Whitfields, Bains, and a heritage of slavery

Note: I've edited this blog post from 2009 to reclaim some lost images (Jan. 17, 2018)

Born into slavery, Caroline Atwater eventually became sufficiently prosperous to share with her husband the ownership of a small farm. When Dorothea Lange photographed her at this farm on July 1, 1939, Atwater said she had been born at the beginning of the Civil War and could remember 'waiting on the mistis' of a plantation belonging to a member of the Whitfield family. The Whitfields owned her mother while her father belonged another slave-owning family, the Bains.

She said she had four living children and "three or four dead." The field notes of Lange and the academic researcher she accompanied said of Atwater that

Her name is on the mail box rather than her husband's because he can not read or write. She went to a "subscription" school and learned. While in the kitchen door being photographed she was telling of their church and of how she sells a little here and there to get some money, of how the stores nowadays won't let you run accounts, "except maybe until next sad'dy."'
-- quoted in Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs, by Anne Whiston Spirn (University Of Chicago Press, 2008)

Lange encountered Atwood during a photoshoot of July 1939 in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. She had been sent there by her boss in the Farm Security Administration to work with two researchers, Margaret Jarman Hagood and Harriet L. Herring, documenting farm conditions particularly among tenant farmers and sharecroppers.*

A couple of days after they visited with Atgood, Lange and Hagood visited with a farming family named Whitfield. There were many Whitfields in that part of North Carolina so it may not be strange to find that neither Lange nor Hagood noted a possible connection between the Whitfields who had owned Atgood and the Whitfields whom they met with. If there were a connection it would be an ironic one since the Whitfields visited on July 3, 1939, were not prosperous landowners; they were an impoverished sharecropping family.

By some coincidence, this family had the only sharecrop on property owned by a man named Bain. There weren't so many Bains as Whitfields in that area and it's quite likely that this Bain was a direct descendant of the Bain family which owned Atwood's father back at the time of the Civil War. There's no obvious reason why Lange and Hagood did not note this coincidence in their field notes. They may have simply forgotten what Atgood told them or they may have considered the fact an unimportant one.

Their field notes of the visit with the Whitfield family say that the man who owned the land they sharecropped was son of "Old man Bain" who had divided his large farm among his children when he died early in the 1930s. Each of the 11 children had received about 100 acres and the Whitfield's landlord was farming all of his 100 apart from the five he made available to the Whitfields.

A few years ago, in preparing to write her book on Lange, Anne Whiston Spirn tried to locate the Bain farm and any of the Whitfield family who might still be in the area. She wrote about the trip in her blog. Without too much difficulty she tracked down a man who was a neighbor of the Whitfields and who knew the two Whitfield children who were about his age: Millard and Dorothy Lee. Here, from my blog post of Lange's photos of the Whitfields, is Lange's photo of the Whitfield family showing those two with their siblings and parents:

From the left are Irene Isabel (age 35), Dorothy Lee (age 3), Colene (age 9), Isobel (6 months), Millard (age 6), and Charles Dewey (39 and known as Dewey).

The combined portrait that Lange and Hagood make of the Whitfields in photos and field notes is a greatly appealing one.** They have no money and their farming venture is precarious but they are optimistic about what the future may hold for them and willing to believe the federal government can help. They seem so much more content than you could readily expect, to the extent, it seems, that they experience as normal, everyday, and even pleasant what we would experience as hardship verging on destitution.

You can tell something about the family's unexpected equanimity from comments Irene made as recorded in the field notes:

The mother is barefooted in the picture which shows her churning and is standing so that her feet will not show. When she left the churn she covered it with the cloth to protect it from the flies. She showed us how she churned with one hand and waved the other to keep the flies away. She scalded all the milk utensils after washing them carefull so they would not sour. She was brought up, she said, to follow her daddy around and likes field work better than cooking and housekeeping.***

All this even-termperedness is a bit harder to understand given Dewey's connection to the prominent and, it would seem, prosperous Whitfield clan of Person County. You might think he would revewl some resentment at being a poor relation, but if he has that feeling, he doesn't show it. The opprobrious terms red neck and poor white trash don't fit him or his family and neither does the stereotypical image of the grudge-holding white supremicist or Ku Klux Klaner. Yet it's likely to be a fact that Dewey's ancestors were the Whitfield family on whose farmland Carolyn Atwater was born as slave nearly 80 years before.****

In a neighboring post, Spirn describes how she found Colene. From her she learned that Lange and Hagood had mixed up the names of two elder daughters and she was able to supply the name of their mother, which the field notes had omitted (I've given all correctly above).

Here are some of Lange's photos showing Colene:

A detail from the family portrait above.

