Loading Cotton Onto Vessels By Hand... 450 Lbs A Bale???

Would love to see it.
Alamay (photo site) claims this is from 1860, but I suspect that it is Europe:

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And this clearly is from the time, but not relevant to city docks:
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Hand trucks have been around since the early 18th century (1700), so loading could easily have been done by two people and a hand truck. Alternatively, I looks in the photo that the bales were being rolled, again, a two-person job.

Capstans were not for lifting, they were for raising anchors or sometimes pulling things. However, by the very nature of ships rigging, they knew about compound pulley systems to raise heavy loads with a derek- a practice that has been used since classical Greek times when heavy marble architectural pieces were loaded onto ships.

And pyramids were constructed using ramps, rope, sliding and levering methods with a LOT of man power.
 
I was researching how cotton was loaded onto blockade running vessels for transport and came across this photo. It appears that cotton was loaded BY HAND (or rather by back, bicep, and thigh), each bale weighing 450 or more lbs. GEES! Is this right, or were winches etc. used as well? Anyone know? (This is clearly NOT a blockade runner -- could not have run away very fast...)

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Per the website where I found this, "This image shows the steamboat "City St. Joseph" docked on the waterfront in Memphis, Tennessee for the unloading of cotton." No date attached.
About ten years ago I found an old commercial article (1860) that stated the average pressed cotton bale in the west ran about 265 lbs. The large bale in the foreground does not appear to have been sent through one of the steam cotton presses as its size is much larger than a pressed bale. I'm guessing that the ratio between the pressed and unpressed bales was by a factor of 2, so this big bale probably weighed about the same, but was not as handy for shipment to a final user in New England or Europe.
 
The weight of the bale shipped to Wilmington appears to have been closely related to the capacity of the press at the growing plantation. Shipments show dozens of bales, each within about 20 pounds of the others, but each shipment being centered on a different number. The average bale weight, on a dozen shipments, was around 450 pounds. Yes, the bales were compressed in Wilmington to get more bales on the runners.
 
I've picked up a full bale of cotton with a pulley - it's not hard once you understand pulley's, fulcrum points, etc. Slater Mill in Rhode Island has a demo with this (where I did this). We use to pick up bales of hay (50 to 60 lbs) with a pitchfork. My father was the master of "you can work hard or you can work smart." I'm only 5'2" and very average weight. For hay, it's a matter of weight, swing, and letting the weight help you.

With the right pulley system, one person can easily pick up a bale of cotton.
 
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