He has picked cotton all day and stands at the edge of the field and the cotton wagon. Eloy Arizona, 1940
( photographer) Dorothea Lange

The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.

Near Childress, Texas. June 1938. “If you die, you’re dead – that’s all.”

Year after this photo was first published and exhibited, this previously unidentified lady was determined to be a woman named Nettie Fetherston.  For more on her, see Nettie Featherston–1938.

The quote used in The Bitter Years exhibition comes from a larger caption that recorded a conversation between Lange and Featherston, “We made good money pullin’ bolls [cotton], when we could pull. But we’ve had no work since March. When we miss, we set and eat just the same. The worst thing we did was when we sold the car, but we had to sell it to eat, and now we can’t get away from here. We’d like to starve if it hadn’t been for what my sister in Enid sent me. When it snowed last April we had to burn beans to keep warm. You can’t get no relief here until you’ve lived here a year. This county’s a hard county. They won’t help bury you here. If you die, you’re dead, that’s all.” (Woman of the High Plains “If You Die, You’re Dead–That’s All.” Inspiring Visions, Artists’ Views of the American West, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas)

The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.

random topic 002

Design drawing for stained glass Nativity memorial window,
Work on unmounted paper; stained but intact and smooth.
1 drawing : watercolor, ink.
J. & R. Lamb Studios.

Nez Percé sweat-lodge
Landscape, lashed pole framed with blanket, large smooth stones in dry river bed, house, fence and hills in background. Edward S. Curtis (photographer) 1910

Smyth & Rice present Willie Collier in his new farce Mr. Smooth;
Other Title: Mr. Smooth;
1899 lithograph

‘The path of national greatness never is easy or smooth’
President Roosevelt, Nahant, Mass.
1902 image showing Teddy Roosevelt speaking on a platform with a group of people sitting behind him.

Two women sitting on rock in middle of mirror-smooth lake.
Mirror Lake, where nature multiplies her charms
Looking (N.E.) to Mt. Watkins, Yosemite Valley, California (1902)

15 inch Rodman smooth bore cannon
Battery Rodgers,
near Alexandria,
American Civil War

random topic 001

“…being found guilty thereof, before any justice of the peace, shall receive not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, by order of such justice, well laid on his or her bare back.”²

“A fairly normal punishment: 39 lashes across the back. Not life-threatening, but extremely painful.” “Once they were cleaned up, a slave would be back at work within a week, you know.”³

“These are men, women, and families who owned a few slaves throughout their lives,” says Stacey. “The recession would hit and they’d have to sell off a few of their slaves. How did they treat their slaves? I suspect it’s just as uneven as their richer counterparts, but we don’t know that. My sense is that they’re ranges of extreme. Either they were very benevolent or they were very, very sadistic.”⁴

In about 1843, a slave named Platt was sold to Edwin Epps, a cruel small slaveholder who drove his slaves hard and punished  his slaves frequently and indiscriminately.  Platt had been born free as Solomon Northup who, two years earlier, had been abducted and sold into slavery. Northup later writes, in Twelve Years a Slave, that the sounds of whipping were heard every day and describes the brutal flogging of a slave named Patsey:

It was no uncommon thing with him (Eppes) to prostrate Aunt Phebe with a chair or stick of wood; but the most cruel whipping that ever I was doomed to witness—one I can never recall with any other emotion than that of horror —was inflicted on the unfortunate Patsey.

It has been seen that the jealousy and hatred of Mistress Epps made the daily life of her young and agile slave completely miserable. I am happy in the belief that on numerous occasions I was the means of averting punishment from the inoffensive girl. In Epps’ absence the mistress often ordered me to whip her without the remotest provocation. I would refuse, saying that I feared my master’s displeasure, and several times ventured to remonstrate with her against the treatment Patsey received. I endeavored to impress her with the truth that the latter was not responsible for the acts of which she complained, but that she being a slave, and subject entirely to her master’s will, he alone was answerable.

At length “the green-eyed monster” crept into the soul of Epps also, and then it was that he joined with his wrathful wife in an infernal jubilee over the girl’s miseries.

On a Sabbath day in hoeing time, not long ago, we were on the bayou bank, washing our clothes, as was our usual custom. Presently Patsey was missing. Epps called aloud, but there was no answer. No one had observed her leaving the yard, and it was a wonder with us whither she had gone. In the course of a couple of hours she was seen approaching from the direction of Shaw’s. This man, as has been intimated, was a notorious profligate, and withal not on the most friendly terms with Epps. Harriet, his black wife, knowing Patsey’s troubles, was kind to her, in consequence of which the latter was in the habit of going over to see her every opportunity. Her visits were prompted by friendship merely, but the suspicion gradually entered the brain of Epps, that another and a baser passion led her thither—that it was not Harriet she desired to meet, but rather the unblushing libertine, his neighbor. Patsey found her master in a fearful rage on her return. His violence so alarmed her that at first she attempted to evade direct answers to his questions, which only served to increase his suspicions. She finally, however, drew herself up proudly, and in a spirit of indignation boldly denied his charges.

“Missus don’t give me soap to wash with, as she does the rest,” said Patsey, “and you know why. I went over to Harriet’s to get a piece,” and saying this, she drew it forth from a pocket in her dress and exhibited it to him. “That’s what I went to Shaw’s for, Massa Epps,” continued she; “the Lord knows that was all.”

“You lie, you black wench!” shouted Epps.

“I don’t lie, massa. If you kill me, I’ll stick to that.”

“Oh! I’ll fetch you down. I’ll learn you to go to Shaw’s. I’ll take the starch out of ye,” he muttered fiercely through his shut teeth.

Then turning to me, he ordered four stakes to be driven into the ground, pointing with the toe of his boot to the places where he wanted them. When the stakes were driven down, he ordered her to be stripped of every article of dress. Ropes were then brought, and the naked girl was laid upon her face, her wrists and feet each tied firmly to a stake. Stepping to the piazza, he took down a heavy whip, and placing it in my hands, commanded me to lash her. Unpleasant as it was, I was compelled to obey him. Nowhere that day, on the face of the whole earth, I venture to say, was there such a demoniac exhibition witnessed as then ensued.

Mistress Epps stood on the piazza among her children, gazing on the scene with an air of heartless satisfaction. The slaves were huddled together at a little distance, their countenances indicating the sorrow of their hearts. Poor Patsey prayed piteously for mercy, but her prayers were vain. Epps ground his teeth, and stamped upon the ground, screaming at me, like a mad fiend, to strike harder.

“Strike harder, or your turn will come next, you scoundrel,” he yelled.

“Oh, mercy, massa! —oh! have mercy, do. Oh, God! pity me,” Patsey exclaimed continually, struggling fruitlessly, and the flesh quivering at every stroke.

When I had struck her as many as thirty times, I stopped, and turned round toward Epps, hoping he was satisfied; but with bitter oaths and threats, he ordered me to continue. I inflicted ten or fifteen blows more. By this time her back was covered with long welts, intersecting each other like net work. Epps was yet furious and savage as ever, demanding if she would like to go to Shaw’s again, and swearing he would flog her until she wished she was in h—l.

Throwing down the whip, I declared I could punish her no more. He ordered me to go on, threatening me with a severer flogging than she had received, in case of refusal. My heart revolted at the inhuman scene, and risking the consequences, I absolutely refused to raise the whip. He then seized it himself, and applied it with ten-fold greater force than I had. The painful cries and shrieks of the tortured Patsey, mingling with the loud and angry curses of Epps, loaded the air. She was terribly lacerated — I may say, without exaggeration, literally flayed. The lash was wet with blood, which flowed down her sides and dropped upon the ground. At length she ceased struggling. Her head sank listlessly on the ground. Her screams and supplications gradually decreased and died away into a low moan. She no longer writhed and shrank beneath the lash when it bit out small pieces of her flesh. I thought that she was dying.

It was the Sabbath of the Lord. The fields smiled in the warm sunlight —the birds chirped merrily amidst the foliage of the trees —peace and happiness seemed to reign everywhere, save in the bosoms of Epps and his panting victim and the silent witnesses around him. The tempestuous emotions that were raging there were little in harmony with the calm and quiet beauty of the day. I could look on Epps only with unutterable loathing and abhorrence, and thought within myself—” Thou devil, sooner or later, somewhere in the course of eternal justice, thou shalt answer for this sin!”

