Tag: Alabama

Fairfield, Alabama

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“Garden – lot 9, block 11. . . .  Garden of $20 a month home,” Fairfield, Alabama, 1917,
via Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Fairfield was a planned community built in 1910 for the workers of U.S. Steel’s plants in the Birmingham area. Its (mostly white) residents could either rent or purchase modern houses with indoor plumbing and central heating. There were also parks and playgrounds, churches, a public library, and 30,000 newly planted trees and shrubs.

The photograph is one of over sixteen thousand created or collected by Frank G. Carpenter and his daughter, Frances, to illustrate his geography textbooks and popular travel books.

The Sunday porch: Camden, Alabama

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Front of the Robert Tait House, Camden, Alabama, 1936, by Alex Bush for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all three photos).

Looking west on the south porch. It looks as though the ceiling has been painted the traditional blue. And note that the columns do not rest on the porch floor foundation, but on the ground just in front of it, making this a Carolina or rain porch.

The house was built for Robert Tait in 1855. It still stands.

Looking north on the west porch.

Coffee County, Alabama

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A repeat post from January 2014. . .
Drigger home, 1941 Coffee Co., Alabama, via Library of Congress“James F. Drigger’s farmhouse. Coffee County, Alabama,” August 1941, by John Collier, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The large plants in front of the vines and along the walk are Ricinus communis  or castor beans.

They and the flowers make a nice approach to the lined-up open front and back doors.

John Collier was working for the Farm Security Administration when he took this photo. The Drigger family was receiving assistance to raise chickens under the “Food for Defense” program.

The Sunday porch: Oak Hill, Alabama

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Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of CongressThe Ramsey-Jones-Bonner House, Oak Hill, Alabama, March 24, 1937, by Alex Bush for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).

A nice front porch, but not especially interesting — except that it is a Carolina (or rain) porch.

Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

Its columns rest on masonry bases set “directly on the ground . . . in front of the foundation of the porch floor. This is a distinctive regional characteristic,” according to the registration form (1998) for the National Register of Historic Places for the Oak Hill Historic District.

The back porch, however, is more unusual.

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Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

“[The] rear wings have integral recessed porches facing inward and creating an atrium-like space which has been roofed [with] corrugated metal. . . . [The] . . . first floor   [is] essentially an enclosed dogtrot. . . .”

Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

The house was built in 1836 by Abiezer Clarke Ramsey, a school teacher and Methodist circuit rider.  In 1937, he married Elizabeth Amanda Wardlaw, a widow with four children.  She and Abiezer had seven more before her death in 1854.

The house still stands in the Oak Hill Historic District.
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