Tucks

Across the road and down the way from the farm sharecropped by the Whitfields and pretty close to Wheeley's Church, lay Tucks Service Station. Country stores like Tucks were weekend gathering spots for local residents. In July 1939, while she was photographing in the area, Dorothea Lange took her camera there and got these images.

They come from the Farm Services Administration collection in the Prints and Photos Division of the Library of Congress. Captions and field notes were prepared by Lange and the two research assistants who accompanied her.

The first image was taken from the yard of the house across the street.* The second shows the Whitfield's nine year old daughter, Dorothy Lee, along with two unidentified women. I suspect it was taken the same morning Lange photographed the Whitfields at home. Unfortunately, these two are low-resolution scans from Lange's negatives.

{LC caption: Country store on dirt road, Sunday afternoon. Note kerosene pump on right and gasoline pump on the left. The brother of the owner of the store stands in the doorway. Near Gordenton, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Daughter of white tobacco sharecropper at country store. Person County, North Carolina}

This image, taken the following Sunday, is a high-resolution scan.

{LC caption: Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. Note the kerosene pump on the right and the gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Negro men are sitting on the porch. Brother of store owner stands in doorway. Gordonton, North Carolina
Field notes: This is Tucks Service Station}

This image digitized from a print of the same photo:


These details come from the first image, above:











In preparing her book, Daring to look: Dorothea Lange's photographs and reports from the field, Anne Whiston Spirn went back to the site and, on July 2, 2006, took this photo:

{source: http://web.mit.edu/spirn/www/test/ThenNow/}

About it, she writes: 'The country store is much smaller than I had imagined, its porch more shallow. An electric meter is mounted next to a boarded-up window, but it isn’t running. “My great uncle owned that store,” Bess Whitt, born a Hester, told me.'

Here's a panoramic image giving Lange's and Spirn's photos of Tucks.


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Main source:

Daring to look: Dorothea Lange's photographs and reports from the field, by Anne Whiston Spirn, (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

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Note:

*When Anne Whiston Spirn went back to the site on July 2, 2006, she noted that this house "across the road from the Gordonton country store belonged to the store’s owner in 1939. When Lange took the photograph of the men sitting on the store's porch, her back was to the house. She did not photograph the house, which Margaret Jarman Hagood (a researcher who accompanied Lange) called 'the old Bain Home Place.'" Up until the early 1930s the Bains had owned a large plantation in Person County by Gordonton. Field notes from Lange's photo shoot in the area say: "Old man Bain (the landowner) had about 1,200 acres and when he died 6 years ago this was divided among 11 children. Each one got about enough for himself and one tenant. Mr. Whitfield's landlord owns about 100 acres and Whitfield is the only tenant."

This is a photo that Sprin took of the Bain house:

{source: http://web.mit.edu/spirn/www/test/ThenNow/}

Wheeley's Church

This is a second post giving photos from a set that Dorothea Lange made in July 1939 in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. The first one is here. Lange's boss, Roy Stryker, had sent her there so that she and her "silly ideas" would not disrupt operations in the photo lab of the home office. On learning that she planned to come there from the west coast he immediately contacted the head of a University of North Carolina research unit saying, "Dorothea Lange is to be in Washington for a couple of weeks. . . . While she is here, I am anxious to utilize some extra time she has to make some pictures in your sub-region. . . . I am not very particular what she does at this time. . . .I would appreciate an answer as soon as possible, so we can make plans for Miss Lange's trip." The head, Howard Odum, arranged for Lange to work with two research assistants, Margaret Jarman Hagood and Harriet Herring, both of them sociologists. On July 5, Lange accompanied Herring to a church outside Gordonton, North Carolina.¹

The captions and field notes given with the following photos come from both women. The photos show Wheeley's Church which was 1.1 mi. SE of Gordonton, Person County, North Carolina. It was thus located very close to the Whitfield's house, seen in the previous post. Wheeley's Church has since become Wheeler's Church. At the time Lange visited it was located off Wheeler's Church Road near an intersection of three state roads (1100, 1102, and 1107).²

The field notes say:

Accidentally learned at Gordonton that "everybody in the community was gathering at the church, going to take their dinner." Was not able to get back in time to see the dinner in progress and most of the cleaning done. Farm women of all ages, men and children; one six-months old baby and one woman on two crutches were still there finishing up the cleaning at about 2:30. There were fifteen cars; "a good many people" left before dinner. Had to talk to a succession of people: had to ask some of the others: had to ask the older members: had to talk to the head deacon to get permission to photograph.³ They very much want to have a print showing the church and the grounds. Very proud of their church, spacious well shaded church yard, well kept (though very simple) cemetery, and very proud of the fact that they keep everything so tidy. They had done a thorough Job of sweeping the yard close to the door and raking the test, about 5 acres.