With her dad and the rest of the family on the porch of their house.


Another shot with Dewey.


On the porch of a nearby country store.

Photo of Colene Whitfield Yarbrough posted to Flickr in February 2012, shortly before her death at age 81.

Caroline Atwater was about the same age in 1939 when Lange took her photograph. They both came through hard times and each in her way prospered, but it seems the journey has been harder on the latter, though that may mean that the outcome, land ownership and independent -- if poor -- living, may be the more satisfying. Here is Lange's portrait of Caroline Atwater taken July 1, 1939:

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Of Dewey's Whitfield contemporaries and forebears

Some internet searching turns up information about the Whitfields of Person County, many of them Dewey's ancestors and near relations.

You can probably locate land owned by members of the family from some Person County place names, most of them within a few miles of the property that the Dewey Whitfields sharecropped. Near Wheeley's Church there is a Frank Whitfield Road, part of State Road 1166. Near that road there is a Whitfield Cemetery and elsewhere in the county you can find a Huff-Blalock-Whitfield Cemetery and an Edwin Whitfield Cemetery. Not far away is Whitfield Farms Airport and Whitfield Pond.

There are Whitfield family members are buried in the cemetery of Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church a bit to the west on John Pleasant Rd.

An online map search also turns up in the same part of Person County a Robert Whitfield Rd, a Rogers-Whitfield Rd, a Welch-Whitfield Rd, and a Whitfield Farm Rd.

Genealogical pages show more than 50 of Dewey's Whitfield relatives who were living in Person County during his time, including eight brothers and sisters. His uncle Charles Asbury Whitfield was fairly well known. Born in Person County in 1859, he was elected to the North Carolina state house of representatives in 1899 and again in 1913. He was buried in the Whitfield Cemetery.

Genealogical pages also show that "Charles Dewey WHITFIELD was born 28 SEP 1899, and died 8 SEP 1976. He married Irene TATUM. She was born 1905 in Person Co, NC, and died 27 SEP 2003 in Burlington, NC."

Internet searching also turns up extracts from two early 19th-century wills which dispose of slaves and other property and seem to suggest that the Person County plantations owned by Whitfields and Bains did not keep large numbers of slaves. They are from members of the Winstead family, into which both Whitfields and Bains married. See the extracts from wills of Samuel and Mandley Winstead at the bottom of this post.

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Main sources:

Unless otherwise noted, all photos come from the FSA collection of the Prints and Photos Division of the Library of Congress. Click to view full size.

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

In this book, Spirn tells how Lange, who enjoyed conversing with people whom she photographed, offered to buy Mrs. Atwater's apron and Mrs. Atwater declined, saying she had received it as a gift from her daughter.

Anne Whiston Spirn, a blog by the author

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Extracts from wills of Samuel and Mandley Winstead

Samuel Winstead, III (10 Jul 1723 - 1806)
In the name of God, Amen. I, Samuel Winstead of Person County, North Carolina, being very low of and weak in body but in perfect mind as usual and calling to mind the certainty of death and uncertainty of life-make this mmy last Will and Testament (to wit) after all my just debts are paid. It is my will and desire that my wife, Elizabeth Winstead, have during her natural life the use of the land and plantation whereon I now live, also the following Negroes — Jo, Oliver, Hat, Solomon, Isbal, Glascon and Davenport. Also my stock and of all kinds together with all my household and kitchen furniture and plantation tools with all the crops made on my plantation in the year One thousand Eight Hundred and Five — my will is that my Negro, Bet, be sold and the money arising from such sale be paid to my wife, Elizabeth Winstead, for her own proper use. I give to my son, Custance (Sic) Winstead, a bond now in my possession against Benjamin Vestal, also the land and plantation I now live on and one cubbard. At the death of his mother, Elizabeth Winstead, to him and his heirs forever. . . .

I do hereby constitute and appoint Elizabeth Winstead and Custance Winstead Executors of this my last Will and Testament. In witness whereof I do hereunto set my hand and affix my seal this 17th day of October 1805.

(signed) Samuel Winstead

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Mandley Winstead (29 Oct 1760 - 26 Dec 1846)

Will Book 5, page 321 Hopkins County, Kentucky

In the name of God Amen I Mandley Winstead of Hopkins County and the State of Kentucky being of sound mind and disposing memory but calling to mind that it is appointed once for man to die, do therefore proceed to make this my last Will and Testament in manner and form as followeth, to wit, My body I resign to its mother dust when it may please God to remove my spirit and my soul I bequeath to God who gave it hoping to participate with him in the hapiness of Heaven where he dwelleth.

