The Annual Migration to the Hop Fields
With harvest season underway in the Puyallup and Yakima valleys, 10,000 workers descend on the fields for a grueling, seasonal labor rush.
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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.
Hop picking commences this week in the fields of the Puyallup and Yakima valleys. It is estimated that at least 10,000 persons will be engaged in this occupation during the next three weeks. As an average of one box a day is very reasonable, it is figured that the growers will pay $100,000 for the picking alone. Drying is another large item, which includes the cost of hauling, representing another $130,000, for a total of $230,000 for gathering the entire crop. The price paid for picking is $1 a box. The big majority of the pickers have gone out to the fields in parties, many families leaving together. In other cases, young folks are under the care of a family, and these parties occupy contiguous quarters at the yards. One feature of this season is the decreased number of Indian pickers, who typically form a large part of the workforce; it is claimed there will be less than half the number of Siwashes in the yards than last season. The Indians who will be at the fields are hired under contract, some coming from as far as the north end of Vancouver Island and the Fraser river country. Hop picking is looked upon as an outing by a majority of those who go to the yards, though it lasts from 15 to 30 days. There is plenty of work attached to the occupation, for the laggard is frowned upon. It is necessary to pick the crop as quickly as possible and house it safely before the fall rains commence. At $1 a box, an ordinary picker can gather one box in a short day; a good one averages two, and the 'cracks' will make as high as three boxes. At many places, growers have built rows of little frame houses; others live in tents. There is always the privilege of using vegetables and fruit from the adjacent gardens and orchards.
“It is necessary to pick the crop as quickly as possible and house it safely before the fall rains commence.”
The seasonal influx of hop pickers was a massive, decentralized economic event that defined the late-summer landscape of the Puyallup Valley. While the labor model has shifted toward automation and permanent workforces, the tension between seasonal agricultural needs and the living conditions of the workers remains a recurring theme in the region's agricultural history.
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