Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery / Edition 1

by John Michael Vlach

Overview

Behind the "Big Houses" of the antebellum South existed a different world, socially and architecturally, where slaves lived and worked. John Michael Vlach explores the structures and spaces that formed the slaves' environment. Through photographs and the words of former slaves, he portrays the plantation landscape from the slaves' own point of view.

The plantation landscape was chiefly the creation of slaveholders, but Vlach argues convincingly that slaves imbued this landscape with their own meanings. Their subtle acts of appropriation constituted one of the more effective strategies of slave resistance and one that provided a locus for the formation of a distinctive African American culture in the South.

Vlach has chosen more than 200 photographs and drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey—an archive that has been mined many times for its images of the planters' residences but rarely for those of slave dwellings. In a dramatic photographic tour, Vlach leads readers through kitchens, smokehouses, dairies, barns and stables, and overseers' houses, finally reaching the slave quarters. To evoke a firsthand sense of what it was like to live and work in these spaces, he includes excerpts from the moving testimonies of former slaves drawn from the Federal Writers' Project collections.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807844120
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/28/1993
Series:	Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
Edition description:	1
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.59(d)
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)

About the Author

John Michael Vlach is professor of American studies and anthropology and director of the folklife program at The George Washington University. His books include The Planter's Prospect: Privilege and Slavery in Plantation Paintings and The Afro-American Tradition in the Decorative Arts.

Read an Excerpt

Exploring the structures and spaces used by slaves on antebellum plantations, Vlach shows how slaves subtly appropriated this landscape as their own. These newly claimed spaces fostered a feeling of community that served as a seedbed for further resistance and for the invention and maintenance of a distinctive African American culture. 206 illustrations. A New York Times Notable Book.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Vlach interweaves contemporary reports, oral histories of former slaves and archaeological evidence of surviving outbuildings in an unemotional but powerful manner.—New York Times Book Review



[Vlach] presents us with a book that is at once album, introduction, and overview of the complexity and diversity of southern plantation architecture.—South Carolina Historical Magazine



This is a solid piece of documentation which forcefully illuminates a neglected yet pivotal aspect of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reality.—Maryland Historical Magazine



One of the most user-friendly studies of African-American material culture ever written.—American Historical Review



Contribute[s] significantly to the architectural no less than the social history of the United States from colonization to the Civil War.—Journal of the Early Republic



"A visually stimulating, engagingly written introduction to this important aspect of southern culture.—Southern Cultures



Splendid. Using photographs and drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) dating back to the 1930s, oral histories of former slaves taken by the Federal Writers Program, antebellum travel accounts and agricultural journals, modern agricultural histories, and the vast literature on the history of slavery, Vlach deftly weaves an account of plantation life in the slave's territory, back of the 'Big House.'—Design Book Review



John Michael Vlach proves himself America's foremost scholar of African American material culture in this gracefully written and profusely illustrated examination of the vernacular architecture of plantation slavery. Drawing upon the best of folklife studies, architectural history, cultural geography, and historical archaeology as well as the records of the Historical American Buildings Survey and his own extensive fieldwork, Vlach has produced an indispensable study.—Charles Joyner, author of Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community



Vlach expands our understanding of slave life while illuminating the little-known world of antebellum southern agriculture. Back of the Big House confirms Vlach as the preeminent scholar of African-American material culture.—Dell Upton, University of California, Berkeley



John Vlach's Back of the Big House uses material culture to make important statements about slave culture and society in particular and Southern culture and society in general. His images from the Historic American Buildings Survey evoke the antebellum South better, perhaps, than ever before.—Daniel C. Littlefield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Editorial Reviews

A book that is at once album, introduction, and overview of the complexity and diversity of southern plantation architecture.

"South Carolina Historical Magazine"

Interweaves contemporary reports, oral histories of former slaves and archaeological evidence of surviving outbuildings in an unemotional but powerful manner.

"New York Times Book Review"

"A book that is at once album, introduction, and overview of the complexity and diversity of southern plantation architecture.

"South Carolina Historical Magazine""

"Interweaves contemporary reports, oral histories of former slaves and archaeological evidence of surviving outbuildings in an unemotional but powerful manner.

"New York Times Book Review""

One of the most user-friendly studies of African-American material culture ever written.

"American Historical Review"

This is a solid piece of documentation which forcefully illuminates a neglected yet pivotal aspect of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reality.

"Maryland Historical Magazine"

From the Publisher

This important and pioneering study explores the scene behind the plantation houses of the antebellum South where slaves lived and worked. Taking advantage of the extensive collection of drawings and photographs from the Historic American Buildings Survey, Vlach (American studies, George Washington Univ.) vividly depicts the architectural settings of plantation slavery: the yards, smokehouses, slave cabins, barns, stables, kitchens, and other outbuildings that defined the cultural landscape. Oral histories from former slaves recorded during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as period accounts, provide powerful depictions of how African Americans transformed those settings to serve their particular needs. Highly recommended for social and architectural historians alike.-- H. Ward Jandl, National Park Svce., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

YA-In the past, much study was devoted to antebellum plantation houses and to the planters who erected them. The slaves upon whom these estates relied have only just begun to receive scholarly attention. Vlach uses interviews with former slaves, photographs, and architectural drawings from the 1930s and `40s to analyze how the black population fit into this environment. The author dispels the Gone with the Wind myth of sterile-white fiefdom and builds an accurate portrayal of plantations as dynamic places that were dominated by the master, yet still influenced by the slaves. This book should fascinate students of American history.- Hugh McAloon, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Frederick, MD

School Library Journal

Covers utility buildings--dairies, kitchens, smokehouses as well as slave quarters. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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