As to my property I make the following disposition, First I give and bequath to my beloved wife Amy Winstead all the property of every description which she had in possession at the time I married her consisting of one tract of land in Hopkins County on Bull Creek containing one hundred and seventy acres and one negro man named Bob and one boy named Henry and two feather beds and furniture and one common work horse and one cow and calf also two breeding sows and barrows other articles of less value and may be known by the families as her former property also one full year's provisions for my said wife. . . .

Sixthly I have heretofore given my son Bushard D. Winstead one negro girl named Parthema worth two hundred dollars I have also given my son Charles T. Winstead one negro boy named Beverly worth three hundred dollars I have also given my Daughter Sally Cox one negro boy named Alfred worth two hundred and fifty dollars I have also given my daughter Elizabeth Weir one hundred and twenty dollars. I also have given my daughter Anna Yarbrough one hundred and twenty dollars, I have also given my daughter Jane Cox one hundred and twenty dollars now my will and direction is the price or value fixed upon the three negroes above named and the money above given namd be paid or divided among my first six children, to wit , Elizabeth Weir, Anna Yarbrough, Bushard D. Winstead, Jane Cox, Sally Cox, and Charles T. Winstead so each may have the same amount of the other.

Seventhly I give and bequath to my daughter Elizabeth Weir during her life and at her death the heirs of her body, Bushard D. Winstead, Anna Yarbrough during her life and at her death the heirs of her body, Jane Cox, Sally Cox, and Charles T. Winstead a certain negro man Jack, a negro Woman named Kesiah, a Negro boy named Daniel, and a negro girl namd Eliza to be equally divided among my said children as they may see fit.

Eighthly All my negroes with their increase not here before namd and disposed of I give and bequath to all of my children namely Elizabeth Weir during her life and at her death to her children, Bushard D. Winstead, Anna Yarbrough during her lifetime and at her death to her children, Jane Cox, Sally Cox, Charles T. Winstead, William M. Winstead, Pleasant B. Winstead to be equally divided between them all as they may see fit.

Ninthly I give and bequath all my personal estate consisting of stock, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, household furniture, farming utensils and all and every species of property not herein before named and disposed of to my eight children above named.

Tenthly I nominate and appoint my son Charles T. Winstead to execute this my last will and Testament acknowledged and signed this 13th day of July eighteen hundred an thirty-three.

Test Mandley Winstead
James W. Williams
Jas Metcalf Kentucky

Hopkins County January County Court 1850

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Notes:

*Anne Whiston Spirn describes this research project here. See also my post on Carolyn Atwood here.

** See my previous post the Whitfield and Lyons families, North Carolina,1939 and the field notes given in Spirn's book: Daring to look

***Here are Lange's photos of Irene churning and cleaning the churn.






This one shows her cleaning up after lunch; Dorothy Lee is in the doorway.

**** You can infer this from genealogical records as I somewhat loosely indicate below.

Caroline Atwater

Most of the photographs that Dorothea Lange took during her "make-work" trip to North Carolina in the summer of 1939 showed sharecrop and tenant farms.* However, on July 1st, in a location not far from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, she visited a small holding that was owned and farmed by a man and wife, both African-American. As on other visits, she was accompanied by an academic researcher, Margaret Jarman Hagood. The photo captions and field notes given with the following photographs were prepared by both women. They all come from the Farm Security Administration Collection in LC's Prints and Photos Division. Click image to view full size.

In their general notes of the visit, Lange and Hagood prepared the following description:

Ernest and Caroline Atwater bought the house and one acre of land 30 years ago. Atwater had been working on the railroad and saved up the money. The house has never been mortgaged except once when they [had] to borrow on it to buy a mule. A few years later they bought two more acres. They now raise no cash crop on their three acres, only potatoes, corn, peas, etc. They have "what you call a plug mule." They sell a little produce and sometimes canned berries. No children live with them now and their children do not send them any money although they often send clothes and presents. [The house is] a double cabin, one and a half story, log house. Yard — shows the care contrasting owners' from tenants' yards.

