The Cotton Plant

In the 19^th century, planters in the southern part of the United States grew a lot of cotton, a plant with fluffy fibers used for making cloth. Cotton leaves and stems are stiff and sharp, making picking difficult and often painful. The flower of the plant, called the "boll," contains seeds and "fluff." The seeds are difficult to extract and stick to the tangled fibers.

Because cotton agriculture in the early 1800s was so difficult and labor-intensive, plantation owners relied on forced labor -- enslaved people of African descent -- to cultivate their large farms. Prior to 1865, enslaved people in the southern United States planted and cultivated millions of acres of cotton, including the back-breaking work of picking cotton and removing the seeds. Southern planters shipped cotton from their plantations to factories in England and the northern United States. One of these destinations was the mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts.