John D. Rust
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John Rust not only wanted to invent a successful cotton picker; he sought to build a ‘new society’
After his parents died, he wandered. Picked cotton. Harvested wheat. Mined coal. Lived in a cooperative community. Drafted during the Great War, he never fought. Learned instead to play the bugle. Continue reading
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The struggle to invent a cotton picker cemented the bond between two brothers, then drove them apart
Mack Rust, who outlived his older brother John by 12 years, never abandoned his quest to build a better cotton picker but later struggled to secure financing on his own — something he blamed on John. Continue reading
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Mechanization of cotton harvesting disrupted the labor market and we’re still feeling the effects today
Before the mechanical cotton picker took hold, millions of people, mostly Black southerners, harvested the crop by hand. Emancipation had not spared the descendants of enslaved people from the drudgery of “cotton-picking time.” Continue reading