Four Photographs of Loggers Clearing Pine in the American South.
Southest Arkansas and Columbia, South Carolina: early 20th century. Four photographs, three 6 x 7.5 inches and one 7.5 x 9 inches. Exceptional contrast, some creasing and wear, a few chips to margins and one tear, editorial marks of Brown Brothers firm verso, near fine. Photographs annotated verso noting locations as southeast Arkansas and near Columbia, South Carolina. Near fine. Item #List2708
Four photographs of loggers at work, two of which show African-American loggers. Locations of two of the photographs are indicated to be southeast Arkansas and Columbia, South Carolina. The logging industry took off in the American South after the Civil War, thanks to improvements in technology and to the extension of railroad lines. From 1870 to 1910, it was the fastest-growing industry and by far the largest employer, and it contributed significantly to the speedy industrialization of the region. Notably, African-American men constituted the majority of lumber workers in the south – and there were more African-American men in lumber than men of all races in any other industry. The logging industry was therefore a key component in the way that freed African-American men, and the families they brought with them to sawmill villages, shaped the development of labor and life in the American South around the turn of the century[1].
[1] William Powell Jones, The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South (University of Illinois Press, 2005), 1–3.
Price: $800.00