Finally, he ceased whipping from mere exhaustion, and ordered Phebe to bring a bucket of salt and water. After washing her thoroughly with this, I was told to take her to her cabin. Untying the ropes, I raised her in my arms. She was unable to stand, and as her head rested on my shoulder, she repeated many times, in a faint voice scarcely perceptible, “Oh, Platt —oh, Platt!” but nothing further. Her dress was replaced, but it clung to her back, and was soon stiff with blood. We laid her on some boards in the hut, where she remained a long time, with eyes closed and groaning in agony. At night Phebe applied melted tallow to her wounds, and so far as we were able, all endeavored to assist and console her. Day after day she lay in her cabin upon her face, the sores preventing her resting in any other position.

1. I started this researching for this post searching on the word punishment.  From there, since I am interested in the civil war and what led to it, I progressed to searching on slave punishment. In the 1840s statutes of the State of Mississippi, I repeatedly saw the penalty “shall receive not exceeding shall receive not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, by order of such justice, well laid on his or her bare back.thirty-nine lashes, by order of such justice, well laid on his or her bare back.”  A search on thirty-nine lashes led to an article on the movie Twelve Years a Slave and, ultimately, to the flogging of the slave Patsey.
2. The Statutes of the State of Mississippi of a Public and General Nature, with the Constitutions of the United States and of this State; 1840
3. 39 lashes was a normal punishment, The historic reality of 12 years a slave under expert scrutiny; March 5, 2014; by Esha Metiary. Leiden University Weekly Mare. http://www.mareonline.nl/archive/2014/03/05/39-lashes-was-a-normal-punishment (Accessed August 18, 2016.)
4. “What’ll Become of Me?” Finding the Real Patsey of 12 Years a Slave; March 2, 2014 by Katie Calautti; Vanity Fair http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/03/patsey-12-years-a-slave (Accessed August 18, 2016.)

Company houses, coal tipple in background. Pursglove, Scotts Run, West Virginia. September, 1938. (photographer Marion Post Wolcott) 30180-M2

The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.

On Flicker: Coal miner’s child taking home kerosene for lamps

October, 1935. (photographer Ben Shahn)

The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.

I haven’t done any genealogy for quite a long while.  One ancestor, a 5th great-grandfather, Francis Hopkins, was apparently on the losing side of the American Revolutionary War.  He didn’t make it to the end of the war as he was “lynched” as a horse thief. The narrative below is from History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786: Washington County, 1777-1870 by Lewis Preston Summers, published 1903.

Mike> Marilyn>Vivian>Samuel Hopkins>James Francis>Eldridge>William>Francis Hopkins b: Abt 1720 d: abt 1778

“At this time there lived in Washington County two men by the names of FRANCIS HOPKINS & WILLIAM HOPKINS. FRANCIS HOPKINS was a counterfeiter and, at the May term of the County Court in the year 1778, he was tried by the court on suspicion of his having counterfeited, erased and altered sundry treasury notes; the currency of this Commonwealth, knowing the same to be bad. He was found guilty, fined fifty dollars lawful money of Virginia, sentenced to six months in prison, and was ordered to be confined within the walls of the Fort at William Cocke’s (now C.L. Clyce’s), on Renfro’s Creek, alias Spring creek, until the county goal was completed. He was conveyed to Cocke’s Fort, but, within a short time thereafter, made his escape and began a series of very bold and daring depredations upon the Whig settlers of the county. He organized a band of Tories, whose occupation was to steal the horses of the settlers and intimidate the citizens whenever possible. He went so far as to post notices at and near the home of Colonel William Campbell, warning him that if he did not desist from his prosecution of the loyal adherents of George III, a terrible calamity would befall him, either in the loss of his property or his life.

