Mantelpieces Of The Old South

With these words William Baldwin and Elizabeth Turk lay the foundation for a stunning visual journey into the Southern home. The images found within these pages tell as much about the definition of home as they do about certain aspects of design. Taken from the Historic American Buildings Survey or HABS collection--which began as Depression-era works program--these images document the grace and unique nature of the Southern home. While some of the images show the grandeur of the old plantation house, others reveal a much simpler side of Southern living. And while there are always elements that are distinctive to each home there is an ever-present theme that reminds the reader that home is not just a structure, but also a reflection of our dreams. Compiled from over seventy years of HABS images, this arrangement is a matchless illustrated history of Southern architecture and design. Whether a stately mansion or a decaying rural farmhouse, the images within are a visual essay into the true nature and being of the South and Southern home.

The great majority of the South's plantation homes have been destroyed over time, and many have long been forgotten. In Lost Plantations of the South, Marc R. Matrana weaves together photographs, diaries and letters, architectural renderings, and other rare documents to tell the story of sixty of these vanquished estates and the people who once called them home. From plantations that were destroyed by natural disaster such as Alabama's Forks of Cypress, to those that were intentionally demolished such as Seven Oaks in Louisiana and Mount Brilliant in Kentucky, Matrana resurrects these lost mansions. Including plantations throughout the South as well as border states, Matrana carefully tracks the histories of each from the earliest days of construction to the often-contentious struggles to preserve these irreplaceable historic treasures. Lost Plantations of the South explores the root causes of demise and provides understanding and insight on how lessons learned in these sad losses can help prevent future preservation crises. Capturing the voices of masters and mistresses alongside those of slaves, and featuring more than one hundred elegant archival illustrations, this book explores the powerful and complex histories of these cardinal homes across the South.

Assembling Mass Observation Archive material with historiographies of family, house and nation from ancient-Greece to present-day Europe, China and America, this book contributes to current debates on identity, belonging, memory and material culture by exploring how power works in the small spaces of home.

"Clay Lancaster was infected by a love of architecture at an early age, a gentle madness from which he never cared to recover."—From the Foreword, by Roger W. Moss It is easy to take for granted the visual environment that we inhabit. Familiarity with routes of travel and places of work or leisure leads to indifference, and we fail to notice incremental changes. When a dilapidated building is eliminated by new development, it is forgotten as soon as its replacement becomes a part of our daily landscape. When an addition is grafted onto the shell of a house fallen out of fashion or function, onlookers might notice at first, but the memory of its original form is eventually lost. Also forgotten is the use a building once served. From historic homes to livestock barns, each structure holds a place in the community and can tell us as much about its citizens as their portraits and memoirs. Such is the vital yet intangible role that architecture plays in our collective memory. Clay Lancaster (1917-2000) began during the Great Depression to document and to encourage the preservation of America's architectural patrimony. He was a pioneer of American historic preservation before the movement had a name. Although he established himself as an expert on Brooklyn brownstones and California bungalows, the nationally known architectural historian also spent four decades photographing architecture in his native Kentucky. Lancaster did not consider himself a photographer. His equipment consisted of nothing more complex than a handheld camera, and his images were only meant for his own personal use in documenting memorable and endangered structures. He had the eye of an artist, however, and recognized the importance of vernacular architecture. The more than 150 duotone photographs in Clay Lancaster's Kentucky preserve the beauty of commonplace buildings as well as historic mansions and monuments. With insightful commentary by James D. Birchfield about the photographs and about Lancaster's work in Kentucky, the book documents the many buildings and architectural treasures—both existing and long gone—whose images and stories remain a valuable part of the state's heritage.

Eyewitness accounts intended to introduce readers to a wide variety of primary literary sources for studying the Old South.

Art and Craft presents the hand-picked fruit of Bill Thompson’s three decades covering writers and writing as book review editor of Charleston, South Carolina’s Post and Courier. Beginning with a foreword by Charleston novelist Josephine Humphreys, this collection is a compendium of interviews featuring some of the most distinguished novelists and nonfiction writers in America and abroad, including Tom Wolfe, Pat Conroy, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Bragg, and Anthony Bourdain, as well as many South Carolinians. With ten thematic chapters ranging from the Southern Renaissance, literature, biography, and travel writing to crime fiction and Civil War history, Art and Craft also includes a sampling of Thompson’s reviews. Featuring: Jack Bass, Rick Bragg, Roy Blount, Jr., Robin Cook, Pat Conroy, Patricia Cornwell, Dorothea Benton Frank, Herb Frazier, Sue Grafton, Carl Hiaasen, Sue Monk Kidd, Brian Lamb, Bret Lott, Jill McCorkle, James McPherson, Mary Alice Monroe, Joyce Carol Oates, Carl Reiner, Dori Sanders, Charles Seabrook, Anne Rivers Siddons, Lee Smith, Mickey Spillane, Paul Theroux, Tom Wolfe

Exhibiting a clear, straightforward style, his many works are marked by a comprehensiveness and a catholicity of view. There is hardly an element of southern thought or society, hardly a major movement of any kind or an event of any significance that has escaped his penetrating thought and discerning analysis. This volume of Eaton's selected writings forms a rich and provocative mosaic of southern life from the years of Thomas Jefferson to the close of the Civil War. These selections, perceptively edited by Albert D. Kinvan, 'show the wide range of Eaton's interests, including the impact of slavery, the influence of religion, and the art of politics, and they demonstrate the depth of his insight into the civilization of the Old South.