michigan,
southern Minnesota, and Western Slope, Colo., were the areas with
the highest proportions, each with 12 percent. Failure to attend
school at any time during the year occurred mainly among children
under 8 years of age and among those 14 years of age or over. Among
children between 8 and 14, failure to enroll accounted for only 2 per
cent of the total number in the age group for all areas combined, but
among the children 6 or 7 years of age and among children 14 and 15
years of age, failure to enroll accounted for as much as 14 and 20
percent, respectively (table 17).

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W IT H SCHOOLING
T a b l e 17.— School enrollment in school year 1 9 8 5 -8 6 , by age o f child

Children 6 and under 16 years of age in beet laborers’ families
Age of child1
Total

6 years,
under 8

School enrollment, 1936-36

8 years,
under 14

14 years,
under 16

Not
re
Percent
Percent
Percent
Percent
ported
Num distri Num distri Num distri Num
distri
ber bution
ber bution
ber bution
ber bution
2,014

370

1,149

403

1,969

100.0

360

100.0

1,132

100.0

390

100.0

1,802

91.6

311

86.4

1, 111

98.1

311

79.7

Before dose of topping
season............. .............. 1,322
After dose of topping
419
61
Not enrolled or not expected
167
to enroll_________________

67.1

261

69.7

838

74.0

201

51.5

21.3
3.1

67
3

15.9
.8

240
33

21.2
2.9

100
10

25.6
2.6

22
16

8.5

13.6

1.9

20.3

Enrolled or expected to en-

1 Age on Sept. 1,1936.

The amount of school time lost was not obtained for the fall of 1935
because most of the visits of the Children’s Bureau’s representatives
were made before the end of the harvest season and before complete
reports could be obtained for many children. An attempt was made,
however, to obtain the number of days of school absence in the school
year 1934-35 for each child in a family with beet work in 1934. The
information obtained concerning school days missed from the sessions
of the school available to them shows that 825, or more than half, of
the children between 6 and 16 years of age who attended school in
1934-35, whether enrolling before or after the harvest season closed,
were absent for reasons attributed by the family to their own or their
family’s work in the beet fields. The duration of such absence during
the school year— fall, spring, or both— was 25 or more school days for
approximately half of those losing school time for such reasons. It
was 45 or more school days for more than a fourth of the children
absent because of beet work and 60 or more school days for a tenth of
them. The length of the school term in the areas visited was with
few exceptions between 170 and 180 days (8%- or 9-month terms).
These figures on the number of school days lost include not only
absences of children while working in the beet fields but also absences
of children kept at home to care for house and babies while other mem
bers of the family worked in the beet fields and absences of children
in migratory families who were waiting until their return to their
winter homes before starting the children to school. They do not
include absences explained as due to illness, lack of clothes, or the
child’s working on beans, onions, or other crops besides beets.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

A PP LIC ATIO N O F C O M P U L S O R Y -S C H O O L -A T T E N D A N C E S T A N D A R D S

Much of the nonattendance of children at school occurred in viola
tion of State compulsory-school-attendance requirements. Briefly
the compulsory-school-attendance standards of the States visited
were as follows:
Each of the six States included in the study had laws requiring
school attendance for the full time that the schools were in session
for children under 16 years of age and, in the case of Wyoming, for
children under 17 years of age. The lower age limit was either 7 or 8
years in each of these States. Nebraska was the one State whose
compulsory-school-attendance law contained a specific exemption to
the requirement that children attend the entire school session such
as to permit unexcused absence during the school term. This exemp
tion permitted children outside metropolitan or incorporated cities
(i. e., cities of 1,000 or more population) to be absent for 20 days if
attending a school with a 9-month term, or to be absent 10 or 15 days
if attending a school with a term of 7 or 8 months, respectively. The
9-month term, however, was usual for schools in the section of the
State visited, so that this leewav of 20 days’ absence applied to those
Nebraska children included in the study if and when they were not in
city school districts.
Exemptions from school attendance were allowed for children under
certain conditions by the laws of each of the six States. These gen
erally applied to children above a certain age, usually 14 years, who
had completed a certain grade, usually the eighth. Sometimes an
added requirement was that the children’s earnings should be neces
sary for family support. Exemption was usually made also for chil
dren of any age who were mentally or physically incapacitated or to
whom no school was available. Some other exemptions to compul
sory school attendance were vague as to intended application, such
as the Colorado exemption of a child 14 years or over if exemption is
for his best interest, and the Wyoming provision that a child may be
excused if the law would work a hardship. These latter exemptions,
which might possibly have been applied to certain children of beet
laborers, did not seem to be used in practice because, in these States,
policies of not strictly enforcing the compulsory-school-attendance
requirements in the case of children of beet laborers were so general
that no attempt seemed to be made to interpret specific exemption
provisions as justifying the absence of children from school.
Compulsory-school-attendance laws were found to be variously
interpreted and applied by different school officials within a State,
and the attitudes of these officials toward the State laws requiring
compulsory school attendance for the children of beet laborers were
found to range all the way from complete disregard to strict enforce
ment. In Colorado the school officials interviewed in most of the
school districts visited stated that they did not believe they could
enforce attendance for more than the 12 weeks required by an earlier
la w 1although a more recent law requires attendance of minors between
8 and 16 years for the full time.2 It appeared that this doubt arose
from some question of the constitutionality of the later provision. At
least this doubt offered a basis for a nonenforcement policy where
1 Colo., Comp. Laws, 1935, ch. 148, sec. 270.
»Ibid.

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W ITH SCHOOLING

another reason was community approval of school absence for beet
work. As one county superintendent of schools commented: “ It
would raise a howl if I started to enforce school attendance. The
farmers would not support me.”
In central Michigan school absence during the working season of
beet laborers’ children both above and below the age of 14 was coun
tenanced by school officials chiefly on the ground that the work of
the children was necessary for the support of their families, although
the law allowed this excuse only for children at least 14 years of age
who had completed the sixth grade. One county commissioner of
schools explained: “ The families do not have money for clothes and
books, so we let the children out of school to work. In this way they
can support themselves and attend school the rest of the year.” To
some extent this attitude was found in other areas, although it should
be said that relief administrators for the most part approved strict
enforcement of both compulsory-school-attendance and child-labor
standards.
In Wyoming several school officials stated that they desired to en
force compulsory-school-attendance requirements but were helpless to
obtain the necessary legal support during the beet season because
influential interests m the community would block their efforts. One
school superintendent explained the nonenforcement of school attend
ance in his district to the investigator in this way: “ When I first came
to this district from another State several years ago I was shocked at
the amount of absence and tried to get the children into school. I
brought a case up to court and did not get to first base. They said:
‘D on’t you know that this area and this town depend on the beet
industry and you can’t do this?’ ” Another superintendent reported
that in the fall of 1935 the county attorney refused to take a case of
absence for beet work, with the advice that the case be dropped since
the father said he would send the boy to school when the harvest was
finished and since the father claimed the boy was 16 although, it was
stated, the school records showed him to be only 13. The tendency
to delay action in case of absence for beet work on the ground that the
harvest season would soon be over was found also in other localities.
Despite reluctance to enforce school-attendance standards, the
children of beet laborers in practically all localities visited were
accepted and usually welcomed into the schools. It was usual for
children of migratory workers to be accepted into the schools on the
same basis as children of permanent residents of the school district,
and in no case were children in migratory families found to have been
refused admittance to school. A more common distinction in the
application of school-attendance standards than that of permanent
and seasonal residence in the school district was that made between
“ whites” and “ Mexicans.” The extreme situation in disregarding
compulsory-attendance standards occurred in those few schools that
reported that they did not encourage the children of Mexican and
Spanish-American beet workers to enroll in school at all. One super
intendent explained that the matter was carefully considered by the
school board several years ago and that he and the board felt that it
would be far too expensive for the community to furnish teachers
and equipment sufficient to care for them. However, he reported
that these children are accepted if they come to school of their own

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

accord and that they are then expected to attend regularly except
when doing beet work. In this particular instance children resident
in the school district the year round were referred to.
Another example of failure to enforce school-attendance laws
that affected chiefly children of Spanish-speaking beet workers was
found in one Wyoming locality. There the schools at their discretion
refused to admit children who did not enroll within the first 15 days
of the school term. For instance, in one Mexican family of beet
laborers that was permanently resident in this locality, two children,
one 6 and one 8 years of age, were refused admittance to school in
the fall of 1934 when applying several weeks after the school term
had opened. This meant that when the children were finally admitted
early in September 1935 the older of the two was entering the first
grade at the age of 9 years, 2 years overage for her grade.
Despite the frequent unwillingness or inability of school officials to
have school attendance enforced by legal action many of them did
earnestly attempt to get and keep the children in school. In a number
of localities it was understood that parents must obtain a special
excuse for children to be out of school for beet work, and in this way
many parents would agree with the school officials to limit the period
of absence to perhaps 2 or 3 weeks instead of letting the absence
extend over a longer period. In Michigan such permission often
would be pan ted by school officials with the understanding that the
child would attend school on rainy or stormy days when he did not
work. One school principal reported that he introduced the system
of special permission to be absent during a few harvest weeks to
encourage children to stay in town as much as possible and to enroll
promptly when the school term opened in the fall.
Of the areas visited the three outstanding because of their policies
and programs of strict enforcement of school attendance for beet
workers’ children during the beet season were the two in Montana
and the one in southern Michigan, the same three areas previously
mentioned as having the highest proportion of children enrolling in
school before the close of the harvest season.
In southern Michigan the policy of strict enforcement of school
attendance was reported to have been of long standing in the county
visited. Approval by the local school board of permission for absence
because of beet labor was required in each individual case, and no
permission for absence was even considered for children under 14
years of age. In Montana the policy of strict enforcement of com
pulsory school attendance had been developed recently through the
consistent efforts of school officials. Enforcement of attendance
requirements was reported to be greatly aided there by the system of
apportioning State financial aid to local schools, allocated on the basis
of average enrollment of pupils for each month. The rural schools
could not well object to caring for children of migratory beet workers on
the ground of expense, for the amount of State aid per pupil was
enough to cover the cost of books and incidentals; and the individual
schools did not have enough extra children from migratory beet
laborers’ families to require an additional teacher or additional
equipment.
An administrative aid to enforcement of school-attendance stand
ards, which was used in a few Montana localities, was the formal
employment certificate previously mentioned in connection with

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W ITH SCHOOLING

problems of obtaining compliance with child-labor standards. How
ever, in localities not using such employment certificates children were
required to obtain special permission for absence for beet work.
The chief problems of attendance in Montana occurred among the
children who lived in towns or cities in the winter and on farms
through the working season; for, despite the general policies of
strict enforcement of school attendance during the beet season in the
Montana counties visited, some few rural school districts in these
counties were lax in requiring school attendance for the children of
beet workers.
The experience of Montana and southern Michigan in obtaining
relatively successful enforcement of school-attendance standards sug
gests that there is nothing inherent in the sugar-beet industry to
require a lapse in enforcement of school-attendance standards during
the beet season, as school officials in some localities apparently had
come to believe. On the contrary it shows that some sugar-beetproducing communities do support a policy of requiring beet workers’
children to observe the same high standards of school attendance as
other children in the community and that the beet growers are proud
of it. One county superintendent, supported by growers of his
community, reported that the community was thoroughly back of the
school program, that there was little difficulty in setting standards
for attendance, and that no difference was made between Mexican
children and others in demanding attendance.
SP EC IAL C LA SSE S A N D M O D IF IE D S C H O O L T E R M S
FO R BEET W O R K E R S ’ C H IL D R E N

With nonattendance at school during the beet season common
among children of beet workers in many localities, the return of these
children in large numbers to school after the harvesting of the beet
crop has seriously disrupted the work of the schools in many places.
“ All children in the community are hurt, so far as the school is con
cerned, because when children who have been out topping return, the
whole school is disorganized and the.teachers have to give extra
attention to those who have been out,” as one beet grower interested
in the school problems of the community commented. As a result the
schools have made various adaptations of their programs to minimize
the disruption caused by the demand for children to be released from
school attendance during the harvest period.
Principals and teachers in many schools reported that special
assistance was given to the beet workers’ children who had been
absent, to help them make up the school work missed. Special “ make
up classes” were occasionally reported. In contrast to the general
willingness of the schools to allow such special attention was the
attitude in a few schools which reported that little or no effort was
made to help these children. One superintendent commented that if
children are absent only a week or so the teachers help them make
up the work, but if they stay out longer “ we do not pay any more
attention to them than if they were not there.”
A less frequent but more drastic approach to the problem of absence
of beet workers’ children than incidental help with lessons missed has
been an adjustment of the school term to allow “ beet vacations”
during the harvest season. The days lost by such a “ beet vacation”
have often been made up in a summer session of the school.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

Sometimes summer classes have also been provided where the school
as a whole observed no “ beet vacation” but where a number of
children planned to be out for the fall beet work. These summer
classes would start 6 weeks or so before the regular school term. In
some schools the special classes have continued through September,
so that the children who had attended these classes would be at the
same point in their studies as the children not absent for beet work
when returning to school after the harvest. Other schools, however,
would disband such a “ beet vacation” class at the opening of the
regular school term, and the children that had attended the class
would repeat the work of the first month of the term and then com
pletely miss the second month’s work. In a few instances, schools
would merely defer their opening until after the harvest was over
without attempting to make up the 2 months’ lost time.
Of the 2,014 children between 6 and 16 years of age on September 1,
1935, in the families interviewed, only 29 were reported to have
attended special summer classes in 1935, and in only one locality did
children in the family attend a school that did not open until after
the harvest season ended. The 29 children referred to went to special
summer classes held in Sidney, Mont., and Scottsbluff, Nebr. In
Scottsbluff one of the schools opened early in November 1935 and
enrolled only children who had not attended summer school or a
full-term school before the close of the harvest period. One small
town in Wyoming was the only locality visited where the entire school
population had a “ beet vacation” in the fall of 1935. The 2 weeks’
time so lost was to be made up by eliminating the Christmas holidays
and by having school on several Saturdays through the winter.
In several other localities visited during the course of the study, all
in northern Colorado and central Michigan, “ summer schools” had
been held and “ beet vacations” observed in 1934 or previous years.
One reason for discontinuing them in 1935, as explamed by school
officials, was that they expected the child-labor limitations of the
Government contracts to reduce the number of children in beet
work. Financial and other reasons also appeared to be operating to
reduce the number of summer schools and special classes. One school
superintendent explained that he had eliminated the summer session
and “ beet vacation” because he felt that, in giving the children this
opportunity to make up their school work, the schools were only
encouraging parents to take children into the beet fields to work.
It may be said in behalf of the summer session, however, that even
though tending to encourage the use of children in the beet fields, it
has represented a conscientious effort by local school boards to make
the best of a situation in which it was felt that children must be
allowed to be absent to work in the fields during the school term.
Feeling the value of the summer session from the point of view of the
children in lessening the seriousness of absence, officials of some
schools that had recently given up summer classes expressed regret
that they had not held a summer session in 1935, since the children
were out anyway and they felt that retardation was almost certain to
result.