“On a quiet and beautiful Sabbath in the spring time of the year 1780, General Campbell accompanied by his wife (who was a sister of Patrick Henry), and several of their neighbors, attended a religious service at a Presbyterian house of worship known as Ebbing Spring Church in the upper end of this county. As they were returning to their homes they happened to be conversing about the audacity of the Tory who had been so bold and defiant in his declarations and was suspected of having posted these notices above referred to. Just as they arrived at the top of a hill, a short distance west of the present residence of Colonel Hiram A. Greever, they observed a man on horseback on the opposite hill, coming
towards them. General Campbell was riding beside his wife, with an infant on before him. One of them remarked that the individual meeting them was the Tory of whom they had been speaking, probably now on a horse-stealing expedition, as he was observed to be carrying a rope halter in his hand. Hearing this, Colonel Campbell, without halting, handed the infant over to its mother and dashed out in front. Seeing the movement and recognizing the man whom he so much feared and hated, the Tory wheeled his horse and started back at quite a rapid gait, pursued at full speed by Colonel Campbell and one of the gentlemen of the company, whose name was Thompson. Never, it may be presumed, either before or since, has such a dashing and exciting race been witnessed upon that long level between the residences of Colonels Greever and
Beattie. As they reached the branch at the base of the hill a little west of Colonel Beattie’s, Colonel Campbell dashed up alongside the fleeing Tory, who, seeing that he would be caught, turned short to the right down the bank and plunged into the river. As he struck the water, Colonel Campbell, who had left his companion in the rear, leaped in beside him, grasped the Tory’s holsters and threw them into the stream, and then dragged him from his horse into the water. At this moment Mr. Thompson rode up. They took their prisoner out on the bank and held what may be termed a drum-head court. The Tory,
who, bad as he was, had the virtue to being a brave, candid man, at once acknowledged the truth of the charge preferred against him and boldly declared his defiance and determination to take horses wherever he could find them. But he was mistaken in his man, for in less than ten minutes he was dangling from the limb of a large sycamore that stood upon the
bank of the river, the stump of which was to be seen a few years ago, and may be there yet for aught the writer knows” *
* written by Charles B. Coale.

So I was dinking around with images of some watercolors from the Civil War by William McIlvaine, Jr. and I thought I recognized one of the locations and knew, if I was right, that the changes over 154 years would be much less than would be seen by most other places.

Colonial Williamsburg’s 301-acre (122 ha) Historic Area includes buildings from the eighteenth century (during part of which the city was the capital of Colonial Virginia), as well as 17th-century, 19th-century, Colonial Revival structures and more recent reconstructions.  (Wikipedia)

This watercolor by a 49-year-old McIlvaine is of Williamsburg’s Duke of Gloucester Street in 1862. During the Civil War, McIlvaine served as a member of the New York 5th Regiment of Volunteers, so his paintings were of the locations where he served.

This Google Street’s image of Williamsburg’s Duke of Gloucester Street is from as close as I could match to the spot where McIlvaine did the watercolor above . The Church is Bruton Parish Episcopal Church.

Quite a non-event, really.

Yesterday evening, we felt, and heard a bump – or thump – or muffled boom – that was noticeable, but not lasting.  My initial impression was  that it was a sonic boom.

It turns out that what we actually experienced was a small earthquake, with an epicenter 2.45 miles 3.9 (km) north of us and, according to the US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program, was a magnitude 2.8 at a depth of 4.3 miles (7 km) .

Tiny – no big deal.

Of course, now it begs the question, what about all those others in the past that we attributed to sonic booms?  Scientists speculate that some ‘booms’ are probably small shallow earthquakes that are too small to be recorded, but large enough to be felt by people nearby¹.

The following trace was recorded at Cathedral Cave in the Onondaga Cave State Park in Missouri.  Time 0:00:00 is the time of the event.  The colored marks are the times that various seismic waves reached the seismic monitoring equipment there. The location of an earthquake – and its depth are determined by comparing the times with other seismic stations.

The following map shows 3526 magnitude 1.0 or higher earthquakes in a square centered on Arkansas  recorded since we moved here in August, 1980. There were only 632 at or above magnitude 2.5, 57 at or above 3.5, and 1 at or above magnitude 4.5.   In the same period, USGS only has 53 quakes recorded of a magnitude less than 1.0 in the same region.

During the same period, the following map shows 6338 earthquakes in the region of the New Madrid fault.

In this part of the country, earthquakes are more of a curiosity than a real danger.

1. Earthquake Booms, Seneca Guns, and Other Sounds (USGS)