The Cotton Pickers is a genre oil on canvas painting by American artist Winslow Homer. It was painted in 1876 in the American Realist style. This work is located in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California.
During the 1870s, cotton picking was an important agricultural activity, particularly in the southern United States. The 1870s marked a period of significant change in the cotton industry following the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Before the Civil War, cotton picking was predominantly done by enslaved African Americans. However, with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the end of the war in 1865, the labor force shifted. Formerly enslaved individuals now worked as free men and women, earning a salary.