Life on a Cotton Plantation:
The Cotton Gin and Lowell Cloth
Document 16

Document 16: Photograph – “Picking cotton near Montgomery, Alabama,” J.H. Lakin, c.1860

This photograph depicts enslaved people picking cotton on a plantation near Montgomery, Alabama around the year 1860.

Text-Dependent Questions

What’s going on in this photograph? What do you see that makes you stay that? What more can you find?

Discussion Questions

Refer to Document 14. Reread Northup’s description of the “weighing” while looking at this photo. Look at the photo again. How does Northup's description influence what you notice in this photograph?

Print photograph

CitationPicking cotton near Montgomery, Alabama, J.H. Lakin, c.1860Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2012648057/

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