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W ITH SCHOOLING

S C H O O L P R O G R E SS

Despite efforts by schools and extra help given children by individual
school teachers to compensate for extended school absences, beet
laborers’ children have suffered materially in school progress. In St.
Paul, Minn., for instance, where spring absences for beet work as well
as fall absences of 2 months’ duration were common, one school prin
cipal stated that children whose parents take them to the beet fields
can expect to complete only one semester of work in a year; that in
the fall they enter the same grade that they left in the spring; and
that their promotion in a year is limited to one-half grade each Janu
ary. This situation illustrates an extreme effect of absences on school
progress and retardation. On the other hand, some children with an
intense interest in their school work did succeed by extra application
in keeping up with their class, despite frequent absences for work.
The extent of retardation among the beet laborers’ children included
in this study is indicated by the grade the children were in (or were
expecting to be in) during tne fall term of 1935, considered in relation
to their age at the beginning of the school year. In accordance with
common practice a child is considered to be of normal age for his school
grade if he is in that grade which he would have reached if he started
the first grade of school at 6 or 7 years of age and progressed regularly
one grade a year. A child is considered advanced in grade if he is in
a higher grade than one of the two grades considered normal for his
age, and he is considered overage or retarded if he is in a lower grade.
A child of less than 8 years of age cannot be considered retarded
according to this definition; therefore the presentation of data on
retardation of children in the families visited is limited to children 8
and under 16 years of age. It is also limited to those enrolled in
school, or expecting to enroll, in the school year 1935-36. The
number of children between 8 and 16 years of age for whom progress
is thus reported totals 1,382.
Slightly more than half (51 percent) of the 1,382 children for whom
progress in school was reported were retarded in school grade, and not
quite half (44 percent) were in one of the grades normal for their age.
Only about 1 in 20 (4 percent) was advanced in grade. Table 18 shows
the progress of children at each age. At 8 years of age 32 percent were
retarded, indicating that these children were in only the first grade.
The proportion retarded rose with each added year of age, and at 15
years 72 percent of those still attending school were retarded or over
age for their grade. The retardation was 3 or more years for 37 per
cent of the 15-year-old children, meaning that they were in the sixth
or a lower grade, whereas the normal grade for their age was either the
ninth or the tenth. Moreover, the full significance of the loss of
school time on the school achievement of beet workers’ children is not
shown in these retardation figures, since several school officials re
ported that even though the beet workers’ children did not complete
the work of a grade satisfactorily, they were advanced to the next
grade or at least were not required to repeat a grade more than once.
It was felt to be more important to the children to be in a class where
they would have social contacts with other children near their own
age than to be able to do their school work satisfactorily.

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52
T able

WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

18.— Progress in school of children of specified age in fam ilies of beet laborers
Children 8 and under 16 years of age1

Not enrolled nor expecte
enroll

Number

Percent

Ad
vanced

Percent

Normal

Number

Percent

3 or more
years
Number

Percent

2 years
Number 1

Percent

1 year
Number

j Percent

Number

Total

Progress reported

Retarded

Age of
child

Progress not reported

Enrolled or expected to enroll during the school year 1935-36

Total.. 1,552 1,422 1,382 711
8 years___
9 years___
10 years__
11 years__
12 years__
13 years__
14 years__
15 years__

184
208
191
194
188
184
210
193

180
197
189
189
185
171
181
130

179 58
193 75
183 88
182 90
181 102
165 96
174 112
125 90

51.4 316

22.9 191

32.4
38.9
48.1
49.4
56.3
58.2
64.4
72.0

32.4
25.4
19.7
17.0
24.3
19.4
24.7
18.4

58
49
36
31
44
32
43
23

26
35
34
22
27
26
21

13.8 204
13.5
19.1
18.7
12.1
16.4
15.0
16.8

17
25
36
37
43
46

14.7 609

44.1

62 4.5

110
110
83
84
68
67
57
30

61.5
57.0
45.3
46.2
37.6
40.6
32.7
24.0

11
s
12
8
11
2
5

9.3
13.7
19.9
22.4
24.7
36.8

6.1
4.1
6.6
4.4
6.1
1.2
2.9
C 4.0

40 130
1
4
6
7
4
6
7
5

4
U
2
5
3
13
29
63

>Age on Sept. 1,1935.

The school-attendance policies prevailing in the various areas
visited and the use of special summer classes m the past as well as the
proportions of migratory families and of families of Mexican origin
were reflected in the proportions of children retarded in the different
areas. Southern Michigan and Sidney, Mont., which had policies of
strict enforcement of compulsory-school-attendance standards, head
the list with relatively little retardation among the children included
in the study.
Southern Minnesota, where all the families visited were migratory,
had the largest proportion retarded, seven out of eight children be
tween 8 and 16 years of age in the families visited by the Children’s
Bureau being overage or retarded in school grade. The two areas
of southern Colorado had only slightly less retardation than southern
Minnesota. The proportion of children of the age group covered that
were retarded in each area visited was as follows:
Percent
retarded 1

All areas_______________________________________
Southern Michigan_____________________________
Sidney, M ont_______________________________________
Central Michigan___________________________________
Western Nebraska__________________________________
Northern Colorado_________________________________
Southern Montana__________________________________
Northern Wyoming_________________________________
Arkansas Valley, Colo______________________________
Western Slope, Colo___________________________ '____
Southern Minnesota________________________________

51
21
30
38
46
47
49
57
77
80
88

i The numbers on which these percentages are based appear in appendix table V, p. 88.

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INTERFERENCE OF BEET WORK W ITH SCHOOLING

The children in Russian-German families were found to have much
better records in both school attendance and school progress than the
children in Spanish-speaking families. With respect to enrollment in
school, for instance, 83 percent of the children in Russian-German
families enrolled or were expected to enroll in school in 1935 before
the close of the topping season, compared with 57 percent of the chil
dren in Spanish-speaking families; 6 and 10 percent, respectively, of
the children of the two racial groups were not expecting to enroll at
all. With respect to retardation, 25 percent of the children in Rus
sian-German families between 8 and 16 years of age were retarded, as
compared with 70 percent of those in the Spanish-speaking families. It
is probably not unrelated to these differences in school attendance
and progress in the groups of different racial stock that the RussianGerman families came earlier to the beet-growing areas and are more
nearly assimilated in the communities culturally than most of the
Mexicans and many of the Spanish-Americans. The comment of the
18-year-old Russian-German boy in the tenth grade who said, “ I
want to have an education good enough not to work beets,” was char
acteristic of his Russian-German racial group.
Although the Spanish-speaking children were often retarded in
school grade, several school teachers interviewed commented on the
exceptional interest and ability of many of them in art or music. They
were said to be quite interested in arithmetic because they knew it
would be useful to them in connection with their work, but they
were said to be poor in history and civics. The fact that the Spanish
speaking children were lacking in background for these latter school
subjects is suggested by the answer to a test question which a gradeschool teacher said she received from many of her Spanish-speaking
pupils. The question was, “ Why did the English colonize America?” ;
the answer, “ To get beet contracts.”
Repeated failure to be promoted and the resulting situation of chil
dren feeling themselves too old and too big for their grade contributed
to an early dropping out of school among beet laborers’ children. As
the children reached high-school age, lack of lunch money and suit
able clothing, added to irregular attendance, retardation, and parental
indifference to education, were obstacles too great for many to over
come. It was usual for the children of Mexicans and SpanishAmericans to drop out of school before reaching high school, and the
high-school graduation of one was sufficiently rare to occasion special
comment by a number of the school officials interviewed.

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FAMILY WORK AND INCOME

The family occupation, it has been seen, governs in many ways the
lives of the children of beet laborers as well as the lives of their parents.
It is obviously responsible for the use of child labor in the beet fields
and certainly in considerable part for their deprivation of full school
opportunities— grave handicaps for children growing up to adulthood
and citizenship in the United States. These effects of the family
occupation on the children, however, result largely from the circum
stance that most laborers in the occupation live from day to day in
the face of poverty and often in the face of destitution, save for such
aid as relief agencies may extend to them. So faced with the imme
diate exigency of securing food and shelter, the families often placed
the children’s welfare second to the effort to earn a living and to
achieve a modicum of self-respect.
It is appropriate, therefore, m a consideration of the welfare of the
children of beet laborers, to examine more closely the fundamentals of
the wage-earning economy of the families that are dependent on hand
labor in the beet fields for a livelihood. Such consideration may be
suggestive of ways of achieving for the children in these families the
opportunities deemed to be the right of all children in this country.
The time which the families spent on beet work, the number of acres
of beets on which they performed the hand-labor processes, the wage
rates they received for their beet work, and the amount of supplemen
tary work and income they obtained, all contribute to the picture of
the efforts that these families made to earn a living in an occupation of
irregular and seasonal employment.
A M O U N T OF F A M IL IE S ’ W O R K IN T H E BEET FIELDS

The beet work that a family performs, in terms of days of work and
of acres handled, is basic in determining and restricting family income.
The amount of time that a laborer can spend during the year on the
work of the beet fields is limited, yet in practice beet labor involves the
year-round presence of most of the seasonal workers. Labor in the
beet fields is performed at intervals over a period of about 6 months
and requires the presence of the beet laborers over much, if not all, of
this period when alternative agricultural work might be available.
Then during the 6 months of winter and early spring they have in
recent years been likely to remain in the beet-growing locality because
they cannot afford to go elsewhere and because no other industry either
in the beet-growing locality or elsewhere demands the labor of these
people, whose chief employment qualifications are a knack for handling
beets and a willingness to accept hard, monotonous labor.
Duration o f work in beet fields.

Information on days worked was obtained for the fathers in these
families as well as for the working children. The number of days
worked in the entire season was obtained only for families visited after
54

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME

they had completed their harvest work and therefore represents con
ditions only in the areas visited after the families had completed the
season’s work; that is, those in the eastern beet region and those visited
in the Wyoming and Montana areas of the Mountain States beet region.
Data covering the entire working season were not available for the
Colorado and Nebraska areas visited, but figures on days of work at
thinning and hoeing show these areas to be more similar to the other
Mountain States areas in length of working periods than to the
eastern areas (see appendix table VI, p. 89).
The median number of days worked in the beet fields was 56 for the
405 fathers of families reportmg on total days worked in these six areas.
The problem of obtaining a large enough acreage of beets to provide a
maximum amount of employment during the brief working periods
was an immediate one to many families of beet laborers, particularly
those in the Mountain States beet region. The desire of the farmers to
have their work done within a brief period of time when it can be
performed most advantageously has the effect of shortening the work
ing season to the extent warranted by the supply of labor. The great
variation in the length of the working season among the families inter
viewed suggests that many did not have all the work they could have
done if more had been available to them and time had been allowed for
its performance. In the three eastern areas the median number of
working days of the father or other head of the household was 68 and
in the three Mountain States areas, 48. This parallels closely the
median number of days worked by the children under 16 in these same
areas.
The wide range in number of days worked in the 1935 season by these
405 fathers is shown in the following distribution:
Days worked

Less than 20__
20, less than 30.
30, less than 40.
40, less than 50.
50, less than 60.
60, less than 70.
70, less than 80.
80, less than 90.
90 or more____

Percent1
eastern
S Mountain
areas
States areas

. 3. 6
. 3.6
. 7 .2
.11. 3
. 9. 7
.19. 5
.15. 4
.15. 4
.14. 3

10. 0
11.
12.
21.
19.
16.
5.
2.

4
4
4
5
2
2
9

1.0

>The numbers on which these percentages are based, appear in appendix table VI, p. 89.

In every area visited for which the information was obtained there
were some fathers of families who were doing beet work on at least
70 days of the year, suggesting that this number of working days, if
not more, was a generally feasible amount of employment at beet
labor. Total working time was as much as 95 or more days for the
season for 10 percent of the fathers reporting in the areas of Michigan
and Minnesota, although such long duration of work was rare in the
areas of the Mountain States beet region, only one father having
worked for so long a period. Earlier and more severe winters in the
beet-growing region of the Mountain States accounted in part for
this difference, as did also the relatively more abundant supply of
beet laborers in the Mountain States areas visited. The compara
tively plentiful labor supply there in 1935 was due to the smaller-thanusual plantings of beets in Colorado and Nebraska and southern

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

Montana and the fair opportunities for industrial employment in the
eastern areas that year.
The number of days that the fathers of families spent at the various
hand-labor processes in the beet fields of the eastern and Mountain
States areas were as follows:
Area and process

Thinning:
All areas________________
3 eastern areas_________
7 Mountain States areas.
Hoeing:
All areas_______________
3 eastern areas_________
7 Mountain States areas
Topping:
6 areas 1________________
3 eastern areas_________
3 Mountain States areas
All processes performed:
6 areas 1________________
3 eastern areas_________
3 Mountain States areas

SOper60 perFamilies
cent of
cent of
reporting
days father thefathers thefathers
worked
worked
worked at
less than— less than—
process

_ 797
. 189
._ 608

21 days 32 days
24
37
19
29

.. 687
185
._ 502

13
18

26
34
23

.. 394
185
209

22
25

35
40
28

.. 405
._ 195
. . 210

95
69

1 Exclusive of the three areas in Colorado and western Nebraska, visited before families had completed
the harvest work.

It will be noted that at each process the number of days at work in
the beet fields tended to be appreciably longer for the fathers in the
eastern areas than for those in the Mountain States beet region.
The daily hours of work for adults were very long, often longer
even than the hours which have been reported for children under 16
years of age that worked in the beet fields. For thinning and topping
the hours of work were greatest. Usual daily hours were reported to
be at least 12 a day at thinning for half the fathers of the families
and at least 11 hours a day at topping for half (see appendix table
V II, p. 89).
Acreage handled.

In 1935 the median number of acres of sugar beets worked at the
th in n in g process by the 746 families reporting acreage worked was

18, half of these families handling more and half less than this amount.
The variation in amount of acreage handled by the individual families
was even wider than the variation in time worked, the greater varia
tion depending, to a considerable extent, on the different numbers of
workers in the families. The wide spread in the number of acres of
sugar beets thinned in 1935 by the different families is shown by the
following distribution:
Percent1

Less than 10 acres per family_______________________
10, less than 20_____________________________________
20, less than 30_____________________________________
30 acres and more__________________________________

20
36
19
25

t The numbers on which these percentages are based appear in appendix table V III, p. 90.

The system often used in the Mountain States areas of having more
persons than the members of one family work under one contract of a
known acreage caused some difficulty m obtaining exact information
on acreage handled by the families involved. When members of two

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME

or more families performed the hand labor on the acreage covered by
one labor contract, they usually mingled in one working group, so that
the report of acreage worked by such families is only an estimate of
the proportion of the entire known acreage handled by each. The
number of acres herein reported as handled by such families is the
number for which they received the acreage wage. A common
method used by the families to estimate acreage handled by each
family as the basis for apportioning the total wage fairly was to rate
each individual worker in terms of the performance of one adult man:
“ Half a man” for a child under 14, sometimes “ half a man” for a
woman, and “ a whole man” for the others. No attempt was made in
the study to estimate acreage for families that hired laborers whom
they paid by the day or for families whose members worked on a dailywage basis m the beet fields.
Families with labor contracts tended to work on many more acres
than those working only as extra help; the median was 21 acres at
thinning for the former families and 9 acres for the latter (see appendix
table IX , p. 91).
There was likewise a great difference in the acreage handled by the
Spanish-speaking families and by the Russian-Germans. At the thin
ning process, for instance, the median acreage handled by the former
was 15, in contrast to a median of 29 acres for the latter. It is in
teresting to note, in this connection, the larger proportion of family
members working in the beet fields among the Russian-German fami
lies than among the Spanish-speaking families— 58 percent working
of all persons in the Russian-German families in contrast to 41 percent
in the Spanish-speaking families.
That local conditions affected the amount of beet acreage worked
by these families is indicated by the differences in the median acreage
thinned, which ranged from 9 acres for families in Arkansas Valley,
Colo., to 36 acres for families in southern Michigan. The median
number of acres thinned by the families in the various areas, listed in
order, is as follow s:1
Median number of
acres thinned

Arkansas Valley, Colo______________________________
Southern Montana_________________________________
Northern Colorado_________________________________
Southern Minnesota________________________________
Northern Wyoming_________________________
Western Nebraska__________________
Central Michigan___________________________________
Southern Michigan_________________________________

9
16
16
17
19
21
28
36

It will be observed that the families in central and southern Michi
gan tended to handle considerably larger tracts of sugar beets than
the families in southern Minnesota or those of any of the areas visited
in the Mountain States beet region, following in a general way the
difference in number of days worked by the fathers o f families.
A more accurate appraisal of area differences of worker capacity
under existing local conditions than that indicated in family figures
can be obtained from figures on the average acreage handled by indi
vidual workers. With the factor of the varying number of workers
per family eliminated, these figures show, for full-time workers, an
1The numbers on which these medians are based appear in appendix table VIII, p. 90.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

average of 7.9 acres at thinning for all areas combined and area dif
ferences as follows:
Average number
of acres thinned
per full-time
worker i

All areas__________
Arkansas Valley, Colo-----------------------------------------Western Slope, C olo______________________________
Northern Colorado_______________________________
Southern Montana----------------------------------------------Sidney, M o n t_ ._ ---------------Northern Wyoming______________________________
Central Michigan------------------------------------------------Southern Minnesota______________________________
Western Nebraska________________________________
Southern Michigan________________________________

7. 9
5. 3
5. 3
6. 7
6. 9
7. 9
8. 3
8. 5
8. 8
8. 8
12.6

i Based on 1,485 family members of all ages that worked at thinning full time; that is, worked for at least
7 hoars a day on approximately as many days as any other member of the family. These figures are arith
metic averages and not medians. Corresponding figures for the other processes appear in appendix table X ,
p .92.
,

The longer growing season of Michigan made possible the handling
of exceptionally large acreages per worker in the southern Michigan
area, an average of 12.6 acres for each full-tune worker. However, it
is also significant that southern Michigan was the only area surveyed
in which the sugar-beet laborers had a collective agreement with the
farmers of the area and through it some control over the number of
beet workers hired. At the opposite extreme in number of acres
handled per person were the two areas in southern Colorado where
there was an abundant supply of experienced beet laborers and an
average of 5.3 acres was handled by each full-time worker.
The figures which have been presented on acreage worked are for
the thinning process. In general, acreage handled at the hoeing process,
both per family and per worker, was a little higher than the thinning
acreage, because fewer families and fewer workers were engaged in
hoeing. Topping acreage, on the whole, tended to approximate thin
ning acreage. Some families, able to obtain a larger contract than
they could handle alone, hired extra help for thinning and topping but
did the hoeing work on the entire acreage themselves. _ Altogether 97
percent of the families interviewed worked at the thinning process and
86 percent did some hoeing work; and of those interviewed after the
harvest season was under way, 97 percent worked at the topping
process.
D IF F E R E N C E S IN A C R EA G E W O R K E D PER F A M IL Y A N D IN U SE OF
H IR E D H E L P , 1934 A N D 1935

It might be expected that the restrictions on the use of child labor
would have reduced to some extent the acreage handled by the families
in 1935. Some families reported to the investigators that they did not
obtain as much acreage to work as they would have obtained if their
children under 14 years had been permitted to work in the beet fields
in 1935; and, as a matter of fact, the acreage of many families was
reduced in 1935 from that handled in 1934. However, other factors
appeared to be more important than decrease in the use of child labor,
chiefly the smaller-than-average plantings of sugar beets in a number
of the areas visited. The smaller plantings in southern Montana, for
instance, were due to a “ farmers’ strike” against the price offered for

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME

beets, and in northern Colorado and western Nebraska to dissatisfac
tion with the price offered for beets, to relatively good prices for
alternative crops, and to a relatively small supply of water for irriga
tion purposes.
In 1934 the median acreage thinned per family by the 714 families
reporting on beet work done in the 1934 season had been 21 acres, in
contrast to a median of 18 acres reported by 746 families in 1935.
Only in the southern Michigan area was the median acreage thinned
conspicuously greater in 1935 than in 1934, an increase of 8 acres per
family in the median amount, which is shown in table 19, giving the
median amounts for each area for the 2 years. The comparatively
small number of families whose reduced working capacity was clearly
due to the provisions of the 1935 Government contracts prescribing
a 14-year minimum age is indicated by the small proportion of families
(15 percent) that had one or more children under 14 years of age who
had worked in the beet fields in 1934 but who did not work in 1935.
Another indication of the probable minor importance of child labor as a
cause of this decrease in acreage handled per family is the absence of
any decided relationship between the decrease in median acreage
thinned per family and the decrease in the proportion of children 6
and under 14 who were working in the various areas. For instance,
in western Nebraska there was a decrease from 52 to 13 percent in the
proportion of children of these ages who worked in the beet fields,
whereas the median acreage thinned decreased only from 23 to 21.
In southern Michigan, on the other hand, the proportion of children 6
and under 14 years who worked in the beet fields decreased from 25 to
12 percent, whereas the median acreage thinned increased from 28
to 36.
T able 19.— M edian acreage thinned by fam ilies in each area, 1984 and 19 8 5
1934
Area

Number
of families
reporting

1935
Median
acreage
thinned

Number
of families
reporting

Median
acreage
thinned

All areas....................................... ...........................

714

746

Central Michigan..............................................................
Southern Michigan..........................................................
Southern Minnesota................... .....................................
Northern Colorado.......... . ................................ .............
Arkansas Valley, Colo.....................................................
Western Slope, Colo.......................... ...............................
Western Nebraska.......................................... ..................
Northern Wyoming..........................................................
Southern Montana.......................................................... .
Sidney, Mont........................... ........................................

80
39
70
120
48
45
77
122
71
42

29
28
19
21
10
15
23
22
22
19

86
39
72
121
67
46
77
134
63
41

28
36
17
16
9
14
21
19
16
15

There is some indication that in 1935 the provisions restricting the
use of children under 14 in the beet fields increased the use of hired
help by laborers under contract. There was an appreciable increase
in 1935 both in the number of families hiring extra help and in the num
ber of persons hired per family. Of the families that worked beets in
1934 (excluding the few that were working as day laborers), 32 percent
hired some extra help to assist with their beet work, whereas 38 percent
135807°— 39----- 5

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

hired such extra help in 1935.2 Information obtained on the maximum
number of persons hired by the families at any one time to help with
the beet work shows that the average number hired by families that
used any extra help was also somewhat greater in 1935 (2.9 persons
hired) than in 1934 (2.4 persons hired). (See appendix table X I,
p. 93.) These figures are presented as having a possible bearing on
the child-labor restrictions,Ibut the increase in the use of extra help in
1935 may reflect other conditions, such as increased pressure to com
plete the work in a short period due to the relatively large available
labor supply and small planting of beets in 1935.
In a few of the Russian-German families that might have been
expected to hire extra help to compensate for the loss of a child’s
services, the mother took the child’s place in the fields. Among the
families interviewed as a whole, however, there was no appreciable dif
ference between 1934 and 1935 in the proportion of mothers working.
W A G E RATES

The families were paid for their work in the sugar-beet fields
according to acreage worked, so that the number of acres they handled
and the wage rate per acre they received determined their money
return for tne beet labor performed. The wage rates in the areas
visited were usually a fixed amount per acre for the thinning and
hoeing work and a sliding scale according to yield for the harvest
work.* In some areas the prevailing wages paid were the minimum
rates set by the Secretary of Agriculture in accordance with the
authority given him under the production-adjustment contracts
between sugar-beet growers and the Government to establish minimum-wage rates by district. This authority was exercised in 1935,
however, only for certain districts in the Mountain States beet region.
Six of the ten areas included in this study were affected by minimumwage determinations; namely, northern Colorado, Arkansas Valley,
Colo., western Nebraska, northern Wyoming, and the two Montana
areas. No minimum-wage rate was set for the Western Slope area
of Colorado nor for any part of the eastern beet region.4
The 1935 wage determination for northern Colorado and western
Nebraska provided a wage rate of $19.50 an acre (on a normal 12-ton
yield) made up as follows:
For
For
For
For

blocking and thinning______________ per a cre .. $7. 50
first hoeing_______________________ ____ d o____ 1. 75
second hoeing or weeding______________d o____ 1. 25
pulling and topping________________ per ton___10. 75

1 75 cents a ton for each ton up to and including 12 tons per acre, and 60 cents a ton for each ton above
12 per acre.
* This percentage for 1935 may be a slight understatement of the true proportion for these families because
some of them were visited before the completion of the topping work. For this latter group the maximum
number of persons hired refers to extra help hired at the thinning and hoeing seasons only. It may be
thought that these figures on the number of families hiring extra help make it appear that families working
as extra help were underrepresented among the 946 families included in this study. However, it should be
noted that the persons working as extra help were often either individuals from beet laborers’ families that
had completed their own beet work under a labor contract and have been classified as contract families or
were unattached solo migrants not included in the scope of the study.
* Of the 765 families interviewed that had contracts for beet labor in 1935, 7 were working for a share of
the crop, 20 or 25 percent of the beets produced, without any agreed wage per acre; all these families were in
northern Colorado. In 1934 the proportion working for a share of the crop was larger than in 1935, when the
minimum-wage determinations under the Jones-Costigan Act were in substanoe applicable to such share
contracts. In 1934, 32 out of 725 families with labor contracts reported having done beet work on a
share basis.
* Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Press release, April 20, 1935. (Mimeographed.)

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FAM ILY WOKK AND INCOME

In Arkansas Valley, Colo., the rate set was lower, totaling $17.50 an
acre (on a 10-ton yield, normal for the area); and in northern Wyoming
and Montana the minimum-wage rate established was higher, totaling
$21.50 an acre (on a normal yield of 12 tons). In the Western Slope
area of Colorado, where no rate was set under Government contracts
in 1935, the prevailing rate was $18.50 (on a yield of 10 to 14 tons
per acre).
Wage rates paid in the unirrigated eastern areas, where an 8-ton
yield is considered normal, tended to be less per acre than those paid
in the irrigated Mountain States beet region but carried a m in im u m
for topping work and usually an additional amount per ton harvested
above a certain yield per acre.6 The prevailing rates in southern
Minnesota and central Michigan were $ 1 5 to$ 1 6 a n acre for an 8-ton
yield, and in southern Michigan, where the beet laborers’ union had
a collective agreement with the growers, the prevailing rate paid was
$19 regardless of the yield.
The wage rates paid in 1935 were higher than those prevailing in
the respective areas in 1934 in all the areas visited except Minnesota
and central Michigan, where there was little or no change.
#Actual earnings per acre, when differences in wage rates and in
yields were taken into account, were found to range m 1934 from $4
to $24 an acre and in 1935 from $10 to $25 an acre for families in the
six areas from which data on earnings were obtained for that year.6
The spread in earnings per acre in each year for the different areas is
shown in appendix table X II (p. 94).
It is interesting to note, by way of comparison with the wage rates
for 1934 and 1935, what the prevailing wage rates per acre were in
1920 when the Children’s Bureau’s earner study was made. In that
year, when wage rates were probably highest in the history of the
industry,7 the prevailing rate for beet labor was $35 an acre in the
northern Colorado localities visited and $33 and $35 an acre in the
Michigan localities visited.8
E A R N IN G S FO R BEET W O R K
Family earnings.

At the wage rates paid in 1935, half of the 374 families reporting the
information received not more than $340 a year for the beet work done
by all members of the family, a sum far from adequate to support them
through the year even on a subsistence level. These 374 families
represent 6 of the 10 areas included in the survey— the 2 Michigan
areas, southern Minnesota, northern Wyoming, and the 2 Montana
areas. The other 4 areas were visited before earnings for the entire
1935 season were known. In those areas (western Nebraska and the
three in Colorado) family earnings for beet labor tended to be lower
than in the 6 areas reporting, judging from the relative earnings of the
families for the summer-work processes only (thinning and hoeing).
The families in the 4 areas in Colorado and Nebraska reported median
earnings for summer work of $160, in contrast to a median of $220
earned for summer work by families in the 6 areas for which yearly
« Wages, Employment Conditions, and Welfare of Sugar-Beet Laborers (prepared by the Children’s
Bureau). Monthly Labor Review, February 1938, p. 334.
J
8 Centra1 Michigan, southern Michigan, southern Minnesota, northern Wyoming, southern Montana
and Sidney, Mont.
’
7Taylor, Paul S.: Mexican Labor in the United State? Valley of the South Platte, p. 142
8 Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan, dd. 61.112. Chil
dren’s Bureau Publication 116. Washington, 1923.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

earnings for 1935 are also reported, (table 20). These figures on
summer-work earnings include the so-called hold-back of $1 to $2 an
acre that was earned for summer work but was not paid to the worker
until after the harvest work was completed. Roughly speaking, earn
ings for summer work amount to slightly more than half the entire
season’s earnings, the exact relationship depending on the portion of
the rate assigned to each process in the different localities and the
yield where a sliding scale is used for topping.
T able 20.— M edian earnings fro m all beet work done and median earnings from
summ er work on ly , by fam ilies o f beet laborers in each area , 19S5
Median earnings for all
work done in season

Median earnings for
summer work only

Area
Families
reporting

Families
reporting

>884

Total.
Areas with reports for all processes worked.
Central Michigan___
Southern M ichigan..
Southern Minnesota.
Northern Wyoming..
Southern Montana—
Sidney, M o n t ...___
Areas with reports for summer work only.
Northern Colorado----Arkansas Valley, Colo.
Western 81ope, C o lo ...
Western Nebraska____

374

$340

111
42
74
26
66

400
600
240
450
250
340

$190
220

94
39
74
140
82
66

220
360
160
240
180
230

400
183
68
61
98

160
80
160
220

> Excludes 26 families doing no summer work and 37 not reporting earnings from summer work.

The previous discussion of the amount of beet work performed by
the families interviewed leads one to expect great variations in the
amounts of money the families earned for then* beet work. The dis
tribution of the earnings of the 374 families reporting yearly earnings
for beet work done in 1935 shows that more than a fourth of them
were earning less than $200 and that nearly a fourth earned $600
or more. A few of these families, particularly among those earning
less than $200 in the year for beet work, did not, however, perform
beet labor at every process in the season’s work. Of the 311 families
that reported earnings and that did perform some beet labor m 1935
at each process, including a second hoeing, if required, 18 percent
earned less than $200 and 26 percent earned $600 or more, as shown
in table 21. For these families the median yearly earnings for beet
work were $410. The Spanish-speaking families, averaging fewer
workers per family and decidedly smaller acreages than the RussianGerman families, tended to have lower earnings for beet work median
earnings of $260 a year in contrast to median earnings of $520 for the
Russian-German families reporting.

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME
T able 21 .— Yearly earnings o f fa m ilies fro m beet labor in six areas, 19 8 5
Total families1

Families performing Families performing
beet labor at all
beet labor at part of
processes1
processes only

Yearly earniugs from beet labor
Percent
Percent
Percent
Nun her distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
530

445 _______ j_
100.0

Earnings reported._______ _______ _____ _

374

_________
100.0

311

Less than $100.......................................
$100, less than $200_________________
$200, less than $300_________________
$300, less than $400________ ______ _

32
77
54
51
43
35
66
16

8.6
20.6
14.4
13.6
11.5
9.4
17.6
4.3

2
55
45
50
43
34
66
16

$500j less than $600................................

Earnings not reported--------------------------Median........................................................

156
$340

134
$410

0.6
17.7
14.5
16.1
13.8
10.9
21.2
5.2

85
63

100.0

30
22
9
1

47.6
34.9
14.3
1.6

1.6

22
$100

i Families in central Michigan, southern Michigan, southern Minnesota, northern Wyoming, southern
Montana, and Sidney, Mont.
J Including second hoeing where required.

Information with respect to earnings from beet work done in 1934
by the families interviewed in 1935 shows that despite some increase
in wage rates and earnings per acre in certain areas there was no gen
eral increase in seasonal earnings in 1935, the first year in which the
labor provisions of the Government contracts were in effect (table
22). In the Mountain States beet region the tendency toward smaller
acreages in 1935 than in 1934 outweighed the increase in wage rates;
and in the two eastern areas, where there was little change either in
median acreages or in wage rates (central Michigan and southern
Minnesota), median earnings for beet labor were approximately the
same in both years. Only m southern Michigan, where there was a
collective agreement between workers in 1935 and where there were
increases in wage rates and in average acreage handled per family (see
appendix table X II, p. 94, and table 19, p. 59), were yearly earnings
significantly higher in 1935 than in 1934.
Individual earnings.

In half of the 374 families reporting, yearly earnings for beet work,
if divided equally among all members working, amounted to not more
than $129 per worker. For families in which no child under the age of
14 years assisted with the beet work the median was only a little
higher— $135 per worker. In this latter group of families 31 percent
had earnings of less than $100 a year per worker and only 22 percent
had $200 or more.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T able 22.— M edian yearly earnings o f fam ilies fo r beet labor, by area, 1984 and 19 85
1934
Area
Number of
families
T o ta l.............. .............. .................

1935

Median
yearly
earnings

Number of
families

Median
yearly
earnings

i 783

$310

453

360

»374

3 eastern areas............. ............... ...... ........

202

350

227

360

Central Michigan.......................
Southern M ich igan............ ............
Southern Minnesota____ ____ ______

91
39
72

470
430
260

111
42
74

400
600

3 Mountain State areas..........................

261

360

147

320

Northern Wyoming.......................
Southern Montana.............. ..........
Sidney, M ont.......... ........................

115
81
55

410
350
340

26
66
55

450

6 areas................ ....................................

4 areas with no reports on 1935 yearly earnings__
Northern Colorado........................
Arkansas Valley, Colo.... ......................
Western Slope, C o lo .....................................
Western Nebraska________ _____ ______

330

240

152
49
44
85

250
110
250
300

$340

240

250
340

1 Exclusive of 64 families who did not report earnings for beet labor in 1934.
’ Exclusive of 416 families in areas visited before the close of the topping season and 166 families for whom
earnings were not reported.

S U P P L E M E N T A R Y W O R K A N D IN C O M E

The families of beet laborers interviewed for this study had for the
most part no employment during 6 winter months to supplement their
earnings from beet labor and had only occasional employment during
the late summer, when the beet fields required little or no attention.
The concentration of sugar-beet culture near a limited number of
sugar factories meant for the most part a lack of opportunity for other
employment in the off seasons.
Information was obtained from the families interviewed regarding
all work done for hire or profit, other than beet labor, and all money
income received from such work or from other sources by any members
of the family in the period of approximately a year between the close
of the harvest season in 1934 and the close of the 1935 season. For
those families interviewed in the last 3 weeks of September 1935,
namely those in Colorado, the information thus obtained represents
such income for nearly, but not quite, a full year. There was obviously
no opportunity for supplementary work for beet workers during the
busy topping season.
Seven families out of eight reported that they had received some
income in addition to that earned by beet labor or received as relief.
The proportion of families in the various areas visited that had any
such supplementary money income whatever in the period of approxi
mately a year ranged from 71 to 96 percent, as follows:

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME
Percent

All areas_________________________
Southern Minnesota___:---------------------Southern Montana-----------------------------Central Michigan----- -------------------------Northern Wyoming----------------------------Sidney, M ont-------------------------------------Northern Colorado-----------------------------Western Slope, C olo---------------------------Southern Michigan-----------------------------Arkansas Valley, Colo------------------------Western Nebraska-------------------------------

_ 88
71
71
87
89
89
_ » 91
» 94
. 95
» 96
.. 1 96
.
..
.

i Families were interviewed during or shortly before the harvest.

Although many of the families did obtain some little supplementary
work, the money return for such work plus money income from any
other source (other than beet work and relief) was nearly always very
amn.ll when considered on a yearly basis. Of the 735 families that had
any such income and that reported the amount, half received not more
than $51 in the period of approximately a year, and less than a third
reported supplemental money income of $100 or more (table 23). A
typical situation was that of a Mexican family of 9 that earned $52 m
the year besides what they received for their beet work. The father,
2 boys of 21 and 15, and a girl of 16, were hired by a farmer to pick
potatoes at 3 cents a bushel. Each worked 8 days and they made $48
among them. The other $4 the father earned by 2 days work at
threshing.
T able

23.— Money income of families supplementary to earnings for beet labor, 1935
Families interviewed
Supplementary money income 1
Number

Percent
distribu
tion

*943

100.0

116
827

12.3
87.7

153
157
92
71
48
98
116
92

16.2
16.6
9.8
7.5
5.1
10.4
12.3
9.8

1 Period between close of harvest season in 1934 and close of harvest season in 1935.
i Exclusive of 3 families not reporting whether they had received any supplementary money income.

The areas in which the largest amounts were earned by the families
from supplementary work or were received from sources other than
relief were the 2 in central Michigan. Among the 85 families in central
Michigan that reported the amount of supplementary income, nearly
half received less than $90 in the year and one-third, $200 or more.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

The areas with the smallest amount of additional income were the
Western Slope and Arkansas Valley areas of Colorado. In the
Arkansas Valley, where 60 families reported the amount of supplemen
tary income, the median amount was $31 per family, despite the fact
that this area produces large quantities of onions, beans, cantaloupes,
and other crops requiring considerable hand labor. Low wage rates
for work at these other crops, frequently less than a dollar a day, and a
plentiful labor supply account for the apparent discrepancy between
available work and low earnings.
The most common source of supplementary income among all 946
families interviewed was agricultural labor on crops other than hand
work on beets, 4 out of 5 families having had some such work in the
period of approximately a year. The highest proportion of families
with some supplementary agricultural work (93 percent) was in
Arkansas Valley, Colo., and the smallest proportions were in southern
Montana^ central Michigan, and southern Minnesota, where the
families with some agricultural work besides beet labor comprised 62 to
65 percent of those visited. Most of the agricultural work performed
by the families on crops other than sugar beets was irregular and was
limited chiefly to harvesting work. A small number of families had
one member who worked as a regular farm hand on a monthly or a
yearly basis.
The nonagricultural work done by the families of beet laborers in
the Mountain States areas was sometimes work for the sugar factories
which operate for only about 3 months of the year and sometimes the
keeping of boarders during the beet season. In the eastern areas non
agricultural work obtained was frequently employment in sugar fac
tories or in other industrial establishments. For all areas combined,
however, only one family in three reported that any nonagricultural
work was done by any member of the family during the period of
approximately a year. Russian-Germans were able to obtain indus
trial and other nonagricultural employment much more easily than
the Spanish-speaking workers. Indeed, 44 percent of the RussianGerman families had some nonagricultural work, while only 21 per
cent of the Spanish-speaking families had any in the year. The areas
in which the smallest proportion of families visited had any nonagri
cultural work were the Arkansas Valley and Western Slope of Colorado,
10 percent of the families in each area reporting such employment;
and the area with the highest proportion was central Michigan, where
54 percent of the families visited had some nonagricultural work.
The isolation of beet workers was a definite handicap in obtaining
supplementary work. When poverty was so great that the family
had not even a relic of a car the difficulty of locating temporary em
ployment was increased by the lack of means of transportation.
When a family did have an old car in which to seek work at some dis
tance from home, the cost of using it was sometimes prohibitive at
the wage rates received. One case illustrating this situation, extreme
but yet not unusual in the area where it occurred, was reported by a
Spanish-speaking family in the Arkansas Valley. The father and
four older children went in their car a distance of about 20 miles to
pick beans, working 7 hours a day for 2 days. The five together
made $4 in the 2 days, used 6 gallons of gasoline costing $1.20, and had
only $2.80 left for the labor of the five of them.

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FAM ILY WORK AND INCOME

TOTAL INCOME

In view of the scarcity of employment supplementary to beet work,
the annual money income of families of beet laborers from all sources
except relief was usually not much greater than the total amount of
beet earnings and was far from sufficient to provide decent support
for the vast majority of the families. Half the families interviewed
for which the information was available (families in Michigan, Minne
sota, Wyoming, and Montana only) had total money incomes of not
more than $435 in 1935, and barely a fourth had as much as $750 a
year, exclusive of relief (table 24). These figures represent money
mcome and do not include any imputed value of dwellings owned or used
rent free or of home-produced foodstuffs. The limited contribution of
family income from such nonmoney sources is indicated in the discus
sion of living conditions. (See pp. 73-79.)
T able 24 .— Total yearly m oney income 1 o f fa m ilies o f beet laborers fro m all sources
except relief, 6 areas, 19 85
Families 1
Yearly money income1

Percent
distribution

Number
530

than $1,000
_ _ _ ___________________________________
$1,000, less than $i,500..................................................— .............. — ..............

$ 7 f in ’ I a k r

343

100.0

10
54
50
39
46
31
31
35
29
18

2.9
15.7
14.6
11.4
13.4
9.0
9.0
10.2
8.5
5.3

187
$430
i Period between dose of harvest season 1934 and dose of harvest season, 1935.
a Families in central Michigan, southern Michigan, southern Minnesota, northern Wyoming, southern
Montana, and Sidney, Mont.

The variation from area to area in the total income of the families
of the beet laborers interviewed reflects area differences previously
observed in amount of beet work performed, in wage rates, and in
supplementary work and income (table 25). The area of highest
annual money income from all sources except relief was southern
Michigan. It is interesting to note again that southern Michigan
is one of the areas that had the least child labor among children under
14 years of age in families of beet laborers both in 1934 and in 1935.

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T a b l e 25 .— Total yearly m oney income 1 o f beet laborers o f fa m ilies fro m all sources
except relief, by area, 19S5

Area

Total (6 areas)........... ...... .............
3 eastern areas.......... ...... ..................
Central Michigan...........................
Southern Michigan......................
Southern Minnesota......................
2 Mountain States areas.....................
Southern Montana........................
Sidney, Mont........................................

Number
Percent with total yearly income of—
of
families
report Less than $200, less $400,less $600 or
ing»
$200
than $400 than $600
more

Median
amount

343

$430

207

440

97
41
69

11
3
32

23
12
36

25
22
23

41
63
9

280

*136
62
52

22
32
19

27
24
31

21
21
19

30
23
31

370
400

1 Period between close of harvest season 1934 and close of harvest season 1935.
* Includes only families visited after the close of the topping season.
3Includes 22 families in northern Wyoming.

The very low plane of living afforded beet laborers by the incomes
they received is suggested by their income per family member.
Sixty-seven percent of the beet laborers’ families for whom infor
mation on money income was reported on a per capita basis received
less than $100 per person in the year, exclusive of relief. The amount
was $75 or less for 50 percent of the families reporting, and less than
$50 for 30 percent. Only 4 percent of the families reporting had $250
or more annual money income per capita, an amount that might be
expected to prove sufficient to meet the money cost of providing for
the reasonable needs of the families.

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RELIEF AND USE OF CREDIT

With incomes so obviously inadequate to provide the necessities of
life, many families of beet laborers were found to be supported during
part of the year from rebef funds. Within the 12-month period ended
November 1, 1935, nearly two-thirds of the families interviewed had
received either direct or work relief at some time.
The place of relief in the lives of the families of beet laborers is
closely related to the wage-payment system for beet labor and the
use of store credit.
M ETHODS OF WAGE PAYMENT

Wages for beet labor were paid usually in two or three installments
during the season. In the Mountain States areas the first payment
was usually made after the thinning and first hoeing were, completed,
and it involved a wait on the part of the families of 4 to 7 weeks after
they had started work in the fields. Payment for second hoeing was
usually made late in the summer. In the eastern areas the first pay
ment was not usually made until all hoeing work was completed, and
it involved a wait of 8 to 10 weeks after work was begun in the fields
in May. In both regions it was customary to withhold $1 to $2 an
acre o f the money earned for the summer work until the harvest work
was completed, in order to hold the worker to his contract for the per
formance of the harvest work. Final payment, including harvest
earnings and the hold-back was usually made about the middle of
November, soon after the harvest work was completed and the yield
determined for the acreage worked. However, m the eastern areas
final payment was frequently delayed. About one-fifth of the Michi
gan families, when they were interviewed in December, had not been
paid in full for beet labor performed in the 1935 season.
STORE CREDIT

Delayed payment of wages has given rise to the practice common
among families of beet laborers of living on store credit through much
if not all of the working season, with the inevitable restriction in choice
of commodities and in opportunity to buy at the lowest available prices.
During the period when the families worked in the fields in the spring
of 1935 before the first wage payment, 78 percent of the families
reported that they lived on store credit and another 11 percent reported
that they lived on relief funds. Only 4 percent reported that they
were living on money advanced by the farmer for whom they worked.
The few remaining families relied on their own resources or on other
types of outside assistance. Usually store credit was advanced to beet
laborers only after the family secured its contract for the coming
season’s beet work and either the grower or the sugar company’s
representatives helped to arrange credit for the family with or without
a formal assignment of wages. Credit thus obtained was extended only
69

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

in limited amount. It was not customary for the sugar companies to
operate stores, except that commissaries were conducted in a few in
stances, which dealt only in commodities advanced to beet workers
during the period when they could not get store credit elsewhere. The
system of store credit reported in one locality was as follows: The
storekeeper, who was well acquainted with the beet laborers’ families
and the farmers’ lands and could estimate quite closely what the various
families were earning, extended credit, regardless of family size, only
to the amount of estimated current earnings. The growers, by arrange
ment, would make out the pay checks for the laborer’s work in both the
storekeeper’s and the laborer’s names. The laborer then necessarily
cashed the check at the store and received in change the difference, if
any, between the accumulated store bill and the amount of the check.
In the Michigan localities visited it was customary for the sugar com
pany to make the payments to the laborers for summer work on assign
ment from the growers; and therefore store-credit arrangements for the
laborers were usually made by the sugar company’s field men rather
than by the growers themselves. The field.man would take the worker
to the store, where he handed the worker his pay check, and in this
way he assisted the storekeeper to collect what the beet worker
owed him.
In most if not all localities a family with relatively high earning
capacity and a reputation for permanence and reliability was able to
obtain store credit without an assignment of wages or its informal
equivalent and could live with the same degree of independence as a
farmer on the same economic level; but this situation was not the
characteristic one for beet laborers.
In general, the families were able to provide for themselves through
the 6-month working season either by credit or by the use of cash.
But the end of the working season and the reckoning with the store
keeper that followed the harvest pay day found many beet workers
with little or no dash reserve with which to begin the winter and with
no work to back store credit. A number of families reported the
amount of cash on hand at the end of the 1934 working season after
bills accumulated in providing for their day-to-day needs had been
met but before they had bought necessary supplies for the winter. Of
the families giving this information 38 percent reported that they had
no cash on hand after paying such bills, 31 percent had less than $60,
and only 26 percent reported having $60 or more; for 4 percent some
cash was on hand but the amount was not reported.
RELIEF

It is not surprising, therefore, that by the end of December 1934,
36 percent of all families interviewed were receiving relief, either
direct aid or employment on work-relief projects; and that by the end
of February 1935, 54 percent had received such help from relief
agencies. Altogether 63 percent of the families received relief some
time between November 1, 1934, and October 31, 1935, or the date
of interview if earlier. The most usual period over which relief was
received was 6 months. More than a third of all families reporting
whether they received relief during the period of approximately a
year had received it in 6 or more calendar months. Relief was some
what more common among the Spanish-speaking families, of whom

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RELIEF AND USE OF CREDIT

69 percent received relief, than among the Russian-German families,
of whom 53 percent received it in this period.
The proportion of the beet workers’ families that were on relief at
some time during the year in the areas visited ranged from 37 to 97
percent. The highest proportion of families receiving relief, 97 per
cent, was for the Arkansas Valley in southern Colorado, where aver
age beet acreages worked were small, wage rates for other work were
low, and a water shortage had restricted crops the preceding season.
The proportion of families receiving relief in the different areas is
shown in table 26. The relationship between prevalence of relief
and median yearly income on a family basis in the various areas is
apparent, but the proportions shown to be receiving relief sometime
during the year reflect also differences in policies of granting relief
to beet workers.
T able 26.— Families receiving relief during year ended Oct. SI, 1935, by area
Percent receiving relief

Area in which family was interviewed

Total

Percent
not re
ceiving
relief

Total

Number
In less
In 6 or
of
than 6
more
calendar
calendar calendar months
months months
not
reported

Total____________________________

1941

3 eastern areas......... - ..................................

231

Central Michigan__________________
Southern Minnesota________________

114
42
75

58
62
28

42
38
72

25
24
37

16
14
35

7 Mountain States areas________________

710

Northern Colorado___ _____________
Arkansas Valley, Colo______________
Western Slope, Colo.............................
Western Nebraska..............................
Northern Wyoming________________

104
70
51
100
148
101
46

27
3
63
33
55
21

73
97
37
67
45
79

35
11
21
40
39
21

38
86
16
27
6
56

Sidney, Mont.......................................

(*)

(»)

1 Exclusive of 5 families who did not report whether they received relief.
* Percent not shown because number of families was less than 50.