{LC caption: House and yard of Negro owner
Field Notes: The cabin on the right was built about 75 years ago and 200 yards away in the field when the Atwaters bought their place. They moved it to the present location, partly rechinked it with mud, and built the other cabin 30 years ago. The shingles are "boards" and the top ones on the roof of the right cabin are the original ones. The lower boards have been pushed in as is visible. "It kivered with boards, if you can say its kivered at all."}

{LC caption: Caroline Atwater standing in the kitchen doorway of double one and a half story log house. North Carolina
Field notes say: 'Caroline Atwater — says she was born the first year of the Civil War and remembers waiting on the "mistis." Immediately told that her mother belonged to the Whitfields and her father to the Bains of Person county. Has been married twice. Did not know exactly how many children she had had, but has four living and three or four dead. Her name is on the mail box rather than her husband's because he can not read or write. She went to a "subscription" school and learned. While in the kitchen door being photographed she was telling of their church and of how she sells a little here and there to get some money, of how the stores nowadays won't let you run accounts, "except maybe until next sad'dy."'
A commenter on the Shorpy blog, where this photo was reproduced, said Census records show a Caroline Atwater to have been born about 1865 and to have died in 1949.}

Details of this image:

{There is no caption for this image. It shows Mrs. Atwater at her unusual well. The well is odd not just in its construction but in its very existence since many sharecrop and tenant farms had no well at all.}

Details of this image:

{LC caption: Caroline Atwater, wife of Negro owner, tells where she was born}

{There is no caption for this image}

{LC caption: Caroline Atwater, wife of Negro owner, has a well-swept yard. Field notes point out that sharecrop and tenant yards are not usually so well maintained.}

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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)

In this book, Spirn tells how Lange, who enjoyed conversing with people whom she photographed, offered to buy Mrs. Atwater's apron and Mrs. Atwater declined, saying she had received it as a gift from her daughter.

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Note:
* See previous posts:

• the Whitfield and Lyons families, North Carolina,1939 (Wednesday, November 04, 2009)
• Wheeley's Church (Friday, November 06, 2009)
• Tucks (Saturday, November 07, 2009)
• sharecropper cabin on hillside farm (Sunday, November 08, 2009)

little people

Autumn advances. The geraniums on our back porch are scraggly pretty with their multicolored leaves and few remaining blossoms. The big trees have lost their leaves and only the Japanese Maples retain theirs brilliantly. I've abandoned our side porch and eat lunch in the dining room these days. But, through our dining room window, I still get to observe the hubbub of babies, toddlers, three- and four-year-olds with moms and caretakers as they return from the preschool up the street at the end of the morning's session.

This day, 40 years since Sesame Street's first airing, I think of the hour or so we four spent, most days, watching Muppet characters and their human partners portray a world that was not free of problems, but was one nonetheless where hope abounded and tolerance prevailed.

I'm pretty sure Grover was our most favorite and I recall that the male half of our family admired Bert quite a bit.

Some images of all this:

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{According to wikipedia, Grover first appeared in 1970, voiced by Frank Oz himself and later by Eric Jacobson; source: muppet.wikia}

{This is Grover's alter ego, Supergrover from Grover on muppet.wikia}

{Grover in waiter mode, driving his customer crazy in a vintage Grover waiter sketch from toughpigs.com}

{Frank Oz uses the Grover puppet to entertain the kids on set; source: jimhillmedia.com}

{Dr. Grover; same source}

{Grover loves the camera; source: Life}

{From "The Monster In The Mirror" skit; source: sydlexia.com}

{Like Grover, Bert was originally performed by Frank Oz and later by Eric Jacobson; source: muppet.wikia}

{Ernie and Bert; source: 1.bp.blogspot.com}

{This is said to show Bert with his paperclip collection but it looks more like buttons or bottle caps to me; source: muppet.wikia}

{Jim Henson and Frank Oz with Bert and Ernie and a third person not identified; source: muppet.wikia}

We also came to like Elmo, who has proved himself to be one of the most photogenic muppets and, like Big Bird, one of Sesame Street's most visible ambassadors. For example:

{Elmo at a Congressional Hearing with Joe Lamond, president and CEO of NAMM-International Music Products Association, testifying in support of school music education; source: Guardian (UK)}

{Elmo at the National Book Festival with his handler, Kevin Clash, and a friend of mine; source: Library of Congress}

{A view of the TV set in 1969; photo by Bill Pierce for Life}

sharecropper cabin on hillside farm

Preparing to write a book on Dorothea Lange¹, Anne Whiston Spirn visited some of the places that were sites for Lange's photographs. She posted an entry in her blog about her efforts to locate one place,² a small hillside farm and a sharecropper shack on the property. She drove to the general area and began to ask around; told that a woman named Mary Jacobs would know, she seeks her out and eventually located the place. It turns out that the farm is not across from a service station³ (as field notes had said) but along side it.

She and Mary drive into the yard of the farm where Lange had found the sharecropper cabin. She writes:

We drive up to the house and park beside various trucks, step out, wooing the dog, a setter of mixed breed. To the back door, of course. Knock.

After long minutes, a man comes to the door. Tall, in a blue T-shirt, very hospitable, his name Greg. I show him the photo of the house. “We have that photo on our refrigerator,” he says. “My wife found it on the Internet.” May we walk around? “Of course.” The tobacco barn is well preserved. Mary walks with me up the hill to the barn, and Greg comes after, opens it up so we can see the tier poles and tobacco-string poles. As for the sharecropper’s cabin, Greg thinks it was torn down.⁴

Here are Lange's photos of the cabin and the young family that inhabited it, of the sharecrop farm, and of the larger farm where it was located. I've also included a photo that Spirn made showing the farm as it looks these days.

Lange's photos were taken in July 1939. 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 a research assistant who accompanied her. Click image to view full size.

This is the cabin itself, followed by a few detail images:

{LC caption: Negro sharecropper house. "They treat us better here than where we did live. No privy in sight, had to get water from the spring, so far away that the man was gone twenty minute getting a bucket of water." Person County, North Carolina
Field notes say: 'The woman had been through seventh grade, the husband not much education. She would not let us take photographs of interior — "Ain't cleaned up in ever so long — too big a mess." No privy in sight, had to get water from "the spring" so far away the man was gone about 20 minutes to get a bucket of water.'}

Details of this image:

{Although the woman asked Lange not to photograph inside the cabin, you can see part of it it this shot. There is a water pitcher and washbowl on the table. As the notes say, the source of water was not close by. The baby girl seems to have been playing with the kitten and has just turned to see what her mother was saying.}

{Here are some herbs and garden produce by the doorside.}

{You can see that this is hill country; note the Queen Anne's Lace beyond the little garden plot.}

{This seems to be a chicken house. As notes say, there does not seem to be a privy. Needless to say there was no electricity and, as noted above, no well.}

Like most of Lange's rural portraits, this one shows dignity and strength; in this case they seem be accompanied by a bit of curiosity, cheerfulness, and a shy vulnerability in the man's face.

{LC caption: Young sharecropper and his first child. Hillside Farm. Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: The man was shy of having his photograph made but finally held the baby in front of the house for one picture. They have just moved here this year — "They treat us better here than where we did live"; did not know how many acres he had, tobacco, corn, a potato patch, "and such." He said they did not measure up the land this year — everybody did last year when they were cut down in acreage, but this year everybody planted all they wanted to.}

Detail of this image:

{There is no LC caption for this image; as you can see, it shows the cabin from further away}

{Negro sharecropper house. Note chimney leanto with kitchen stove pipe stuffed through side of wall and cap off with joint of tobacco flue to keep smoke from blowing back into house. Note also flower garden protected by slender fence of lathes. Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: Negro sharecropper's house: shows different aspects of house, chimney, lean-to with kitchen stovepipe, stuffed through side of wall and capped off with joint of tobacco flue to keep smoke from blowing back into house, flower garden in front protected by a slender fence of laths, young Negro couple and baby. Note guano sacks washed and drying on a line in back.}

{There is no LC caption for this image; it shows the other side of the cabin}

{LC caption: Wife and child of young sharecropper in cornfield beside house. Hillside Farm, Person County, North Carolina}

{LC caption: Negro tenant topping tobacco. Person County, North Carolina}

{There is no LC caption. Field notes: "Other side of hill: this side has been terraced — the sharecropper said before the government erosion work began, not tended now. In background is a sweet potato patch with a Negro man chopping. Could hear the sound of the hoe on the small rocks in the soil. Up the hill is the log and frame house the family live in. Steep rocky drive up hill from highway to owner's house [see below] and passed it along a single track to Negro house in background."}

Sprin took this photo of the same property when she visited:

{LC caption: Hillside Farm road leading from sharecropper's house back to the public road. Disc harrow rusting in field and tobacco pack house with log "odering house" adjoining. Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: Note disc harrow standing rusted in the field. House in background of this photograph is the pack house with log "ordering house" adjoining it.}

{General view of a hillside farm which faces the road showing owner's house, outbuildings, and tobacco field showing erosion. The Negro sharecropper farm is on the other side of this same hill. Person County, North Carolina
Field notes: Owner's house: general view of hillside farm opposite [actually beside] Tucks Service Station, shows home, outbuildings, and tobacco field beyond. The fields show erosion. The owner usually makes, according to the man at the filling station, about 500 pounds to the acre which is a small yield for Person County. Better yields run from 900 to 1,200 pounds.}

Details of this image:

{It says "R.H. Evans" on the mailbox}

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Notes:

¹ Daring to look: Dorothea Lange's photographs and reports from the field, by Anne Whiston Spirn

² The blog is simply called Anne Whiston Spirn.

³ This is A. P. Tucks Service Station; see previous post on this blog: Tucks.

³ Source: Person County, North Carolina.