Introduction

Throughout the tobacco-growing regions of the American South during the Great Depression, families earned much-needed income by sewing drawstrings into small cotton tobacco bags. Although most of the tobacco industry had already become mechanized, manufacturers still had to rely on human labor to string tobacco bags. Because the labor was not physically demanding and could be done at home, the work attracted many women, children, and others who needed money to supplement their farm incomes, or who could not find work in nearby factories and mills.