The Western Slope area was conspicuous for the combination of
low family income and the small proportion receiving assistance from
relief agencies. In this area the emergency-relief administration of
one county expected the sugar company of the locality to advance
credit to the sugar-beet laborers through the winter against their
next season’s earnings even for families that did not have prospects
of earning enough to provide a bare living for their families during
both the summer and winter seasons. The reason advanced for this
relief policy was that if relief was generally given to families of beet
workers, the long-established custom of the sugar company of ad
vancing credit to the beet workers would be threatened, and the
company’s sense of responsibility for the families would be lessened.
The company did make small advances to many families, but the relief
given to them was limited for the most part to clothing for school
children. The situation of many of these families was almost des
perate. In at least one other area the sugar company advanced

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

some credit against the next season’s earnings to certain workers in
the winter of 1934-35. In other areas company credit advances or
the guaranteeing of store credit through the winter had been cus
tomary in previous years when wage rates were higher and public
relief less general but had been discontinued at the time of this study.
The local prejudice in many beet-producing localities against beet
workers, particularly the “ Mexicans,” as both Spanish-Americans
and Mexicans were referred to, made it difficult for them to obtain
needed relief. It was common for townspeople in the beet-producing
localities to feel that “ the sugar company brought them in, let the
sugar company care for them,” and the result was that some beet work
ers in serious need were left to shift for themselves. The policy of relief
administrators regarding the extent to which beet workers should be
denied relief on the ground that they were able to get some credit
advanced against their next season’s earnings differed from locality to
locality. For these reasons some families did not obtain relief that
they might have received if they had not been beet workers or if they
had lived elsewhere. The penniless state of many families not
receiving relief during the year is suggested by the fact that more than
a fourth of the families not obtaining relief had no cash on hand after
the 1934 harvest pay day to start the winter, and nearly another
fourth had less than $55. For many families this meant existence on
store credit which was even more meager than existence on relief.
In more than one area relief was provided for Mexicans on a different
budget basis from that applied to other families, and in one State a
different wage rate was paid for common labor on “ Mexican” relief
projects (25 cents an hour) than was paid on other similar work-relief
projects (45 cents an hour). In one important beet-growing county
it was reported that the community prejudice against granting beet
workers relief on the same basis as white families was so strong that
all milk allowances were cut off for Mexican families.
Relief policies in beet-growing areas also affected the migration of
families. In Minnesota, for instance, it was reported that families
of beet workers had difficulty in obtaining relief in the rural counties
where they worked and that they customarily returned each fall to
St. Paul or Minneapolis, where relief was generally available.
It was also reported by a number of families that since it was
easier to get relief in Colorado and Montana than in Wyoming they
were retu rn in g to the former States instead of remaining in Wyoming
as they might otherwise have done.

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LIVING CONDITIONS

At the economic level at which the majority of the families of beet
laborers were living, conditions usually associated with extreme pov
erty were generally found. They lacked proper food, had insufficient
clothing and fuel for the cold climates in which they were living, dwelt
in overcrowded houses often not even weatherproof, lacked sanitary
facilities, and sometimes did not even have pure drinking water.
Families often had only light cotton clothing for cold weather, without
adequate underwear or wraps to protect them. The suffering caused
from a lack of warm clothing in midwinter is suggested by the account
of one school teacher in northern Wyoming who told how youngsters,
coming to school in zero weather from the Mexican colony, wearing
only overalls, had to run as fast as possible in an effort to keep from
being thoroughly chilled. The hardships due to poor housing and in
adequate food were intensified by the lack of sufficient bed clothing
and fuel.
FOOD

Supplying the family with food was the first and ever-present con
cern of the beet workers’ families. Flour and beans appeared to be the
most common staples for many families. Sugar, lard, and coffee were
also important items of diet. When the families were working in the
fields they were more likely to have meat; in fact they found it neces
sary to increase the quantity and variety of their diet at that time in
order to be physically able to stand up under the strain of long hours
and hard work. In the winter their diet was more meager. As one
grocer explained, “ If they do not eat flour, they eat beans.” Among
the Spanish-speaking families, some ate chiefly Mexican food, largely
beans, chili, and tortillas, but many preferred a more American diet.
One mother explained that she learned from relief people to eat health
ful foods, and when she could afford it she bought milk, eggs, and
canned spinach.
Gardens supplemented the food supply to some extent, and the
keeping of cows or chickens to a lesser extent. In most areas it was
customary for growers to provide beet laborers with a small garden
plot, but the plots provided were sometimes very small indeed. Many
growers, particularly in the irrigated areas, did not wish to spare
enough good land and water to make possible a garden that could yield
enough to provide a material part of the family food supply. Families
that had all the work they could handle in the beet fields likewise had
little time in the spring to spend gardening for themselves.
Altogether, 61 percent of the 919 families reporting stated that the
beet grower for whom they worked had offered them some space for a
garden (including water for irrigation in areas where this was neces
sary), and 54 percent had planted gardens on the land offered. How
ever, a few of these families had the misfortune to have their gardens
destroyed by flood, drought, or pests. Some families said that un73

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

certainty whether adequate irrigation water would be available de
terred them from investing in seed, which with their limited income
was an item to consider.
The tendency to have gardens was greater for the families living on
farms during the beet season than for those living elsewhere. Seventyfive percent of families living on farms during the beet season reported
that the farmers for whom they worked offered them space in which to
have gardens in 1935, and 68 percent reported that they had planted
in the places so provided. Only about one-fourth of the families that
lived in towns or colonies through the beet season reported that they
had had any gardens in places provided by a grower for whom they
worked, but at least an equal proportion reported that they managed
to have a garden in a place which they provided for themselves or
which the sugar company of the locality may have provided for them
near the colony in which they lived. Since the families that worked
in the beet fields^ as extra help usually lived in colonies or towns, they
were much less likely to have gardens at the farm where they worked
than families that had seasonal contracts for beet labor. Only 17
percent of the former group had gardens in space provided for them
by growers, in contrast to 63 percent of the latter.
The families when interviewed were found for the most part to be
usmg small quantities of milk. Indeed, 9 percent of the families
reported that they used no milk during the week preceding the inter
view, and in the 91 percent that did use milk the amounts consumed
were far below those required by accepted health standards. Allow
ing the quantity of milk recommended by the Bureau of Home Eco
nomics of the United States Department of Agriculture for an adequate
diet at minimum cost,1 the families included m this study should have
used an average of 5% quarts of milk per person in a week. The
amounts they actually used were less than a quart per person a week
m about one-third of the families reporting amount used, less than 2
quarts per person for nearly two-thirds, and less than 3 quarts per person for four-fifths of tho families using any milk. These amounts refer
to quantities of fresh milk or the equivalent amount in canned or dried
form. The families included in this study tended to use decidedly less
milk per person than urban families of wage earners and clerical work
ers m the United States, of whom about two-fifths used less than 2
quarts of milk per person a week according to the sample study of the
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics made in 1935 and 1936.2
Although milk is a particularly important body-building food for
young children, there was found to be little difference between families
with children under 6 years of age and those with no children under
6 years of age either in the proportion using any milk at all or in the
amounts of milk used. The figures on milk consumption for both of
these groups of families appear in table 27.
andfor w n™ .? »n ?
? ndf T 7 years ? ? d ^
under 8, at least 3 cups a day for older boys and girls
t w o q T
a*dayJE?r “ en- Bureau of Home Economics, TJ. S. Department of AgricultureNo *296* F Wa^ington(ii 9MntlVe Content and Cost>by H&zelK - Stiebeling and Medora M. Wardf^ Circular
°/hiSn l°r LHbin’ U° ii ed States Commissioner of Labor Statistics, on the Fair Labor Standof<Represratatives, S
S
E
?
“ d the Committee « “ Lab°r. House

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LIVING CONDITIONS

T a b l e 27.— A m ou n t o f milk consumed per p erson 1 by fam ilies o f beet laborers with
and without children under 6 years o f age, 19 8 5

All families

Families with chil
dren under 6
years of age

Families with no
children under 6
years of age

Amount of milk consumed per person1
Number

Percent
distri
bution

946

Number

Percent
distri
bution

647

Number

Percent
distri
bution

299

925

100.0

636

100.0

289

100.0

No milk used......... - .............. ...... ........
Milk used_________________________

83
842

9.0
91.0

59
577

9.3
90.7

24
265

8.3
91.7

Less than 1 pint________________
1 pint, less than 1 quart_________
1 quart, less than 2................... .
2 quarts, less than 3_____________
3 quarts, less than 4 ......................
4 quarts or more.............................
Amount not reported_____ ______

99
178
224
137
49
103
52

10.7
19.3
24.2
14.8
5.3
11.1
5.6

64
117
155
109
32
70
30

10.1
18.4
24.4
17.1
5.0
11.0
4.7

35
61
69
28
17
33
22

12.1
21.1
23.9
9.7
5.9
11.4
7.6

Consumption reported_________________

1 Amounts shown are quantities of fresh milk or equivalent amounts of milk in canned or dried form used
during week preceding interview.

The place of residence appeared to have more bearing on the con
sumption of milk than the presence of children under 6 years of age.
Families living in colonies tended to use less milk than those living on
farms or those living in towns. Of the families living in colonies
when interviewed, 18 percent had used no milk at all in the week
preceding the interview and nearly half the families using any milk
had consumed less than a quart a week per person or its equivalent.
Among the families with low milk consumption, the typical use was
2 or 3 cans of evaporated milk in a week for the family, used in coffee
and on breakfast cereal. Even among families living on farms,
evaporated or other canned milk was used to the exclusion of fresh
milk by half the families using any milk at all. The families using
the largest quantities of milk tended to be those possessing a cow or
a goat. It was exceptional for the growers to provide their laborers
with a cow or the use of a cow, and few of the families could afford to
buy one. At the time of interview only 1 out of 8 of all the 940
families reporting was keeping a cow or a goat, and of those living on
farms, 1 out of 6.
Some beet workers were able to improve their food supply by
keeping poultry, but the families that kept either livestock or poultry
were in the minority even among those that lived on farms. Some
times the farmers objected to having the families keep animals about
and sometimes frequent moving made it difficult to keep animals.
Poultry was kept by slightly more than two out of five farm families
but by less than one out of three town families, and less than one out
of four colony families.

135807°— 39-

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS
H O U S IN G

Type.

In beet-producing areas, the dwellings of the sugar-beet laborers
were usually identified by their bareness and small size. Some were
adobe, particularly the nouses built in colonies by the sugar com
panies a number of years ago. The more recently built colony
houses were, for the most part, of substantial hollow-tile construc
tion. The houses on farms were rough, frame shacks, often unpainted.
In Michigan a wagon, which was one room on wheels, was sometimes
provided by the sugar companies for housing beet workers. The better
houses used by beet workers living on farms were usually those which
the farmers’ families had formerly occupied. The houses of beet
workers living in towns were less readily distinguishable than those in
colonies or the open country and were usually small frame houses
similar to workers’ houses in small towns anywhere. The homes of
the families interviewed seldom had running water or bathrooms.
Leaky roofs, cracks and holes in walls, and general lack of repair
were frequently complained of by the families, and representatives of
growers and sugar companies were seriously concerned over the bad
housing facilities. The prevailing conditions were explained by the
representatives of growers and sugar companies as being due to the
recent hard times for the sugar-beet farmers and to the impossibility
of persuading some of the farmers that they had a responsibility to
provide better quarters for their beet laborers. The complete lack
° f any standards on the part of some growers regarding housing con
ditions of beet laborers is illustrated by the fact that in one case a fam
ily of 10 was given a very small, windowless room in a stable between
the horse stalls and the grain room and a small tent to five in. When
this family was interviewed on a cold day in early November there
was only a small cook stove in the tent and no means of heating the
stable room. Quite insanitary but less uncomfortable and incon
venient was the 1-room dugout provided for a family of 10 in the
same vicinity. The dugout was a room sunk two-thirds below ground
level and banked with soil except for 2 small windows and the door.
The dilapidation and flimsy construction of many beet workers’
houses made them very inadequate protection against either the
summer heat or the winter cold. Some families lived on the farms
all winter in lightly constructed shacks made for summer use only,
because they could not afford to pay rent for a house suitable for
winter use. These families frequently lined their board shacks with
cardboard, newspapers, or magazine pages in an effort to keep out the
wind and snow. (See illustration facing this page.)
Overcrowding.

Beet workers’ houses were frequently inadequate in size as well as
in construction. Forty-seven percent of the families interviewed at
their residences were found to be living in quarters of not more than
2 rooms and only 29 percent lived in as many as 4 rooms. Some
families shared their few rooms with 1 or 2 other families during the
working season. Since the rooms of the typical 2-room shack or
adobe house were not more than about 12 feet square there was
usually no space for more than 2 beds. The large families would
lay mattresses on the floor at night for the children to sleep on, and
in the daytime stack these extra mattresses on top of the 1 or 2
bedsteads. It was customary in many families for more than 2 people

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Farm Security Administration photograph by Lee.

Family of Mexican beet workers.

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New housing for families of beet laborers constructed by a sugar company.

Shacks occupied by migratory beet laborers.

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LIVING CONDITIONS

to sleep together in 1 bed or on 1 mattress, and this was a particularly
trying situation when there was illness in the family. In nearly
two-fifths of the families interviewed at their residences there were
3 or more persons to a room, and in two-thirds there were 2 or more to
a room. Twenty-five families (4 percent of those reporting) actually
had 6 or more persons to a room and a few had 10 persons to a room.
There were 3 or more persons to a room in 52 percent of the migratory
families interviewed at their beet-season residences, whereas the corre
sponding proportion for the nonmigratory families was 35 percent.
For the migratory families interviewed at and reporting on their
winter dwellings the overcrowding was not so bad as among migra
tory families interviewed at and reporting on their beet-season dwell
ings; it was approximately the same for the winter dwellings of
migratory families as for the year-round dwellings of the nonmigratory
families interviewed. Thirty-six percent of the migratory families
reporting on winter dwellings were living with three or more persons
to a room, as compared with 52 percent of the migratory families
interviewed at their beet-season residences and 35 percent of the
nonmigratory families.
In two localities visited the sugar company was building new colony
dwellings for beet workers; and while these were of sound construction,
those seen completed allowed only two rooms to a family. That many
families desired more space than they had was suggested by the addi
tions made to their homes in places where the company had sold them
colony houses and by the larger size of house that the families lived in
when not restricted to what the farmer or sugar company offered them.
Costs.

It was customary in most localities for workers to be provided with
housing free of charge at least during the working season. A clause
making provision for free housing for the contract laborer during the
beet season was contained in the standard labor-contract forms used.
The growers, however, incurred no obligation under the labor con
tracts to furnish houses for families working as extra help, nor to pro
vide winter housing for any of the beet workers. In no area did all
families interviewed receive free housing even during the working
season.
The families that were most often provided with free dwellings were
those who lived on the farms only during the beet season and had to be
attracted there by the offer of free living accommodations. Of the
122 migratory families that reported on their beet-season residence,
93 percent were living in houses provided free of charge, usually by
the growers employing them (see appendix table X III, p. 95).
Free housing during the beet season was much less often provided
for the nonmigratory than for the migratory beet workers. Of the
561 nonmigratory families only 56 percent were living in houses fur
nished free of charge at the time they were interviewed.3 The non
migratory families, if permitted to five in houses belonging to the
farmer or sugar company the year round, usually did not have to pay
rent in the winter if they had not paid it in the summer, but occa
sionally they paid rent only for the nonworking months. The free
housing provided these nonmigratory families was almost as often
furnished by the sugar companies as by the growers. Twenty-four
percent of the nonmigratory families were receiving free housing

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WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

from the sugar companies at the time of interview, while 26 percent
were receiving it from the growers, and 6 percent from others. The
44 percent of the nonmigratory families that provided their own living
quarters comprised 19 percent owning the houses they lived in and
25 percent renting homes. The system of providing winter or yearround housing for beet workers by the sugar companies, sometimes
free of charge and sometimes at a modest rental, has developed as a
means of holding the necessary labor supply in the beet areas; for
according to sugar-company officials it costs less to provide housing
for the workers than to transport them from distant sections every
spring.
Free housing was provided during the winter for comparatively few
of the migratory families that were interviewed and that reported on
their whiter dwellings. Of the 242 migratory families that were inter
viewed in their winter dwellings and that reported on rent and owner
ship, 20 percent lived in houses provided free by the sugar companies
and 5 percent lived in quarters furnished otherwise without cost to
them. In no case did the growers provide winter housing for these
migratory workers who moved off their farms at the end of the beet
season. Twenty-nine percent of them owned the houses in which
they lived in the winter, but much the largest group, 46 percent,
rented them.
Sanitation and water supply.

