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76 stories matching picker
- The Hop Harvest Wanted White Hands
As nearly 200 people left Seattle for the White and Green River hop fields, growers and the city labor bureau made clear that Native pickers were no longer wanted.
- The Hops Are Ripe, but the Pickers Can't Afford the Ticket
Seattle's labor commissioner can fill only a fraction of orchard and hop-field orders, as low wages and travel costs leave Yakima and Snoqualmie growers short—and one ranch turns to Chinese workers.
- The Hop Fields Open for White Labor
As harvest approaches, growers pivot toward white pickers and away from Indigenous labor, offering special rail rates to bring in thousands of workers.
- The Hops Were Ripe. The Pickers Weren’t Coming.
A Snoqualmie grower reports only 400 pickers for a crop that usually needs 1,200—and at 75 cents a box, few are willing to save it.
- Anti-Japanese Agitation in Kent Hop Yards
White hop pickers form a committee to forcibly exclude Japanese laborers from local harvest fields.
- The Yakima Hop Fields Seek White Labor
A recruitment circular reveals a clear effort to displace Indigenous pickers in favor of white families for the 1893 harvest.
- The Hop Pickers' Bargain: Growers Cut Wages as Harvest Opens
In the Puyallup Valley, growers try to hold the line at two cents a pound. Crews register, balk and bargain — while Native pickers from British Columbia are turned away in favor of white workers.
- The Harvest Rush at Puyallup
Warm weather forces a premature start to the raspberry season, leaving growers in urgent need of labor.
- The Hop-Picker's Smallpox Scare
A panic at the Meeker ranch over a supposed smallpox outbreak threatened to upend the harvest—but the sickness was not what it seemed.
- The Best and Most Reliable Pickers to Be Obtained
Hop tying and strawberry picking brought cash onto the reservation and goods into Yakima's stores — and the growers knew exactly whose labor they were counting on.
- The Annual Hop Picker Scare
For twenty years, growers have panicked over the threat of a labor shortage, but one editor suggests that the 'scare' is more about business than biology.
- Solving the Strawberry Harvest Labor Crisis
How a temporary federal agency solved the acute shortage of field pickers in the Kennewick region.
- The Great Strawberry Labor Scramble
As Kennewick prepares for its largest berry harvest in history, local growers are turning to the Exchange and coastal agencies to import hundreds of workers—specifically Japanese laborers—to handle the crop.
- Gunboat Diplomacy in Port Townsend
Governor Pickering journeys to investigate a near-bombardment of Port Townsend by a federal revenue steamer.
- The Hop-Picker’s Trial
A jury acquits a young laborer following a violent camp dispute that exposed the raw realities of life in the hop fields.
- The Governor’s Vision for a Growing Territory
Governor William Pickering addresses the 1862 Legislature, detailing the critical needs of a frontier rapidly filling with settlers and miners.
- Anti-Chinese Mob Drives Hop Pickers from Tampico
Armed vigilantes enforce local exclusionist sentiment, leaving hop crops to rot in the Yakima Valley.
- The Case of the Missing Territorial Library Books
A government official alleges that a man named William Pickering purloined two packages of library books intended for public use.
- The Yakima Hop Growers' Dispute
Local farmers appeal to federal authorities to stop Congressman John L. Wilson from diverting Indian labor to the Sound.
- Hop Picker Kills Intruder in Midnight Stand-off
A teenage hop picker at a South Prairie ranch shoots and kills an unidentified man during a confrontation at a barn.
- The Hop Pickers' Smallpox Scare
As the hop harvest approaches, local labor agent Joseph Tebeau worries that fear of a smallpox outbreak will leave fields empty.
- The Hop Fields of the Kent Valley
A report on the hop harvest around Kent and Auburn, highlighting the labor conditions and the influx of pickers.
- Hop Growers Pivot to Families as Labor Crisis Looms
With smallpox concerns keeping Indigenous pickers away, farmers in White River and Puyallup valleys appeal to white families to harvest the crop.
- The Hop King's Forecast
Ezra Meeker weighs in on the state’s hop yield, the superiority of 'short-pole' farming, and the labor politics of the Puyallup Valley fields.
- The Massacre at Squak Valley
A coroner's jury investigates the brutal 1885 killing of three Chinese hop-pickers, uncovering a mob's systematic effort to ethnically cleanse the valley.