“[H]ouse with picket fence, man and dog seated on porch and a dog lying on the sidewalk,” Georgia, ca. 1899, photographer unknown, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
This photo was in one of the several albums depicting African-American life that W. E. B. Du Bois compiled to exhibit at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair.
Click on the image for a little better view.
“Woman holding baby on outdoor porch,” ca. 1915, an autochrome by unknown photographer, via George Eastman Museum Commons on flickr.
The porches look as if they are facing out to a beach.
“Early dwelling, 222 S. Perry St.,” Montgomery, Alabama, 1939, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
A huge vine is growing beside the steps, but it seems to go up into the tree on the left, rather than onto the porch.
The sidewalk is tiled in a simple geometric pattern. The effect, with the arches of the porch and basement windows, is a little Moroccan/Andalusian.
The house no longer stands.
“Blooming Hope” (also called “Cedar Walk”), Williamsboro, North Carolina, 1938, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
I like the way the vines are a little blurry from a sudden gust of wind.
The home may have been built as early as the 1750s by a Hutchins (or possibly Robert) Burton, who called it “Blooming Hope.” He may have operated a boarding school there. It also seems to have served as an academy for young ladies later in the early 1800s, run by the Rev. Henry Patillo. At some point in its first 100 years, there was a suicide in the house (either Burton or Patillo’s son), and it acquired a reputation as haunted. It was torn down in 1967.
“The Veranda, The Hotel at Beverly Hills, California,” ca. 1889 – ca. 1931, a postcard by the Detroit Publishing Company, via New York Public Library Digital Collections.