Insanitary conditions both inside and outside the houses were prev
alent in many beet workers’ communities. While some of the
families visited had succeeded in making their houses look tidy and
even pretty, with vines and flowers on the outside and with cleanliness
inside, scarcity of water, poverty, and ramshackle housing were handi
caps too great for many of the families to overcome. The one staff
worker in the only colony visited that had a neighborhood or settle
ment house was hoping to get running water and a shower bath
installed in the house to help rid the community of impetigo and other
filth diseases. The only water supply in the colony of approximately
50 families was two deep wells, each with a hand pump, yet this
colony was relatively neat and attractive in comparison with manv
others.
Convenient access to a free supply of water fit for domestic use was
usually, though not always, included with the liv in g accommodations
provided for beet workers. The provision in the labor-contract
forms that workers’ dwellings be near a suitable water supply was
carried out in most cases, but there were some departures, especially
in certain areas of the Mountain States, where the ground water was
very alkaline. Many beet laborers had to pay to have tanks of
water hauled from the nearest town or they had to haul all the water
they used in their own cars. As one family said, “ Oh, no water
comes with this house.” In one case a family reported that its
water was carried by hand from a distance of about 2 miles. The
area in which the families had access least often to a free water supply
was the Arkansas Valley. About four out of five families interviewed
in this area had to pay for water they used, though seven out of every
eight were provided with houses free of charge, usually by the sugar
companies.

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LIVING CONDITIONS

With water costing at least a dollar a month for many of these
families, the system of charging for water, added to the inconvenience
of hauling, could not help but discourage cleanliness among families
unable to buy even needed food. It also resulted in the use of water
from irrigation ditches for drinking purposes. Of the families included
in the study, 25, or 3 percent of those reporting, obtained all the water
they used from the irrigation ditches, while an unknown but probably
much larger number used some ditch water for household purposes.
In one small Mexican colony all the families took their water from a
cistern filled by irrigation water which had flowed over the hard ground
used for a yard in front of the houses. This water was allowed to
settle and was strained through a piece of cloth before being used m
the house, but it was not boiled.
CARE AND HEALTH OF CHILDREN

Children in the beet laborers’ families lacked not only proper food,
suitable clothing, and decent housing but also the care of their mothers
when the mothers worked in the beet fields. The work of mothers
offered particular problems of child care when there were one or more
children under 6 years of age. In 442 families the mothers were
reported to have worked in the beet fields in 1935, and 295 of these
mothers had children under 6 years of age. About a fourth of these
295 mothers took their young children to the fields with them. Ba
bies would be left lying at the edge of the field or in the family car, or
if old enough to walk would play and wander about with little atten
tion from their busy families. It was reported that a few of the
working mothers left their young children at home with no one to
watch them, feeling that the children were better off there than un
protected from hot sun or cold weather m the fields. More often the
working mothers left the babies and the young children at home in
the care of an older child or an elderly person. In nearly a third of
the families in which mothers of children under 6 years of age worked
in the fields the only caretaker of such children during the absence of
the mother was a child, himself under 12 vears of age; although in
two-fifths of them the caretaker was an older person, often an older
child or a grandmother. The unreasonable burdens placed on some
children and the inadequacy of the care they could give is illustrated
bv the case of a little 9-year-old girl who, though seriously lame from
infantile paralysis, was left in sole charge of three active younger chil
dren, a boy of 6, a girl of 3, and a baby 1H years of age.
The caretaker of the young children frequently also had house
keeping duties, although sometimes in large families the mother
would leave the fields earlier than the other workers m order to prepare
dinner for the family. However, the hours spent in the fields even
bv working mothers with children under 6 years of age were usually
very long. Only about one-sixth of these mothers worked m the
beet fields for less than 8 hours a day at thinning, for instance, and
more than one-third usually spent 12 or more hours a day m held
labor during their work at this process.
,,
The Spanish-speaking families were much less likely to have the
mothers of young children working in the fields than the RussianGermans. In 1935, 83 percent of the mothers or other female heads

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W ELFARE

F A M IL IE S

S U G A R -B E E T

LABORERS

of the Russian-German families worked in the beet fields, in contrast to
33 percent of the mothers in the Spanish-speaking families. The pro
portions were similar for the families with children under 6 years of age
and for those with only older children.
Illness among children and adults in the families was frequently
reported, but often they, did not receive the medical care needed.
Many families would call and pay a doctor if the emergency seemed
great enough to justify the expenditure, but often it seemed impossible
for them to get a doctor when they had no money. In numerous locali
ties families reported that they were able to get some free medical
service through the relief agency in the winter when they were on relief,
but that they could not obtain any when they were off relief and living
on store credit. The suffering and worry so caused was great.
Mothers went through childbirth without medical care, and children
whose parents knew them to be suffering from serious diseases were
not receiving badly needed medical service.
POSITION IN THE COMMUNITY

In most if not all of the communities visited the beet workers were
isolated from the rest of the population, occupationally, socially, and
residentiary ; consequently they were often looked upon as a distinct
and inferior social class. This was true to some extent of all beet
workers, regardless of race, though the Mexicans and Spanish-Americans usually appeared to be more isolated than the Russian-Germans,
many of whose fellows had already risen from laborer to tenant farmer,
or even farm owner. The low social status of beet laborers appeared
to be partly due to their willingness to do the arduous, monotonous
hand labor of the beet fields at the wages offered and to the poverty
and living conditions associated with their occupation. For the most
part, American farmers not of Russian-German extraction seemed
to consider doing hand labor in their own beet fields as being beneath
their dignity.
The feeling against the “ Mexicans,” as both Spanish-Americans and
Mexicans were locally designated, had apparently been definitely in
creasing during the depression years. When times were good, labor
badly needed, and earnings from beet work high enough to support
the families the year round, the Spanish-speaking families were
comparatively welcome in the beet areas. Under depression condi
tions, however, they had frequently to be supported during the winter
by communities that resented the need to care for the asugar comPany s Mexicans.” Likewise, willingness of the “ Mexicans” to “ work
for half wages and eat half rations” was seen as a threat to the employ
ment opportunities and living standards of the other wage earners
of the commumty. The resulting increase in anti-Mexican feeling
in the community was indicated by statements made by farmers and
others who blamed the Mexicans for all economic ills of the community
and suggested that many of them had come into the United States
illegally and should be shipped, back to Mexico. Tangible results
of this feeling in certain localities were observed in restrictions on
relief, refusals of jobs inside sugar factories to Spanish-speaking workes^aklishment of special schools for Spanish-speaking
children. The Spanish-speaking families usually resented the estab
lishment of special schools for their children, because they considered

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L IV IN G

C O N D IT IO N S

it to be race and social discrimination, even though they realized
that their children suffered from unfriendly contacts with the town
children in the regular schools. In telling why his 6-year-old boy had
not yet been sent to the local school, one Mexican parent explained,
“ We are afraid they [the white children] might hate him, and he is
too little [for that].”
The lack of welcome to a community experienced by many beet
laborers was often expressed in the failure of their children to take
part in the extracurricular activities of the schools. This was true
of children in both Russian-German and Spanish-speaking families.
Some exceptions did of course occur in certain localities and in the
case of exceptionally able children, such as the Mexican girl who
played the part of “ Miss Spain” in a Christmas entertainment at
school.
Hardships and social discrimination have had their effects on the
temper of the beet workers but seemed to affect the Russian-German
and the other families differently. The reaction of the RussianGermans to the situation appeared to be an intensifying of their
ambition to rise from the class of beet laborer to the farmer class.
The reaction of the Spanish-speaking families, who seemed to be more
sensitive in temperament than the Russian-Germans, was rather one
of seeking “ to gain more respect” through raising the level of their
occupation, obtaining higher wages, and achieving better living
conditions. In several localities visited this desire found expression
in an interest in labor organization.
In several of the Mountain States areas visited labor unions com
posed of Spanish-speaking beet workers were active in the spring of
1935 in presenting the case of the beet laborers to the Secretary of
Agriculture in the hearings held prior to the determination of mini
mum-wage rates for 1935 under the Jones-Costigan Act. A labor
union in southern Michigan was the only labor group in the areas
visited that had been successful in 1935 in negotiating an agreement
with the growers.

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CONCLUSION

This picture of family labor in the cultivation and harvesting of
the sugar-beet crop of the country reveals a pressure of poverty so
great that parents have felt compelled to use the labor of their
children in the beet fields in order to handle the maximum acreage of
beets and so increase their meager income. The income from the
arduous physical toil of the whole family in this seasonal industry is
seldom sufficient to provide a decent standard of living, and for many
it is not enough to provide even the bare necessities of existence. As
a result they must either accept public relief or face absolute destitu
tion during a part of the year. For the children of beet workers, their
industrial environment has meant not only heavy labor in the fields
but curtailed schooling, inadequate food, poor shelter, lack of proper
physical care, and indeed curtailed opportunity in every sense.
This study, concerned with the closely related factors of child labor
and low wage levels, points out that in 1935 the highest average fam
ily earnings from beet labor were found in an area with relatively little
child labor, with high standards of school attendance, and with a
trade-union of beet laborers recognized by the growers.
The study records the results of the new method of regulating child
labor initiated by the Jones-Costigan amendment to the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, enacted in 1934. This method was to make Govern
ment benefits to growers of sugar beets conditional on the observance of
certain child-labor standards, specifically, a minimum age of 14 years
and an 8-hour day for children between 14 and 16. Until the inaugu
ration of the sugar-beet benefit program, legal restrictions on the
employment of children in the sugar-beet industry were almost non
existent in the United States. The application of the child-labor pro
visions of this program resulted in a marked reduction in the use of
children under 14 years of age among families working under the laborcontract system in 1935. But as indicated by the findings of this
study it did not bring about the full compliance with these child-labor
standards that was hoped for. This failure is evidently attributable
to a number of causes, chief among which was the absence of any defi
nite plan for requiring reliable proof of age for children wishing to work
in the beet fields. No provision had been made for the use of employ
ment or age certificates based on documentary evidence of age, a device
which has long been recognized in this country as essential in sound
administration of child-labor legislation. As a result, misrepresenta
tion of children’s ages was frequent. The findings of this study with
respect to such misrepresentations offer conclusive evidence that pro
vision for proof of age is fundamental to the effective application of
minimum-age standards in this as in any other industry.
If the child-labor provisions of the Sugar Act of 1937, which are
substantially the same as those effective in 1935 under the JonesCostigan Act, are to benefit fully the children and workers for whose
advantage they have been provided, it is highly desirable that coop82

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C O N C L U S IO N

erative relationships be worked out with officials of local school sys
tems and State labor and education departments for the issuance of
certificates of age for children that wish to work in the beet fields.
Such certificates, used as conclusive evidence of the age of a child for
the purposes of the administration of the benefit program for sugarbeet growers with respect to the child-labor provisions, would serve as
a protective measure not only for the children but for the growers
as well.
Another limitation in the administration of the child-labor provisions
of the 1935 sugar-beet benefit program was the absence of any effec
tive plan for ascertaining whether children actually did work in viola
tion of the minimum-age and maximum-hour standards of the con
tracts and for bringing to the attention of administrative officials in
formation on such violations.
Reliance on the complaints of neighbors for knowledge of childlabor violations did not prove to be of much, if of any, use to the
administrators of the sugar-beet benefit program. It seems not only
useless but also unfair to expect neighbors or even local school officials
to report violations, since these are persons whose interests are closely
bound up with the industry of the^community and who are influenced
by a feeling of neighborhood solidarity. Provisions for systematic
inspection for child labor rather than reliance on complaints of viola
tion of the child-labor provisions of the contracts is undoubtedly
essential if these legal standards for the protection of children are to be
more than a moral mj unction to be applied according to the conscience
of the individual grower or parent.
The children of beet laborers have need, not only for effective ad
ministration of the labor provisions of the sugar-beet benefit program
but also for opportunities for school attendance unhampered by the
demands of beet-field work. A fruitful means of increasing educa
tional opportunities for the children in beet laborers’ families and also
of lessening the amount of child labor in violation of the standards of
the sugar-beet program would be improvement in school-attendance
standards in the beet-producing localities. In some sections visited
in the course of this study it appeared that beet-processing companies
and sugar-beet growers were ready to support higher standards for
school attendance during the beet season than those which the school
and other local officials had come to believe to be the best that the
community would accept. The time appears ripe, therefore, for a
greater degree of cooperation in the beet-producing communities be
tween school officials and representatives of the sugar-beet industry
in regard to the application of existing standards of compulsory school
attendance and indeed, in some States, in regard to the promotion of
legislation for higher standards for school attendance.
Freedom from premature toil in the beet fields and improved oppor
tunities of school attendance for the children, together with higher
wages, increased work opportunities, and improved living conditions
for their families, may be expected to provide for the chudren of the
beet laborers fuller, happier, and healthier lives, and to bring them a
position of respect in the communities in which they live. The Fed
eral program of benefits to sugar-beet growers conditioned on the ob
servance of child-labor and wage standards gives hope to the beet
laborers that they may achieve these things for themselves and for
their children.

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APPENDIX L— Tables
T able

I.— Area, factory district, and county in which families were interviewed
Area

Factory districts visited 1

Number
of fami
lies 9

Counties visited

Eastern beet region:
Central Michigan........ ...................

Mount Pleasant, Saginaw,
Sebewaing.
Southern Michigan.........................._ Blissfield_______ _____
Southern Minnesota........................
Mountain States beet region:
Northern Colorado. ................. ...... Eaton, Fort Lupton. Qreeley,
Loveland, Windsor.
Arkansas Valley, Colo................... Rocky Ford, Sugar City,
Swink.
Western Slope, Colo______________
Western Nebraska.................. ......... Bayard, Oering, Lyman, Minatare, Mitchell, Scottsbluff.
Northern Wyoming............. .............

Huron, Isabella, Sag
inaw.

115
42
75
193
70
51

102
Big Horn, Park,
Washakie.

Southern Montana.... ....................
Sidney, Mont__________ __________

151
90
57

1A factory district is the area from which the sugar beets grown are sent to 1 factory for processing. The
factory district usually bears the name of the town in which the factory is located.
1Listed in accordance with area in which family worked in the beet fields. In a few cases the family was
interviewed in a different area from that in which it had done beet work.
* Families were visited in Minneapolis and St. Paul after the beet season had closed. All had worked in
various counties of Minnesota, chiefly in the south central part of the State.
T able

II.— Migration and place of residence of family, by area

Area

Migra
Total
fami
families tory
lies 1

Nonmigratory families
Total

Living on Living in Living in
farms
colonies
towns

Total_________ __________________

946

385

561

255

175

131

Central Michigan............. ........... ............
Southern Michigan.....................................
Southern Minnesota...................................
Northern C olorado...................................
Arkansas Valley, Colo_________ ________
Western Slope, Colo...................................
Western Nebraska_____________________
Northern Wyoming....................................
Southern Montana......................................
Sidney, M ont..............................................

115
42
75
193
70
51

73
42

33
29

12
9

28
4

129
62
23
49

39
9

55
44

35
9

7
9
19
19

102

151
90
57

75
64

28
53
63
41

88
49
46

29
73

11
13
6
22

1Almost all these migratory families lived on farms during the working season and in colonies, towns, or
eities during the winter.

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T able

III.— Percentage of working children under 16 years of age in heet laborers’ families, by age of child and area, 1934 and 1935

00
Oi

Children 6 and under 16 years of age1
12 years, under 14

14 years, under 16

Working at beets
Total

Number

Percent

Working at beets
Total

Number Percent *

Working at beets
Total

Number Percent *

Number

Percent *

All areas:

893
642

51.9
34.0

1,042
1,131

294
99

28.2

8.8

368
360

307
181

83.4
50.3

312
400

292
362

93.6
90.5

1934..........................
1936..........................

248
287

168
163

63.7
63.3

146
166

60
47

41.1
28.3

64
57

52
44

96.3
77.2

48
64

46
62

96.9

1934..........................
1938..........................

76
81

28
23

36.8
28.4

40
41

19
18

11
7

13
16

1934..........................
1936.......................... .

122

54.1
39.6

134

31
14

38.8
16.5

24
27

20
20

15
19

1934.......................... .
1938.......................... .

288
308

163
87

63.1
28.2

171
183

50
3

29.2

1.6

63
62

52
27

54
63

51
57

1934.......................... .
1936.......................... .

91
127

30
40

33.0
31.5

62
76

9. 6
10.5

17
24

1934...........................
1938.......................... .

115
123

64
41

66.7
33.3

73
77

34.2
10.4

26
19

10
12
22
9

17
27

17
24

1934.......................... .
1936.......................... .

189
203

118
64

62.4
31.5

120

114

47
4

41.2
3.3

34
37

30
16

41
46

41
44

1934................ ..........
1936...........................

278
305

137
107

49.3
35.1

169
192

38
14

22.5
7.3

62
50

64
32

47
63

45
61

1934............................
1936...........................

192
199

71
39

37.0
19.6

129
127

10.9

30
31

33
41

31
33

1934
1935

123
124

56.3
28.2

20
1

29.4

35
32

18
26

Southern Michigan:

Southern Minnesota:

Arkansas Valley, Colo.:
Western Slope, Colo.:
Western Nebraska:

Southern Montana:
Sidney, Mont.: .

......................
......................

1Age on June 15.

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* Percent not shown where number of children was less than 50.

1.6

87.1
64.0

94.4
90.5

* Excludes 99 children for 1934 and 113 for 1935 whose exact age was not reported.

96.8

LABORERS

Northern Wyoming:

82.5
43.5

S U G A R -B E E T

Northern Colorado:

» 1,722
* 1,891

F A M IL IE S

1934................
1938................

Central Michigan:

W ELFARE

6years, under 12

Total
Area and year

APPENDIX

T able I V .— Percentage working in beet fields o f children 6 years and under 16 years
o f age, by age o f child, 1934
Children 6 and under 16 years of age

Age of child ’
Total

Working in beet fields,
19.34
Number

6 years, under 16 n. o. s_________________________________________
1Age on June 16,1934.

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Percent

1,821

933

51.2

180
166
184
179
175
168
172
196
173
139
99

2
18
38
56
77
103
131
176
168
134
40

1.1
10.8
20.7
31.3
44.0
65.2
76.2
89.8
91.3
96.4
40.4

00
00

T a b l e V .— Progress in school of children 8 and under 16 years of age in each area, 1985
Children 8 and under 16 years of age1
Retarded
Area
Total

Prog
ress
re
ported

Normal

Num
ber

2 years

1 year

Total
Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Advanced

3 or more years
Num
ber

Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Num
ber

Per
cent

Not en
Prog rolled
ress
nor
not re expect
ported ed to
enroll

1,552

1,382

711

51.4

316

22.9

191

13.8

204

14.7

609

44.1

4.5

130

Central Michigan.......................................

237
66
105
283
100
101
151
244
173
92

221
57
76
245
94
87
137
220
163
82

83
12
67
114
72
70
63
125
80
25

37.5
21.1
88.2
46.5
76.6
80.5
46.0
56.8
49.1
30.5

39
7
21
55
22
29
29
59
37
18

17.6
12.3
27.6
22.4
23.4
33.3
21.2
26.8
22.7
22.0

24
4
18
35
15
17
16
32
25
5

10.9
7.0
23.7
14.3
16.0
19.6
11.7
14.5
15.3
6.1

20
1
28
24
35
24
18
34
18
2

9.0
1.8
36.9
9.8
37.2
27.6
13.1
15.5
11.1
2.4

127
37
g
120
21
16
66
91
70
52

57.5
64.9
11.8
49.0
22.3
18.4
48.2
41.4
42.9
63.4

11
8

5.0
14.0

11
9
17
24
5
12
11
21
10
10

Northern Colorado............ ........................
Arkansas Valley, Colo...............................
Western Slope, C olo..-.................... .........
Western Nebraska.....................................
Northern Wyoming......... .........................
Sidney, M ont.............................................
1Age on Sept. 1, 1935.

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11
1
1
8
4
13
5

4.5
1.1
1.1
5.8
1.8
8.0
6.1

12
14
1
2
3
3

OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

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

APPENDIX
T a b l e V I .—

Total days worked in beet fields by fathers of families in 3 eastern areas
and in 3 Mountain States areas, 1935
Families working in beet fields
3 eastern areas

6 areas
Total days worked by father in 1936 season
Number

3 Mountain States
areas1

Percent
Percent
Percent
distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
298

232

Total____________________________

630

Days worked reported__________________

405

100.0

196

100.0

210

100.0

Less than 20............................. .............
20, less than 30.......................................
30, less than 40_____________________
40, less than 60........................- .............
60, less than 60...................... - ..............
60’ less than 70_____________________
70, less than 80.................... ..................
80, less than 90.................... ..................
90 or more_________________________

28
31
40
67
60
72
41
36
30

6.9
7.7
9.9
16.6
14.8
17.8
10.1
8.9
7.4

7
7
14
22
19
38
30
30
28

3.6
3.6
7.2
11.3
9.7
19.4
16.4
16.4
14.4

21
24
26
45
41
34
11
6
2

10.0
11.4
12.4
21.4
19.5
16.2
5.2
2.9
1.0

>126

»Includes northern Wyoming, southern Montana, and Sidney. Mont. . . . . .
„ ...
j Includes 62 families in which there was no male head or in which the male head of the family did not work
at beets, and 63 families visited before the harvest work was completed or for whom the information was not
reported.
T able

V II. — Usual daily hours worked at each process by father of family, 1935
Father of family working at—
Topping

Hoeing

Thinning
Usual daily hours worked >

Percent
Percent
Percent
Number distribu Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
tion
Total...................................................
Hours reported________________________
Less than 8 hours..................................
8 hours____________________________
9 hours____________________________
10 hours......................... - .....................
11 hours..................................... ...........
12 hours___________________________
13 hours_____ ______________________
14 hours___ _______________________
15 hours or more....................................

799

100.0

696

100.0

512

100.0

12
23
44
160
145
196
121
77
31

1.5
2.9
5.5
18.8
18.2
24.5
15.1
9.6
3.9

38
83
102
210
111
94
30
16
12

5.5
11.9
14.7
30.2
15.9
13.6
4.3
2.3
1.7

12
24
47
127
139
82
33
29
19

2.3
4.7
9.2
24.8
27.2
16.0
6.4
5.7
3.7

19
83
46
» Hours are reported to the nearest whole number.

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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

946

19
186
45

293
96
45

WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T able

V III.— Acreage thinned by families of beet laborers in each area, 1984 and 1985

Acreage thinned by
family

Less than 10___
10, less than 20..
20, less than 30..
30, less than 40..
40, less than 50..
50, less than 60..
60 or more_____
Acreage not re
ported 1_________

1934

1935

1934

1935

1934

Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent
ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri
bution
bution
bution
bution
bution
bution
1847

Total families. 1946
Acreage reported___

Southern Michigan

Central Michigan

All areas
1935

746
153
266
140
90
49
31
17

714

100.0
20.5
35.6
18.8
12.1
6.6
4.1
2.3

101
234
160
93
68
37
21

115

14.2
32.8
22.4
13.0
9.5
5.2
2.9

100.0
7.7
23.1
23.1
7.7
25.6
10.2
2.6

17.9
20.5
23.1
15.4
7.7
15.4

1934

27
Arkansas Valley,
Colo.

Northern Colorado

Southern Minnesota
1935

100.0

8.7
23.8
18.8
12.5
18.8
8.7
8.7

acreage
Median
thinned..

Acreage thinned by family

100.0

5.8
31.4
17.4
19.8
12.8
9.3
3.5

133

200

100.0

1934

1935

1934

1935

Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent Num
ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri ber *
bution
bution
bution
bution
bution
60

173

193

Total families.

Acreage reported___

100.0

121

100.0

120

100.0

7
34
16
9

9.7
47.2
22.2
12.5

29
51
26
9
3
3

24.0
42.1
21.5
7.4
2.5
2.5

17
37
33
23
4
5
1

14.2
30.8
27.5
19.2
3.3
4.2
.8

59.7
23.9
11.9
3.0

24
12
8
3
1

1.4
1.4

5.7
51.4
22.9
11.4
42
2.9
1.4

40
16
8
2

4
36
16
8
3
2
1

1.5

Less than 10___
10, less than 20.
20, less than 30.
30, less than 40.
40, less than 50.
50, less than 60.
60 or more........
Acreage not reported-----

Median acreage thinned.

17
Western
Slope,
Colorado

Acreage thinned by family

1935

Western Nebraska

1934

1935

1934

Northern Wyoming
1935

1934

Per
Per
Per
Per
Num Num Num cent Num cent Num cent Num cent
ber * ber * ber distri ber distri ber distri ber distri
bution
bution
bution
bution
51

102

Acreage reported.............................

100.0

Less than 10________________
10, less than 20.........................
20, less than 30______________
30j less than 40______________
40j less than 50______________
50j less than 60______________

15
16
9
3
2
1

14
14
8
3
5
1

7
30
14
12
6
5
3

9.0
39.0
18.2
15.6
7.8
6.5
3.9

Total families.................. .

Acreage not reported------- -----------

Median acreage thinned.................

151

77~ 100.0

134

100.0

122

100.0

7.8
31.1
20.8
14.3
11.7
10.4
3.9

11
59
27
16
12
7
2

8.2
44.0
20.2
11.9
9.0
5.2
1.5

15
41
25
18
13
6
4

12.3
33.6
20.5
14.7
10.7
4.9
3.3

6
24
16
11
9
8
3

15
21

134

1Includes 27 fami lies for 1935 and 20 for 1934 that did not work at the thinning process.
i Percent distribution not shown when number of families was less than 50 except in southern Michigan,
where the families interviewed were the majority of families working at beets.

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APPENDIX
T able

V III. — Acreage thinned by families of beet laborers in each area, 1934 and
1935— Continued
Southern Montana
1935

Acreage thinned by family

1934

Percent
distri
bution

Number

Sidney, Mont.
1935

1934

Percent
distri Number1 Number»
bution

Number

Total families...............•_............ ......

Acreage reported........ ........... .....................

100.0

Less than 10.............................. ..........
10, less than 20.......... .......................
20, less than 30____________ _______
30, less than 40......................................
40, less than 50_____________________
50, less than 60....... ................... .........
60 and over................... .................... .

27
14
10

42.9
22.2
15.9
12.7
1.6
3.1
1.6

6
25
20
9

8.5
35.2
28.2
12.7
7.0
t> «
2.8

12
12
7
6
4

17
10

Acreage not reported— ..............................

1
2
1

Median acreage thinned...................... ......

4
2
16

» Percent distribution not shown when number of families was less than 50 except in southern Michigan
where the families interviewed were the majority of families working at beets.
T able

IX . — Acreage thinned by families with labor contracts and by those working
as extra help, 1935
Number of families
With labor con
tracts

Acres thinned by family

Working as extra
help

Total
Percent
Percent
Number distribu Number distribu
tion
tion
Total..........................................................

946

765

Acreage reported...................................... .................

746

617

100.0

129

100.0

153
266
140
90
49
31
17

74
224
134
88
49
31
17

12.0
36.3
21.7
14.3
7.9
5.0
2.8

79
42
6
2

61.2
32.6
4,7
1.5

200

148

Less than 10........... ........................
10, less than 20........ ................... .........
20, less than 30___ __________________
30, less than 40___ ___________ _____
40, less than 50...... ...........................
50, less than 60...... ................ .............
60 or more.............................. ..............
Acreage not reported *.......................... ...............
Median acreage thinned...................................

1Includes 27 families that did not work at the thinning process.

135807 ° — 39-

■7

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181

52
9

WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET LABORERS

T a b l e X .— Average number of acres worked per full-tim e worker in each area at
each process , 19 35
Process worked
Area
Thinning

First
hoeing

Second
hoeing

Topping

AVERAGE ACREAGE PER FULL-TIME W O RK ER1

All areas........................................ ..........................
Southern Michigan..........................- ...............................

Northern Wyoming...................- ------ -----------------------Sidney, Mont............... .................................... - .............

7,9

8.6

*8.4

9.3

8.5
12.6
8.8
6.7
5.3
5.3
8.8
8.3
6.9
7.9

9.0
12.5
8.7
8.3
6.0
5.3
9.3
9.6
7.1
8.5

9.0

7.9
13.1

(»)

8.7
8.2
5.5
5.3
9.4
9.7
7.4
9.0

8.8
9.9

NUMBER OF FULL-TIME WORKERS 1

All areas_____________________________________

Northern Wyoming.......... ................... .......................- - Sidney, Mont.......... ......... ............................. - ................

1,485

1,580

1,429

466

186
96
115
252
97
106
157
268
122
86

234
107
118
250
78
105
173
255
164
96

234

193
78

118
242
73
105
166
242
159
90

144
51

l Includes only families for whom both number of full-time workers and number of acres worked were
reported.
1Exclusive of southern Michigan, where no second hoeing was done.
* No second hoeing done.

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APPENDIX
T able

X I .— Families hiring extra help and average number hired by family in each
area, 1984 and 1985
Families
Hiring extra help

Area 1and year
Total

All areas:
1935.................... ...................................
1934_________ _________________________
...
Central Michigan:
1935...................................................... ...........................
1934...................................................................................
Southern Michigan:
1935.....................................................................................
1934...................................................................................
Southern Minnesota:
1935...................................................................
1934..................................................... ...........................
Northern Colorado:
1935.....................................................................................
1934...................................................... .............................
Arkansas Valley, Colo.:
1935.....................................................................................
1934........................... ; .......................
Western Slope, Colo.:
1935.....................................................................................
1934............................................... ......................................
Western Nebraska:
1935..................................... ..............................................
1934______ _______________________________ ________
Northern Wyoming:
1935.....................................................................................
1934....................................................................................
Southern Montana:
1935.....................................................................................
1934...................... ............... .......... ........................... .
Sidney, Mont.:
1935....................................................................................
1934.................... ........... ........... .......... ........ ........... ..........

Average
number of
persons hired
by families
that used
extra help
(maximum
hired at any
time)

Number

Percent

2918
>824

353
267

38.5
32.4

2.9
2.4

115
95

39
24

33 9
25 3

2.1
2.3

42
39

7.1

1.3

75
72

23
15

30.7
20.8

2.4
1.6

178
161

« 78
75

43.8
46.6

2.5
2.1

69
49

« 19
12

27.5
(•)

3.4
2.1

51
47

48
10

15. 7
(‘ )

1.5
2.2

99
89

* 37
24

37.4
27.0

1.9
1.9

160
132

<80
48

53. 3
36. 4

36
3.1

84
85

32
34

38.1
40 0

2.5
2.5

65
55

34
25

61.8
45.5

4.6
3.2

1 Area in which family worked at beets in 1935. In only a few cases did the family work in a different
area in 1934 from that in which they worked in 1935.
>Excludes 23 families paid on a daily wage basis and 5 other families not reporting on hired help.
* Excludes 13 families paid on a daily wage basis and 10 other families not reporting on hired help.
4 Includes families interviewed before season’s work was completed, so that the number with hired help
is probably an understatement.
* Percent not shown because number of families was less than 50.

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T able

X I I .— Earnings per acre of families working at dll beet processes, by area, 1984 an^ 1985

(4 ^

Families working at all beet processes

6 areas1

1934

1935
Total____ ____
Less than $10_______
$10, less than $11.......
$11, less than $12.......
$12, less than $13.......
$13, less than $14.......
$14, less than $15.......
$15, less than $16.......
$16, less than $17.......
$17, less than $18____
$18, less than $19____
$19, less than $20-----$20, less than $21____
$21, less than $22____
$22, less than $23----$23, less than $24----$24, less than $25___
$25, less than $26----Not reported...........

1935

1934

1935

530

484

115

1
3

10
5
8
14
22
13
37
92
23
70
11
35
46
2
43
15
34
14
2 ............
1

7
3
5
29
22
11
5

5
13
17
99
23
17
10
g
26
12
12
6
5
225

1934
39

........

’ ’ "is"

1935

1934

.....

