Mother and three children - Roderez family, E. Falmouth, Mass. James - 8 years; Manuel 5; Marion, the baby, 4. They pick 28 measures a day. Mother sayd, "We can't pick fast cause the baby is too fussy." Location: Falmouth - Baker Bog, Massachusetts.

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A mother and her three children, the youngest only four, pick cranberries at Baker Bog in Falmouth, Massachusetts, in 1911. The record notes that the family gathers 28 measures a day, and the mother explains that they cannot pick faster because the baby is too fussy. Cranberry harvests in southeastern Massachusetts depended on seasonal hand labor, including that of whole families, and this scene shows how young children were drawn into the work. The picture was made during the period when reformers were campaigning against child labor, which gives it added weight as a record of daily life in the bogs.

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