Alabama Photos of the Day: Dorothea Lange's Plantation House

During the Great Depression of the 1930's, many photographers traveled around the United States documenting life in both cities and rural areas. These people--men and women--were employed by U.S. government  agencies and several of them came through Alabama documenting the extent of rural and urban poverty these agencies were designed to alleviate. Dorothea Lange was one of those photographers. 

Lange was born in New Jersey in 1895 and took up photography after high school. In 1935 she married her second husband, economist Paul Schuster Taylor. They spent the rest of the decade traveling for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Lange took photographs and Taylor did interviews and gathered data. They concentrated on the rural poor--sharecroppers and migrant workers. 

In 1938 the pair came to Alabama. You can see 38 of her photographs taken in the state at the Library of Congress site here. They include Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company and a concrete mixing plant in Birmingham. However, most subjects involve the impoverished people and landscapes around Eutaw, Anniston, Cordele and Eden. 

During World War II Lange took photographs inside the Japanese Internment Camps, but most of these were seized by the U.S. Army and not seen until after the war ended. After the war she worked at what is now the San Francisco Art Institute and co-founded the photography magazine Aperture. She died in 1965. 

Below are three of Lange's haunting photographs of an abandoned plantation house somewhere in the state. In the first one, the empty and broken windows seem to be the only sign of damage--although surely the interior would be even worse. And is that white patch on the porch a person? Probably not, but perhaps Lange captured a ghost of the past....And where does that road go? 

In the other two photographs the empty house is merely a backdrop to the growth of corn, some semblance of life in the desolate landscape. 

A biography of Lange is Linda Gordon's Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits [2010].  

The source of the three house photographs is the Oakland Museum of California via the University of California's Calisphere. Neither the name of the house or its location in Alabama are given.

If you know the identity and location of this house, let us hear from you in the comments. 

Lange sits atop a Ford Model 40 in California holding her Grafex camera.

Source: Wikipedia

The Drake-Samford House in Auburn 1850-1978

Recently during one of my periodic paper reduction efforts, I found the February 12, 1978 issue of the Auburn Bulletin from which the last three items below were scanned. Before I talk about those, let me put them into context. 

For many years the Drake-Samford House stood at 449 North Gay Street on the corner with East Drake Avenue in Auburn. The magnificent home was built in the 1850's. By 1857 John Drake, Sr., lived there. His son, John Drake, Jr., became a physician and served the college for many years.

In October 1865 Caroline Drake and lawyer and future governor William J. Samford were married in the house. Auburn University's iconic Samford Hall is named after him. 

The first two black and white photographs below of the house were taken by W.N. Manning on April 2 and 3, 1934. Manning was a professional photographer in Auburn then working for the Historic American Building Survey program. The second one shows the wonderful mahogany staircase.

Now, as to the scanned items. They show before and after photos as the house was torn down in February 1978. A developer who owned the property intended to put an apartment complex there, but never did. The site is now a grassy lot. 

Some details here were taken from the 2012 book Lost Auburn by Ralph Draughon, Jr., et al. 

William J. Samford [1844-1901]

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

This caption implies that Steve & I formerly rented the house itself. No, not quite. We rented the two-rooms-and-a-bathroom shack behind the mansion; we are standing at the door. That place was the site of the Great Toilet Explosion while we lived there, but that's another story

Birmingham Photo of the Day (45): The City's First House

This photo appears in the Samford University Library digital archives. The site has the following information:

"First House Built in Birmingham, AL, 1869. Located on First Ave. North, just east of the Southeast Corner (site of the Steiner Building). It was first used as a tool supply house--then for a blacksmith shop. This photo shows the building enclosed by a fence. There is another, which shows it without the fence."
-William H. Brantley

I wonder if anyone actually lived in this "house". 

William H. Brantley, Jr. [1896-1964] was a lawyer and historian. He published a classic book of state history, Three Capitals: A Book about the First Three Capitals of Alabama. In 1946 he became one of the founding members of the Alabama Historical Association. The Beeson Law Library at Samford houses a collection of his manuscripts, photographs and other materials.