Geisenfeld Hop Harvest 1929

"In a moment they heard the hum of voices, and in a moment more came upon the pickers. They were all hard at work, talking and laughing as they picked. They sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight into it. There were a lot of children about and a good many babies, some in makeshift cradles, some tucked up in a rug on the soft brown dry earth. The children picked a little and played a great deal. The women worked busily, they had been pickers from childhood, and they could pick twice as fast as foreigners from London." -- W. Somerset Maugham, "Of Human Bondage."

Geisenfeld Hop Harvest 2004

The leftmost figures in the top photo are my grandmother and aunt (age 4). My mother, in the bottom photo, right, was not yet born but spent time as a girl picking in the same field.