6
12
46
1

......... 5*
4
60
2
31
1

—

............ ............
.....

134

............ .........2
3
2
3
6
19
21
1
9
19
7
3
13
2
8
1
5

.....

ió" .........3*

i The areas for which both 1934 and 1935 figures are available.
.___ .___ ____
> Earnings for 1935 not reported, as families were interviewed before close of topping season.

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1934

1 .............

i
.... ....

151

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

.....

82*

1935

‘ "’ Î27"

* 33'

Southern
Montana

1935
90

Sidney, Mont.

1934

173

____ ____

11
3
7

............ ............
Ì
—
2
1
9
i
7
5
5
12
8
7
. 14
4
1
9
7
2
4
....

1934

1935

North- Arkan- West- Westera
era
sas
ern
Ne
Colo Valley, Slope,
rado1 Colo.1 Colo.1 braska 1

____

23~

—
—

1
1
2
3
6
7

4
6
12
10
6
1
6
1

6
9
7
8
7
45
6

1934

2
1
2 _______
24
i
4
1
20
1
9
5
3
1

3
2
5

14
10
8
4
6
3
1

1 ............ ............ ............ ............ ............
4
30
9
15
47
8
20

WELFARE OF FAMILIES OF SUGAR-BEET

Earnings per acre

Northern
Wyoming

Southern
Minnesota

Southern
Michigan

Central
Michigan

A P P E N D IX

T able

X I I I .— Ownership or rental of house in which family lived at time of interview
M ig ra to ry fam ilies interview ed
a t—
N on m igratory
fam ilies

A ll fam ilies
Beet-season
residence

O w nership or rental o f house

N um
ber

P er
cen t
distri
b u tio n

N um
ber

P er
cent
distri
b u tion

N um
ber

P er
cent
distri
b u tio n

262

123

946

W in te r resi
dence

N um
ber

P er
cen t
distri
b u tio n

561

O w nership or rental rep orted ...............

925

100.0

122

100.0

242

100.0

561

100.0

H ouse furnished free o f c h a r g e ...

488

52.8

114

93.4

24.8

314

56.0

B y sugar c o m p a n y ....... ............
B y oth er p erson .........................

253
185
50

27.4
20.0
5.4

107
3
4

87.7
2.4
3.3

48
12

19.8
5.0

146
134
34

26.0
23.9
6.1

F a m ily p a id ren t...............................

262

28.3

6.6

112

46.3

142

25.3

2.1
4.2
22.0

4.1

T o oth er p e r s o n ........................

19
39
204

2 .5

10
102

4.1
42.2

14
29
99

2.5
5.2
17.6

175

18.9

28.9

105

18.7

O w nership or ren tal n ot rep orted___

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APPENDIX II
Labor Provisions of the Jones-Costigan Act and oi the Sugar-Beet
Production-Adjustment Contracts Authorized by It

Section 4 of the Jones-Costigan A c t 1 amending section 8 of the
Agricultural Adjustment Act provides in new section 8a (3) the follow
ing:
.
-■—
In order more fully to effectuate the declared policy of this act, as set forth in its
declaration of policy, and to insure the equitable division between producers and/or
growers and/or the processors of sugar beets or sugarcane of any of the proceeds
which may be derived from the growing, processing, and/or marketing of such sugar
beets or sugarcane, and the processing, and/or marketing of the products and by
products thereof, all agreements authorized by this act relating to sugar beets,
sugarcane, or the products thereof may contain provisions which will limit or
regulate child labor and will fix minimum wages for workers or growers employed
by the producers and/or processors of sugar beets and/or sugarcane who are parties
to such agreements; and the Secretary, upon the request of any producer, or grow
er, or worker, or of any association of producers, or growers, or workers, or of any
processor, of sugar beets or sugarcane, is hereby authorized to adjudicate any dis
pute as to any of the terms under which sugar beets or sugarcane are grown or are
to be grown and/or marketed, and the sugar and byproducts thereof are to be
marketed. The decision and any determination of the Secretary shall be final.

The sugar-beet production-adjustment contracts 2 included labor
provisions in part I, section 10, as follows:
Labor con d ition s. To effectuate the policy of section 8 (a) 3 of the act, as
amended:
(a) C h i l d l a b o r . — The producer hereby agrees not to employ nor to suffer nor
permit the employment by any other person, directly or indirectly, in the produc
tion, cultivation, and/or harvesting of sugar beets on this farm, any child under the
age of 14 years, except a member of his own immediate family, whether for gain to
such child or any other person; and he agrees not to so employ or permit such em
ployment of a child between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, inclusive,
except a member of his immediate family, for a longer period than eight hours each
day.
(b) F i x i n g o f m i n i m u m w a g e s . — The Secretary shall have the authority ( 1 )
after due notice and opportunity for public hearing at a place accessible to produc
ers and workers involved and (2) on the basis of a fair and equitable division among
processors, producers, and workers of proceeds derived from the growing and mar
keting of sugar beets, and the products thereof, to establish minimum wages for
this factory district to be paid by producers to workers and, where necessary, the
time and method of payment in connection with the production, cultivation, and/or
harvesting of the 1935 and/or the 1936 crops of beets. The producer agrees to
abide by the determination of the Secretary when such minimum wages and the
time and method of payment have been established.
T o insure a fair and equitable division among processors, producers, and workers
of the proceeds derived from the growing and marketing of the 1934 crop, the
producer hereby agrees to pay promptly or cause to be paid promptly to the
workers who work or have worked on this farm, all bona fide claims for wages for
said workers, arising in connection with the production, cultivation, and/or har
vesting of the 1934 crop, and to provide to the Secretary prior to the time of pay
ment of the final 1934 crop payment under this contract, a certificate to the effect
‘ P u b lic , N o . 2 1 3 ,73d C on g.
.
, ,
_
................. ..
1 Sugar B eet P rod u ction A d ju s tm e n t C on tra ct (F o rm Sugar 3), A gricu ltu ral A d ju s tm e n t A d m in istration ,
a p p roved O ctob er 16,1034, p . 2. W ashington.

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A P P E N D IX

that such claims have been paid. The Secretary shall have the right, in his discre
tion, to refuse to make the final 1934 crop payment due under this contract, to the
producer, unless the producer shall submit additional evidence satisfactory to the
Secretary that all of such wages have been paid.
(c) A d j u d i c a t i o n o f l a b o r d i s p u t e s . — The producer hereby agrees that he
will abide by the decision of the Secretary with respect to any labor dispute involv
ing the producer, in connection with the production, cultivation, and/or harvesting
of sugar beets of the producer, when any such dispute has been presented to the
Secretary by the producer or any other person and the Secretary has determined
to adjudicate such dispute.

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APPENDIX III
Form Used for Labor Contract Between Grower and Beet Laborer
in the Factory Districts of One Sugar Company
LABOR CONTRACT
Contract for Hand Labor for the Season of 1935
Memorandum of agreement, made th is ------------ day o f _____________ , 1935, by
and betw een_________________________________o f --------------------________ , herein
after called the grower, and --------------------------- --------------------- o f ---------------__________ , hereinafter called the contractor.
Witnesseth: Whereas the grower has entered into a contract w it h __________
_____________________ Sugar Company (hereinafter called the sugar company),
for the growing and sale of sugar beets during the season of 1935, and is desirous
of contracting with the contractor for the doing of the hand work on said crop;
Now, therefore, in consideration of the covenants hereinafter set forth it is
mutually agreed between the parties hereto as follows, to wit:
1. The contractor hereby agrees to do the hand work o n ______ acres, more or
less, of said sugar beets planted or to be planted on t h e ______ quarter of section
______ , T w p ............R ..............W. o f ______________ P. M., in the county of
____________ , State o f _____________ , for the season of 1935, in accordance with
the rules and conditions printed on the back hereof and made a part of this con
tract, and the grower agrees to comply with and perform the obligations imposed
on him by said rules and conditions.
2. The contractor agrees to receive, and the grower agrees to pay, as full com
pensation for said work, the following prices, to wit:
$7.50 per acre.
For bunching and thinning
$1.75 per acre.
For hoeing________ _______
$1.25 per acre.
For weeding or weedings. _■
$0.75 per ton (net) harvested
For pulling and topping__
up to, and including, average
yield of 12 tons (net) per acre
harvested, and 60 cents per ton
(net) harvested in excess of
average yield of 12 tons (net)
per acre harvested.
Payments for said work shall be made by the grower to the contractor, providing
the respective classes of work have been approved by the agricultural superintend
ent or fieldman of the _____________ :________ factory of the sugar company,
promptly as follows: Payment for bunching and thinning and for hoeing on the
completion of the hoeing; payment for weeding or weedings on September 15, 1935,
payment for pulling and topping when such work is completed.
It is mutually agreed between the parties hereto that $1 per acre shall be with
held from the payment for bunching and thinning, until after the crop has been
harvested, as a guarantee of the faithful performance of the contract entered into
by the contractor, if said contract covers the hand labor for the entire season,
in connection with the production, cultivation, and harvesting of the beets; it is
provided, however, that if the contractor shall cease work before the completion
of the contract, through no fault of his own, the contractor shall at the time of
ceasing work, be paid in full for all labor actually performed, without any deduc
tion whatever.
The actual average yield in tons (net) per acre shall be determined by dividing
the actual tons (net) of beets harvested by the actual number of acres harvested
from the herein-described tract or tracts of land.
3. The grower agrees to provide the contractor with a habitable house, suitable
water near at hand for drinking and domestic purposes, to haul laborers and
baggage from nearest railroad station to farm and to return them on completion
of work contracted, and when requested by the fieldman of the sugar company,
to provide such house with a suitable stove, all without expense to the contractor.
98

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APPENDIX

The grower also agrees to provide the contractor with a suitable garden plot,
without expense to the contractor, provided the contractor will make proper use
of it and keep it free of weeds.
4. The grower reserves the right to cancel all, or any part of the contract, on
such portions of the land, on which the grower, in his judgment, may determine
that the beets will not be harvested for sale to the sugar company, provided that
full payment is made to the contractor for all work theretofore done by him on
such portions of the land.
5. If at the request of the contractor, the grower, at his option, shall advance to,
or pay for, or agree to pay for, the account of the contractor any sum or sums of
money, or shall guarantee the payment of any bill for provisions or supplies fur
nished or to be furnished to the contractor by others, or shall advance any moneys
earned by extra labor hired for account of the contractor in fulfilling his obliga
tions under this contract, the grower may deduct the amount thereof in any settle
ment with the contractor under this contract.
6. No assignment of this contract and no partial assignment of any amount
due or to become due to the contractor under the terms of this contract shall be
valid, or binding upon the grower, unless accepted by the grower.
7. It is hereby mutually agreed that in the event of any misunderstanding or
dispute between the parties hereto with respect to the interpretation of any of
the provisions of this contract, including said rules and conditions, or as to the
amount or character of the work perfomed hereunder or the compensation due
therefor, or respecting any claim by either party for failure of the other party to
complete this contract, the aforesaid agricultural superintendent or fieldman of
the sugar company shall be arbitrator; and if the decision of said arbitrator is
not accepted by the parties then and in such event it is agreed that the grower
and the contractor will abide by the decision of the Secretary of Agriculture with
respect to any labor dispute involving the grower and the contractor in connection
with the production, cultivation and/or harvesting of sugar beets of the grower,
when any such dispute has been presented to the Secretary of Agriculture by the
grower or any other person and the Secretary has determined to adjudicate
such dispute.
8. The contractor hereby agrees not to employ nor suffer, nor permit the em
ployment by any other person, directly or indirectly, in the production, cultiva
tion, and/or harvesting of sugar beets on herein described tract or tracts of land,
of any child under the age of 14 years, and he agrees not to so employ or permit
such employment of a child between the ages of 14 and 16 years, inclusive, for
a longer period than 8 hours each day, in violation of the provisions of sugar
beet production adjustment contract between the Secretary of Agriculture and
the grower.
In witness whereof, the parties hereto have hereunto subscribed their names
the day and year first above written.
------------------------------ ----------------- ----------------- ------- J

Grower.

Rules and Conditions Governing the Hand Work o f the Within Contract
BUNCHING AND THINNING

This operation must be commenced by the contractor just as soon as the beets
show four leaves and the grower has them properly cultivated, and must be
completed as rapidly as possible in the following manner, to wit: Beets to be
spaced 10 inches apart, or wider if so ordered by grower leaving only one plant
in each place. If there is no beet 10 inches distant from the last one thinned, a
beet should be left in the space 4 to 6 inches from the last one thinned, unless
otherwise ordered by grower. No double beets shall be left; in splitting doubles,
the stronger plant must be left; care must be used not to hoe away an excessive
amount of dirt from the plants left. The grower must keep the crop cultivated
so that at least ten inches of the center of the row remains clear of all weeds and
foul growth up to the time when the damage done to leaves by cultivator prevents

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100

W ELFARE

F A M IL IE S

S U G A R -B E E T

LABORERS

further use of that implement. The thinning must be done so that the remaining
land will be entirely free from weeds.
HOEING

This operation must be commenced by the contractor as soon as the thinning
is completed and the grower has again properly cultivated the field, and must
be completed as rapidly as possible in the following manner, to wit: By killing
and removing all weeds in the land mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and
reducing any double plants to single plants by pulling same by hand. In per
forming this operation the contractor must not work more than two rows at a time.
WEEDING

This operation must be commenced by the contractor when grower orders and
must be completed as rapidly as possible. It calls for the contractor’s keeping
the entire beet field free from weeds until the harvest is started, with the under
standing that the grower is obliged to continue the prescribed cultivation until
prevented by the damage done to the beet leaves. If it is necessary to go over
the field more than once to accomplish that purpose, the contractor agrees to do
so without extra pay. If it is not necessary to do any weeding after the hoeing
is finished the grower agrees to pay the contractor, who did the hoeing, for the
weeding at the rate specified for it. If the use of hoes at time of weeding damages
the beets or beet leaves, the contractor must remove weeds by hand.
PULLING AND TOPPING

This operation must be commenced just as soon as the grower begins plowing
out his beets and beets must be pulled and topped at the rate required by grower,
which rate is to be reasonable. The beets must be pulled by the contractor, and
cleaned of adhering dirt by knocking the beets together, or otherwise, as pulled, and
throwing them into piles or windrows at grower’s option. No beets shall be piled
on top of beets that have hot been pulled.
The beets shall be topped by the contractor in the following manner, to wit:
By cutting off the tops squarely just below the crown at the base of the bottom
leaf scar, in case of medium or small sized beets; and in case of larger sized beets,
by trimming up the crown. Topped beets are to be piled by contractor. The
ground on which the beets are to be piled must be leveled down by the grower
and cleaned off by the contractor so that the grower may fork the beets into the
wagon free from clods, rocks, leaves, or other trash.
All beets left in the field over night must be protected properly from the frost by the
contractor by covering the piles with beet tops, the tops to be removed by the grower
before beets are loaded.
GENERAL

All tools for hand work shall be furnished by the grower, including hoes not
more than 6 inches in width.
All cultivating, irrigating, plowing out, and loading shall be done by the grower.
In the event that the contractor ceases work through fault of his own, or that
hand work is not done properly or with sufficient rapidity by the contractor, the
grower shall appeal to the aforesaid agricultural superintendent or fieldman, to
either of whom authority is hereby delegated to decide whether the employment
of additional help is necessary and to permit the engagement by the grower of
additional help to do the work in question as cheaply as practicable under existing
conditions, if in the judgment of either said agricultural superintendent or fieldman the conditions warrant doing so, and the grower is hereby authorized to
deduct the amount paid such additional labor from the account of the contractor.
The fieldman shall, on request, furnish either the contractor or the grower a
written statement showing the acreage of the respective classes of work then
completed by the contractor.
The grower shall, on request, furnish the contractor a written statement of
any charge made to the account of contractor by the grower for moneys advanced,
or for guaranties made, or for commodities sold or furnished by the grower, to
the contractor. Such statement will set forth the amount of the charge and
kind of commodity for which the charge is made.

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Full text of Welfare of Families of Sugar-Beet Laborers : A Study of Child Labor and Its Relation to Family Work, Income, and Living Conditions in 1935, Bureau Publication No. 247

FRASER