The following photos all come from the Farm Security Administration Collection in LC's Prints and Photos Division. The captions are by LC staff from information in the FSA sets of negatives and prints; they are supplemented by field notes that were made as part of the shoot.

{LC caption: Women of the congregation of Wheeley's Church on steps with brooms and buckets on annual clean up day. Gordonton, North Carolina
Field notes: 'A group of solid country people who live generously and well. ... The church is primitive Baptist — "don't know whether you ever heard of that kind or not." and is "over a hundred years old" but no one seemed to know exactly.⁴ It has 70 members and "lots of friends around who help out. Much interested in the photographing, much joking about posing.'}

Details of this image:

{LC caption: Wheeley's Church and grounds. Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: "Preaching once a month and the church is crowded. Will probably hold 500. . . . Cars new or relatively so and not all fords."}

{LC caption: Services are over. Wheeley's Church, Gordonton, Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: Lange received permission to return on July 9: "July 9 is "preachin' Sunday" and got permission from deacon to return to make pictures of the congregation."}

Details of this image:

{There is no LC caption for this photo.}

{LC caption: Gathering of congregation after church services. Wheeley's Church, Person County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Congregation gathers after services to talk. Wheeley's Church, Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: "The people are substantial, well-fed looking. the women in clean prints, mostly ready made, the men in clean shirts and trousers, some overalls. Good looking children. Many addressed each other as cousin or aunt, etc. Very gay and folksy — evidently have a good time together." }

{LC caption: Member of the congregation of Wheeley's church who is called "Queen." She is wearing the old fashioned type of sunbonnet. Her dress and apron were made at home. Near Gordonton, North Carolina
Field notes: "Note woman wearing bonnet, front and side view."}

{LC caption: Native of North Carolina. Sunbonnet, and homemade old-fashioned knit gloves. This woman is a member of Wheeley Church congregation. Near Gordonton, North Carolina
Field notes: 'Note homemade gloves. This woman was called "Queen."'}

Update:

In preparing for her book on Lange (cited directly below) Anne Whiston Spirn sought out the locations of the Person County photos. She couldn't find the church of Lange's photos, but — instead — a brick one called Wheeler's, not Wheeley's. In the cemetery of the new church she found the gravestone for the woman called "Queen":


In July 1939 when Lange took her portrait, Queen had been 57 years old, recently widowed. While Spirn was observing the grave, she says, "A man stepped out of the church. Yes, it was once called Wheeley's, the brick was added in the 1950s.⁵ Would I like to come inside? The chapel is simple and beautiful, much as Lange described it. I mention the photograph of Queen. 'That’s my great aunt, Queen Bowes.'"

Here's Spirn's photo of the "new" church.

{Source of this image and the quote: web.mit.edu/spirn/www/test/ThenNow/}

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Main sources:

Daring to look: Dorothea Lange's photographs and reports from the field by Anne Whiston Spirn, Dorothea Lange (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Picturing faith: photography and the Great Depression, by Colleen McDannell (Yale University Press, 2004)

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon (W.W. Norton & Co. 2009)

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Notes:

¹ The source of this information and the quote: DARING TO LOOK WWW.

² See this Google map.

³ In a book called Picturing faith: photography and the Great Depression, Colleen McDannell says rural Southerners, like the members of Wheeley's Church, did not have negative associations with photography and would not have been wary of exploitation documentary photographs such as Lange took, but they would have been skeptical about non-religious use of photos taken of their religious spaces. Lange was sensitive to the reluctance of church members and the Deacon to have photos taken within the church. There was less concern about exterior photos or the posing of the cleansing group for group shots.

⁴ According to Colleen McDannell, the church became a Primitive Baptist Church in 1832. Its original Baptist congregation formed in 1755. In 1832 some Baptists, including the parishioners of what was then Wheeley's Meeting House, wished to return to belief in predestination as well as banning of instrumental music and all ornamentation or imagery. They resisted centralized control via associations of groups of churches or "conventions." "They argued that all missionary work, even teaching in local Sunday schools, was contrary to Scripture. God in his sovereign power, they believed, did not need any human means to bring his elect to repentance." They chose ministers from within the local community and asked that they speak in a way local people could readily understand. It was common for congregations to meet only once or twice a month.

Regarding the formation of Wheeley's Church in 1792, one source says: "The Upper South Hico Baptist Church separated from the Flat River Church on September 8, 1792. The name was later changed to Wheeley’s and today it is known as Wheelers Primitive Baptist Church. The Church is located on State Road #1102 about one mile south of Gordonton which is itself about twelve miles south of Roxboro, North Carolina."

⁵ Located off Wheeler's Church Road, the name of the church must have caused local confusions when it was Wheeley's. Old place names tend to morph and shift around despite map makers' efforts to pin them down.

the Whitfield and Lyons families, North Carolina,1939

Note: I have updated this blog post to reclaim some images that the photo archive deleted (1/17/2018).

In July 1939 Dorothea Lange made a series of photos in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. The assignment was unusual for her. It came on short notice and, although she didn't know it at the time, its main purpose was to get her out of Washington, DC.¹

The following photos all come from the Farm Security Administration Collection in LC's Prints and Photos Division. The captions are by LC staff from information in the FSA sets of negatives and prints; they are supplemented by field notes that were made as part of the shoot.

One of the researchers who worked with Lange on the project later wrote about Lange's technique, saying she would climb onto the car when she wished to get a higher viewpoint and that she would engage in long conversations with the people she photographed asking questions but also answering the many they would ask about why she was taking the photos and what employment conditions were like in other places, such as California, where she had worked.

1. The Whitfield family, Gordonton, Person County

Field notes show that Lange and Margaret Jarman Hagood, a sociologist and research assistant at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina visited the Whitfield family on the morning of July 3, 1939.²

Although impoverished farmers were generally reluctant to be photographed at all and almost never permitted photographs within their homes, the Whitfields welcomed the two women and opened their home to them. At the end of their visit Mrs. Whitfield invited them to stay to dinner (the mid-day meal). She apologized that she hadn't prepared for company and only had tomatoes, snap beans, and bread she cooked at breakfast-time.

Like other sharecropper houses, the Whitfield's lacked electricity and plumbing. It was more substantial than most, with two stories, a kitchen at the back and a porch in the front. However, the family of six used only three rooms and slept in two double beds in one of them.

Tobacco sharecroppers were advanced seed and supplies for growing their crop and they split the crop with the landowner at the end of the season. Most of them reported that it was a good year when they broke even rather and did not end the year in debt.³

The family had five acres and were the only sharecroppers on the property. The owner possessed 100 acres of land his parents passed down to him from what had been a 1,200 acre plantation.

{There is no LC caption for this photo. The field notes identify the man as Charles Dewey Whitfield and the girl as his daughter, Katie Collen, age 3. The Whitfield's were share-croppers. The photo shows him topping tobacco plants while Katie looks for worms. The notes say: "Her father says she is learning but she is a little too rough with the tobacco leaves sometimes and bruises them. The children like to go to the field with their father. When the mother goes the oldest girl has to stay at home with the baby."}

{LC caption: Tobacco sharecroppers and family at back of their house. Person County, North Carolina
Additional information from field notes: In addition to Charles Dewey and Katie Collen, the photo shows Mrs. Whitfield (given name not recorded), Dorothy Lee, 9; Millard, 6; and Isabel, 6 months. Both parents came from farm families in the county and had always been sharecroppers. At the time, they owed debts only to their doctor and the local hospital, both the result of cesarean births of the two youngest children. The notes say: "The mother has helped 'right smart' this year because Mr. Whitfield has been 'falling off.' She thinks it is because he is so worried over paying the doctor and hospital bill."}

Note the chickens; the field notes say "The children explained how they 'claim' the pigs, chickens; and feed the animals they claim."

Charles Dewey Whitfield was 39 when Lange took these photographs. He was born in September 1899 on the day when Admiral George Dewey was recognized for his victory in the Spanish-American Way by a triumphal parade in New York City. The field notes record that Mrs. Whitfield was 33 years old and had married at 21. She had purchased the dress she wears from J.C. Penney for 87¢. She was barefooted when Lange and Hagood arrived but put on her white high-heeled shoes for the photos — wanting to look her best — and "was loathe" to take them off. The field notes say of Mrs. Whitfield: "She was brought up, she said, to follow her daddy around and likes field work better than cooking and housekeeping." Of Dorothy Lee the field notes say: "The mother is proud of her oldest daughter who has done well at school, and 'has made A grade both years she's been going to school."

{LC caption: Corner of kitchen. Home of tobacco sharecropper. Person County, North Carolina
Additional information from field notes: The cook-stove they use is their own; none is provided in the house. The rooms are clean. When churning butter, Mrs. Whitfield keeps the churn and utensils scrupulously clean.}

{LC caption: Wife of tobacco sharecropper in kitchen of home. Person County, North Carolina

{There is no LC caption for this image}

{LC caption: Mr. Whitfield, tobacco sharecropper, with baby on front porch. North Carolina, Person County}

{LC caption: Children helping father, tobacco sharecropper, at work in tobacco patch. Person County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Tobacco sharecropper with his oldest daughter. Person County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Daughter of white tobacco sharecropper at country store. Person County, North Carolina}

{This is another image of the store. The LC caption reads: "Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. Note the kerosene pump on the right and the gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Negro men are sitting on the porch. Brother of store owner stands in doorway. Gordonton, North Carolina"}

{Another shot of the family taken at the back of the house. There is no LC caption for this image}

{This shot shows the front of the house and the dirt road it fronts upon. LC caption: Tobacco sharecropper's house. White family. Rural rehabilitation clients. Whitfield family. Near Gordonton, North Carolina}

Update: I have found a few more photos:

{Neither photo has an LC caption; they show the Mrs. Whitfield and the children on their front porch.}

{LC caption: Corner of tobacco farmer's front room. Shows enclosed stairway and corner of the new fancy bed. Person County, North Carolina.
Field notes say the family used only three downstairs rooms so the stairway door, though unlocked, presumably stayed closed at all times. The cut-out at its bottom may have been for the use of mousing barn cats (rural people not usually keeping house cats). You can see the corner of a bedstead. About this the field notes say "Mrs. Whitfield's mother died last year and they sold her small farm and divided up the money. The Whitfields bought their 'Company bed room suite' with their share: a glaring, Grand Rapids, highly polished imitation walnut bed, dresser, and dressing table." Lange noticed the calendars on the walls; there were nine in all and they were presumably kept for decoration rather than keeping track of day and date. These two show January and March 1939,one has its picture obscured by some hanging gear; the other appears to be a family scene with man standing at left, woman seated before him, and others in background.}

2. The Lyon family, Upchurch, Wake County

Field notes show that Lange and Hagood visited the Lyon family on June 30 1939. The family had 13 acres of tobacco which they had previously worked with another sharecropper family but were now working on their own with part-time help from a neighbor's child. The owner has 11 other families on his property raising tobacco and a little cotton.

Lyons moved here the previous year and is happy with the land, the house, and his landlord. His first year he made more than he had in his previous location. The notes say: "His landlord has plenty of money and furnishes him whatever cash he needs so that he doesn't even have to run a store account. He says these folks want their tenants to make money and they treat them nice."

{LC caption: Zollie Lyon, Negro sharecropper, home from the field for dinner at noontime, with his wife and part of his family. Note dog run. Wake County, North Carolina
Additional information from field notes: The house is a modified "dog-run" type meaning that the two rooms are connected by a breezeway. The yard is swept by brush brooms. The photo shows Zollie Lyon, his wife, their children, and grandchildren. The field notes say the photo also shows a little girl who is visiting.}

{Another view of the family and their home. LC caption: Zollie Lyons, Negro sharecropper, home from the field for dinner at noontime, and part of his family. Upchurch, North Carolina. He has thirteen acres of tobacco and a labor force of five}

{LC caption: Son of Negro sharecropper "worming" tobacco. Wake County, North Carolina; field notes say: "the worms are very bad this year."}

{LC caption: Daughter of Negro sharecropper goes up and down the rows "worming" the tobacco. Wake County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Grandchildren of tobacco sharecropper down at barns. Note construction of tobacco sleds which have just been repaired by Zollie Lyons. Beyond them the screened platform in which that member of the family sleeps who tends the fire during the night. Wake County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Grandchild of Zollie Lyons, tobacco sharecropper. Wake County, North Carolina}

{There is no LC caption for this photo; it shows the grandchildren of Zollie Lyons.}

{There is no LC caption for this photo; the field notes say that 13 acres is a large field for this area. The tobacco is topped ready for priming.}

{There is no LC caption for this photo; the field notes say a sled is used to haul tobacco from the field. In this case it's being used for weeds and broken leaves.}

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Main source:

Daring to look: Dorothea Lange's photographs and reports from the field
By Anne Whiston Spirn, Dorothea Lange
University of Chicago Press, 2008

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Notes:

¹ Anne Whiston Spirn reports that Dorothea Lange had arranged for Ansel Adams to prepare images for a book on West Coast migrant labor. When she asked her FSA boss to make the negatives available to Adams he refused. She then traveled to Washington DC so that she could herself supervise printing at the FSA lab. Her boss believed that this would throw the lab into chaos and quickly arranged for her to be sent to North Carolina. He contacted Howard Odum, head of the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina. Odum arranged for Lange to assist two researchers in their investigation of sharecropping and tenant farming in the Piedmont region of the state. As Sprin says, within four days of her arrval in Washington, "doubtless wholly unaware of the plot, and presumably after frantic hours in the FSA lab supervising the printing of her negatives for the book, Lange was out of Washington and on Zollie Lyons's farm in Wake County, North Carolina."

² The project that Odum arranged for Lange was called "research through photography" and was considered to be a "Photographic Study of the 13 County Subregional Area" of the Piedmont. The two researchers identified places to visit and arranged with landowners and sharecroppers for the photographs to be taken. Lange and the researchers made notes of their visits and the photos taken. These are the source of the field notes I've summarized or quoted in this piece.

³ Source: Spirn's book, Daring to Look, p. 93.