The Comfortable Tasty Framed Cottage: An African American Architectural Iconography
Author(s): Barbara Burlison Mooney
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Mar., 2002), pp. 4867
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians
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The
Comfortable
Tasty
Framed
Cottage
An African American Architectural Iconography
BARBARA BURLISON
MOONEY
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
domesticbuilding,we need to be sensitiveto the dualcomponents of architecturaliconography,that is, to both the
visualcharacteristicsof physicalshelterand the set of meanings the structuresignals.As we shall see, the struggle for
the acquisitionof decent housing was often entangledand
ike
the
African
American
and
troubledby an accompanyingassemblageof behaviorsand
music,
dance,
language,
L
that
has
confronted
and
transformed
white
attitudes.
poetry
How AfricanAmericansrelatedto, andindeed defined,
Europeanmodels,AfricanAmericanarchitecturehas
been a processof inventionand reconfiguration,not imita- the broadculturalphenomenonof idealizeddomesticarchition.1Ratherthan a secondhandversionof the white experi- tecture is a question that is easily overlooked.When asked
ence, black architecturalhistory is a culturalaction shaped to think of AfricanAmericandomestic space, many Euroby the particularhistoricalevent of slavery;formulatedwith pean Americans, including most architecturalhistorians,
the unique purposeof fighting oppressionand racism;and conjure up images of disastrous federal housing projects
addressedto the specificneeds, aspirations,and strugglesof
such as the Pruitt-Igoe complex in St. Louis, the Robert
a distinctpopulation,people of color.The blackpresencein TaylorHomes in Chicago, or other grim picturesof urban
architecture,althoughcrucialto the historyof blackpeople and rural poverty. So pervasive is the identification of
in the United States,is also fundamentalto understanding AfricanAmericanswith only the most wretchedliving conour nationalarchitecturalhistory.2
ditions that many Americansoften feel compelled to legitNowhere is African American architectural agency imize persons of color by deliberately pointing to their
more clearlyrevealedthan in the creationand evolution in
orderly,clean,domesticenvironments.3The unpleasantfact
the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuriesof an iconogis that many white people have believed and continue to
raphyof domestic building. In the well-known white nar- believe that black people are somehow metaphoricallyor
rative of this iconography, the single-family home
literallydeficientin cleanliving.4This prejudiceservesas an
representsa site of personal,religious, and political recti- underlying premise of an AfricanAmerican architectural
tude and a space that facilitatespersonalhappiness.Often iconographythat appropriatedwhite built forms and social
referred to as the cult of domesticity, the phenomenon values in an attemptto counter racism.
implies a set of social attributesas much as any particular
By manipulatingconventionsof architecturalform and
style. In tracingthe too often neglected trajectoryof black meaning, African Americans created an iconography of
HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWH
ITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETT
YITI SVERYPRETTYPRETTYPRETTYP
Toni Morrison, The BluestEye
domesticarchitecturethatwas employednot only as a vehicle for strengthening,promoting,and buildingdecent shelter, but as a tool to combat prejudiceand as a strategyfor
gaining social acceptance within a dominant European
American culture. This iconography, consisting of both
architecturalform and social behaviors,was createdby the
blackintelligentsiaand white sympathizersprior to emancipationandwas promulgatedby powerfuleducationaland
culturalinstitutions within the black community in order
to amelioratethe materialconditions of life, replaceethnic
stereotypes, and mediate racial conflict. It served as currency with which to try to purchasewhite acceptanceand
pacify white hostility. The evolution of this architectural
symbolismalso delineatedclass structureswithin the black
communityand functionedas a point of argumentativediscourse in debates between competing African American
political ideologies, particularlythose of Booker T. Washington and William EdwardBurghardtDu Bois. Yetwhile
the origins, development, and promulgationof this strategy can be outlined with some assurance,judging its ultimate value is more uncertain.
Creating the Ideal
In order to understandthe culturalpotency of the iconographyof AfricanAmericandomestic architecture,it is necessaryto recognize the rhetoricof domestic space as it was
voiced by ex-slaves. Early narratives do not invest the
domestic space of bondsmenand bondswomenwith significant symbolic value, but they battled bondage with other
conventions, often by pleading standardsof religious and
sexualmorality.
