Online
Exhibit: Appalachian People: She knows no
other lot... |
In 1904 Horace Kephart took a series of photographs in preparation for
an upcoming publication. Of the many
photographs taken, this one showing
an older woman and a young boy was
ultimately selected to appear in Our
Southern Highlanders. This image,
with the caption "At thirty a
mountain woman is apt to have a worn
and faded look" came from the
1921 edition of the book. In the 1922
edition, the caption changes to "She
knows no other lot" and the photograph
was moved to page 288, near Kephart's
description of mountain women. This
description from pages 214 to 215
of the 1921 edition reads: "Many
of the women are pretty in youth;
but her toil in house and field, early
marriage, frequent child-bearing with
shockingly poor attention, and ignorance
or defiance of the plainest necessities
of hygiene, soon warp and age them.
At thirty or thirty-five a mountain
woman is apt to have a worn and faded
look, with form prematurely bent -
and what wonder? Always bending over
the hoe in the cornfield, or bending
over the hearth as she cooks by an
open fire, or bending over her baby,
or bending to pick up, for the thousandth
time, the wet duds that her lord flings
on the floor as he enters from the
woods -what wonder that she soon grows
short-waisted and round-shouldered?"
Dave Brown's cabin was a dog trot style home in which the space between
the sections was subsequently closed in with clapboard siding. The cloth
and rope seen in the background of several of these photographs can be
seen in this photograph of the cabin with members of the Brown family.
Instead of the more recent clapboard addition, Kephart chose to pose the
family members in front of the hand hewn log section where a partial hole
in one of the logs is visible. Viewing the published photograph within
the context of the related photographs shows the process of selecting
images and examples that best fit the perceptions of Kephart and his audience.
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Dave Brown Family & Friends
Alma Brown and Homer
An unidentified woman
G. W. Baumgardner
An Unidentified Youth
George Davis and Homer
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Belle Brown and Homer Brown also appear among the people involved in
another series of photographs, "Making
Sorghum." The 1900 Census
report for Barkers Creek Township
in Jackson County includes the household
of Dave Brown with the following individuals:
David U. Brown, age 47; wife Mary
A. Brown, age 47; daughter Almer Brown,
age 21; son George M. Brown, age 17;
Daughter Mary V. Brown, age 16; daughter
Belle Brown, age 12; grandson Homer
Brown, age 8 months; and brother-in-law
George E. Davis, age 50.
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