![]() The overseer got one of the brightest looking, and remained at his house most of the time watching the monkey's tricks, and I must confess that my wife, myself and children were in the same business.” For two weeks nothing was done by whites or blacks but play with the monkeys. ![]() Their arrival turned my plantation topsy-turvey. “I was mighty well pleased when I received my monkeys. Multiple newspapers, including the New York Times, printed the letter. In 1867, a Thomas County grower in southern Georgia wrote to the Galveston News, claiming to have imported and trained 23 monkeys for cotton harvest in 1849. The MOH feature traces the monkey scam to at least the mid-1800s. However, the monkey harvest scam significantly predates turn-of-the-century agriculture circa 1900, as detailed in an article by the Museum of Hoaxes (MOH). acreage, although young kids still were plucking cotton on end rows even into the early 1970s.Īccording to an extended history of fake news printed across the U.S., monkeys have been used in agriculture to harvest cotton, hemp, and pecans. By the late 1960s, mechanized picking was responsible for clearing most (not all) U.S. The first successful mechanized picker did not debut until the middle of World War ll, rolling into a field at Hopson Plantation, outside Clarksdale, Miss. From 1850 to 1950, almost 2,000 harvesting patents were issued. Each harvest, the Cotton Belt was witness to human picker armies in the rows, each participant dragging a 10’ sack packed with white fiber. Pulling cotton from a boll was a notoriously time-consuming task. Taken at face value, the concept of innovation, invention, or animal investment in cotton picking was in harmony with turn-of-the-century agriculture outlooks. Chimps, lemurs, baboons, or Sphagtalis Vulgaris-the age of monkey machines had dawned. By implication, mule barns in farm country soon would be adjacent to monkey enclosures. The monkeys seemed actually to enjoy picking.”Īccording to the article, Mangum’s cotton picking breakthrough spurred his intention to import another 1,000 monkeys to Mississippi, and he implored U.S. When they got their sacks full they would run to the end of the row, where a man was stationed to empty them into the cotton baskets, then they would hurry back to their work. The rows were filled with monkeys, each one with her little cotton sack around her neck, picking away quietly and orderly, and without rush or confusion. (Photo by Chris Bennett)Ī Globe Republican editor, after purportedly witnessing Mangum’s industrious monkeys in action, added fuel to the fire: “ I must admit that it was a glorious sight to see, and one that did my heart great good. Prior to the 1960s, the Cotton Belt was witness to human picker armies in the rows. ( Sphagtalis Vulgaris was a total fabrication, but the Latin nomenclature added an air of validity to the farce.) In a lightbulb moment, he imported up to 50 monkeys of the Sphagtalis Vulgaris species and trained the simians to pick cotton during fall harvest. ![]() In a nutshell, the story as reported: In 1896, Mangum observed the intelligence of roughly a dozen monkeys performing at a fair in Vicksburg. However, in 1898-1899, hundreds of newspapers and periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times, Cotton Planter’s Journal, and The School New and Practical Educator, reported on a primate-based innovation capable of transforming farming’s perpetual labor woes. Mangum, a legitimate Delta cotton grower in Smedes, Miss., and owner of a Sharkey County plantation located between Rolling Fork and Vicksburg, was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt and later played a genuine part in the president’s 1902 bear hunt that birthed the iconic narrative of the “teddy bear.” In 1898-1899, during an era of booming cotton, the harebrained tale of “Mister Mangum’s monkeys” went viral in the pre-digital age and was promoted coast-to-coast by the press.
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