The Cranberry Harvest and a Divided Labor Force
A report on the burgeoning Pacific County cranberry industry reveals the reliance on Chinese labor and the exclusionary sentiment of the era.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The output of the cranberry farm on the peninsula, of which Mr. R. Caswell is manager, will be almost double what it was last year. They have under cultivation of the berry field forty-five acres, which gives work to several hands all the year round, and in the picking season to over 100 persons. Most of these are, not from choice but necessity, Chinamen. Although there may be a number of men who wish to be employed, the work does not seem to be one that they must be gathered when ready, and those who can be depended on to stay with it until the work is finished must be secured. White men are greatly preferred to Chinamen, but it seems to be impossible to get them to stay until the crop is gathered. The total sum paid out every year to Chinamen from this one industry, which is on its way to become one of the leading industries of the county, is many thousands of dollars. There are hundreds of acres on the peninsula perfectly suited to the berry which are only waiting to be developed.
“Most of these are, not from choice but necessity, Chinamen.”
This piece captures the deep-seated xenophobia of the 1890s, where businesses were dependent on Chinese labor while the reporting actively dehumanized and resented that dependence. It serves as a stark reminder of the exclusion era's pervasive rhetoric in the Pacific Northwest.
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