Olaudah Equiano's narrative of 1789 provides a
detailed,almost ethnographic,accountof the Ibo village in
Africa from which he was stolen, but it does not give the
reader an image of the American and European houses
where he worked as a slave. He appealsto his white audience to acknowledgehis personhood,and by extension the
personhood of all slaves, by stressing his cleanliness,propriety, intelligence, and, most important,his yearning for
religioussalvation,therebyprovingthathe possessesa soul.5
MaryPrince'snarrativeof 1831 emphasizesthe physical
crueltyof the slavesystem.She relateshow she slept on the
floor in the passageof her owner'shouse, how she hid under
what she called the piazza of the house after having been
beaten,how she sleptin a crude,barn-likedormitoryas a salt
worker, and how white owners destroyed a brush arbor
erectedby slavesfor prayerservices.She does use architecturalimageryto indicther masters:"Thehousewaslarge,and
built at the bottom of a very high hill; the stone and timbers
were the best thingsin it; they were not so hardas the hearts
of the owners."6Prince'stestimonysuggestshow architecture
could be exploitedfor metaphoricalpersuasion.
In the narrativeof FrederickDouglass, first published
in 1845, we begin to glimpse a more purposefulidentification of architecturewith blackvirtue. Douglass sets out to
associatevirtuewith societies and individualsoutside of the
slave system, and therefore he must avoid a descriptionof
his owner'splantationthat might appealto his readers.He
carefullylinks the refinement of house and garden with a
multitude of skilled and unskilled slave labor so that the
beautyof the Lloyds'Talbot County,Maryland,plantation
is corruptedin the mind of his readeras so much unearned
luxury.Conversely,after Douglass escapes from bondage,
he uses the quality of New England'sarchitectureas evidence of the superiorityof a free society.In New Bedfordhe
was filled with "wonder and admiration at the splendid
churches,beautifuldwellings,and finely-cultivatedgardens,
evincing an amount of wealth, comfort, taste, and refinement, such as I had never seen in any part of slaveholding
Maryland."
It is with Douglass'sdescriptionof a free black man's
house in New England,however,that the centralargument
of African American domestic iconography is claimed,
namely,that an orderly,enlightened,domesticenvironment
makes the AfricanAmericanworthy,not only of freedom,
but of acceptance into American social circles, churches,
and politics. Douglass saysthat Mr. NathanJohnson "lived
in a neater house; dined at a better table; took, paid, and
read more newspapers,better understood the moral, religious, and politicalcharacterof the nation, thannine tenths
of the slave holders in Talbot County, Maryland."7Cognizant of an educated, abolitionist audience versed in the
literature of sensibility and sympathy, Douglass wisely
refrains from revealing the disgusting particularsof slave
dwellings. The sentiments or associations that could be
summonedby such a privatespacemight malignthe inhabitants and become injuriousto the cause of freedom.8For
Douglass, it is not merely the removalof the condition of
servitudebut the abilityof a blackman to constructa middle-classdomesticsetting characterizedby order,health,literacy,and moralitythat establishesa sufficientclaim to his
participationin the public sphere.9
The economic disruptionand demographicdisplacement of the Civil War provided some enslaved African
Americanswith the chanceto createtheir own domesticsettings unfettered.It also gave blackwritersand sympathetic
white authors the opportunity to utilize a set of environmentalvalues as a vehicle for claimingthe inherent dignity
of former slaves. Galusha Anderson, a white abolitionist
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
ARCHITECTURAL
ICONOGRAPHY
49
Baptistminister,recognized dignity in the domestic virtue
of so-called contrabands,blackrefugeesseeking protection
behind Union lines.
Andersoninvertsthe racialstereotypeof the dirtyslave
by ennobling a black man and denigrating poor white
refugeeswho had taken umbrageat domestic proximityto
a contrabandwhile both were housed in a St. Louis refugee
hotel. Andersonrecountsthe "unkempt"hair and slovenly
habits of the white family,whose "pridewas sorely mortified, not by their personalappearancenor by the litter and
filth in which they were living, but because there was a
Negro in the next room."He then makesthe architectural
and moralcomparison:"Isteppedinto the adjoiningapartment that I might see what had so offended these aristocratic paupers,and found that the Negro had entered his
room at the same time that the white refugeeshad entered
theirs. But he had found an old broom and had swept his
room, an old stove and had put it up; had gathered some
soft coal to burnin it; had gotten somewherea ricketybedstead and set it up and had put in it a tick filled with straw.
He had procureda wash-basin,a crackedlooking glass,and
something to eat. While his room was bare and poor
enough, he had made it look in some measurehomelike.At
all events he greatly distanced his squalid white neighbors."l0Andersonseeksto underminea systemof judgment
basedon skincolor andreplaceit with a systembasedon the
abilityof a person to createa humble but clean and orderly
architecturalenvironment.
