GENERAL CAPTION NO. 45
DATE: August, 1939
PLACE: Independence district, Polk County, Oregon
Rogue River District, Josephine County, Oregon
SUBJECT: Hop harvest in Oregon

The hop picking season opened August 18, lasted until September 15, 1939. The crop is harvested by “locals” and migratory families. Hops started in Oregon in 1885.

I. Picking Hops
Hop pickers start work in the field (called “yard”) with the first daylight and work until about 5.30 in the late afternoon. Wages, 1¢ per pound of picked hops and the good pickers average about $1.50 per day. See pay envelope attached.

The hop is stripped from the vine, resembles a small green cone. The vine is lowered from the high wires over which it has been trained by the “wire man” whose business it is to bring the hops down to picking level. Hops are weighed in the yard and hauled to the kiln in sacks by truck. Negatives in this group were made at noontime, August 19, all in the same field. Temperature 105 degrees.

II. Housing for Hop Pickers
Hop camps are of all kinds, depending upon the arrangement the grower makes for his pickers. It is customary for some sort of provision to be made. Photographs listed below show housing for hop pickers within an area of a few miles, on hop ranches along the Rogue River.

III. Miscellaneous Items related to the Hop Harvest