ElizabethKeckleyalso points to the domesticsettingof
former slaves as proof of their capacityto function within
white culturalnorms. Keckleyhad bought her freedom as a
dressmakerto elite St. Louis women and had observedthe
war while in the employ of Mary Todd Lincoln in Washington, D.C. In her 1868 memoir,Keckleynotes how some
of the freedmenat the contrabandcampacrossthe Potomac
Riverat Arlington,Virginia,"pinedfor the old associations
of slavery,and refused to help themselves. Others went to
workwith commendableenergy,and plannedwith remarkable forethought. They built themselves cabins, and each
familycultivatedfor itself a smallpatchof ground.The colored people are fond of domestic life, and with them
domesticationmeans happy children, a fat pig, a dozen or
more chickensand a garden.Whoevervisitsthe Freedmen's
villagenow in the vicinityof Washingtonwill discoverall of
these evidencesof prosperityandhappiness."11
For Keckley,
it is not the materialvalue of the homes, but the self-sufficient, industriousqualitiesof their buildersthat imbuedthe
humble domicileswith stature.
The architectural and personal characteristics that
AndersonandKeckleyapplaudin AfricanAmericansareval50
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2002
ues celebratedby white middle-classculturein popularliteratureand art startingin the second half of the eighteenth
centuryandreachingan apogeea centurylater.A productof
religious shifts, nationalism,and demographictrends, the
concept of ideal familyvalues and the life they produce is
summarizedin graphicform in a familyrecordpublishedin
1870 (Figure 1).The print,with spacesfor portraitsof family members,employsa simplecyclicalschemethatbeginsin
the lower left with a healthychildhoodfilledwith education
and toys, proceedsto a chaste courtshipat the lower right,
and leads to a two-parent,nuclearfamilyin the upperright
corer. A dotingfather,like a Romanpaterfamilias,
acknowlhis
a
child.
at
edges
offspringby lifting up
Finally, the top
left, an elderlycouple enjoys,literally,the sunsetof life. The
Tree of Virtue, which producesthe fruitsand seeds of such
an exemplarylife, includesnot only the ancientFaith,Hope,
and Charity,but the more recent and Protestantvirtues of
Orderand Industry.
Thomas Nast claimed these same culturalvalues for
newly freedAfricanAmericansin a drawinghe made seven
years earlier, published in Harper'sWeeklyon 24 January
1863, andissuedas an independentandslightlyalteredprint
entitledEmancipation
in 1865 (Figure2). Using a mixtureof
and
allegoricalfigures
genre scenes, Nast createda seriesof
vignettes contrastingAfricanAmericanlife before and after
emancipationand offeredan imagineddreamfor the nation
to live up to, or not. Slavery'sterror-filledlandscape,on the
upper left, contrastswith emancipation'speaceful idyll on
the right, showing a black man playing a banjo before a
cabin.12On the middle left, a familyis torn asunderat the
auction block, but on the right the departure of a child
meansattendanceat publicschool, a buildingthat Nast has
pairedwith a steeple of faith on the horizon. On the lower
left, the rewardof slaveryis the whip, while after emancipation the rewardof labor is the paycheck.Nast's liberalism, however,had its limits. In the smallervignettes at the
bottom, his depiction of social interactionafter emancipation shows power relationsunaltered:the white man on the
horse and the blackman on the ground.13
Nast's ideal black family and their architecturalsetting fills the large center rondel, which imagines a future
where former slaves have been transformed into
respectable,familiar,and therefore acceptableAmericans.
The cycle of life is compressed into one family grouping:
chubby children who possess books, a demure courting
couple, a doting father, a productive wife, and a grandmother,who, with the aid of spectacles,is blessedwith seeing her children's children. The scene takes place in a
physicalsetting furnishedwith plush upholstery,curtained
sash windows, and an up-to-date stove, all indicating
Figure 1 "FamilyRecord,"engraving, 1870
Figure 2 Thomas Nast, "Emancipation,"printedin
Philadelphiaby S. Bott, 1865
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
ARCHITECTURAL
ICONOGRAPHY
51
drum,for the ancestorappearswhite. Eitherthe artistgives
us a very poor likenessof Lincoln, or has simply forgotten
aboutrace. In any case, it representsan astonishinglyhonest visual acknowledgmentof the white ancestryof many
AfricanAmericans.
The pictorial concern with depicting a idealized
domestic environmentis paralleledin the literatureof the
slavenarrative.In MattieJackson's1866 autobiography,for
example,the author relates that her long-lost father,who
had escapedfrom slaveryand marrieda physician,was living in Lawrence,Massachusetts.She proudlydescribeshis
prosperouscircumstances:"Myfatherwas comfortablysituatedin a nice white cottage,containingsome eight rooms,
all well-furnished,and attachedto it was a fine garden."14
Jackson'simage of her father'shouse is significant,for it is
just this type of not-too-fancy, not-too-humble domestic
buildingthat signifiesthe architecturalideal in the emerging blackAmericanarchitecturaliconography.
Promoting the Ideal
The developmentof AfricanAmericandomesticiconography can be attributedin part to the impositionof a dominant white culture. Union general Clinton B. Fisk'sPlain
Counselsfor Freedmenexemplifies how a powerful white
authorityfigureset out a behavioralcode and architectural
Figure 3 "FamilyRecord," engraving, 1880
programfor newlyfreedAfricanAmericans.His smallmanual of conduct, publishedin 1866, was meant to serve as a
textbookfor formerslavesat the Fisk School for Freedmen
materialprogress,and it occursunder the gaze of Lincoln, in Nashville, later Fisk University.Following a patternof
whose portrait hangs on the wall like a beloved ancestor. advicemanualsaimedat the ambitiouspoor,suchasWilliam
Nast's print proclaimsthat the promise of postemancipa- Cobbett'sAdviceto YoungMenof 1829, it preachesindustrition America is concomitant with middle-class homelife ousness,sobriety,economy,and piety.15Fisk recognizesthe
and reassuresthe public that the behaviorof freedmenwill unremittingracismof whitesbut advocatesreconciliationby
conform to white values.
promisinghis blackaudiencethat "ifyou arethriftyand get
A blackfamilyrecord,datedto 1880, representsa more on well in the world,they cannot help respectingyou."The
distilled version of the same message, namely, African center of the freedman'snew life, accordingto Fisk, would
Americansassimilatedinto a middle-class domestic envi- be the home. He advises:"Youmustlearnto love home betronment(Figure3). The deprivationandpainof slaveryare ter than any other place on earth.... Youshouldalwaysbe
reducedto justone before-and-aftercomparisonat the bot- thinkinghow you will make it prettierand happierthan it
tom of the print, and attention is focused on the scene at is." Fisk lists the principles of architecturaldesign for a
the top where the artist limits the number of actors to a freedman'shome:"Itshouldbe comfortable.... It shouldbe
mother,father,andtheir childrenin an interiorsetting.The
keptclean.... It shouldbe beautiful."To Fisk,the attributes
familyinhabitsa world of materialrefinementrepresented of architecturalbeautyfor a freedman'shouse consist of a
by attractiveclothes, patternedwallpaperand carpet,and a "nicefence aboutyour dwelling... glassin your windows,"
parlortablewith an artfulfloralarrangement.Takinga cue as well as "a little paint, a little whitewash,a few yards of
from the conventions of formalportraiture,the artistuses paper,some gravelwalksand a few flowers."For the freedpropsto enhancethe statusof the figures,includingthe tra- man who possessessuch a dwelling,"thegood angelshover
ditional flowing draperyand the ancestor portrait on the over the place. All the covenantsof promise are his."16In
wall. Here, however,the viewer confronts a visual conun- 1866,Fiskwasprovidingfreedmenwith farmorethana plan
52
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Figure 4 Model house, Hampton
Institute, Hampton,Virginia,1923
for decent shelter. He was promoting a radical dream of
assimilationvia architecture.
The implementation,persistence,andlongevityof idealized domestic architecturemust also be creditedto educationalinstitutions,socialserviceorganizations,andmedia
within the AfricanAmericancommunity.Black industrial
schools, women's reform organizations, and journals all
encouragedtheir AfricanAmericanconstituenciesto strive
to create a specific kind of physicalenvironmentnot only
becausea good house was beneficialto health and welfare,
but becauseit served,it was hoped, to mediate differences
of race.We examinefirstthe role of education.
HamptonNormal andAgriculturalInstitutestandsas a
preeminentearlyexampleof how both the kind of building
andthe set of behaviorsthatconstitutethe domesticidealwere
promoted among AfricanAmericans.Founded in 1868 by
Union generalSamuelC. Armstrongin Hampton,Virginia,
the schoolsoughtto supplypupilswith skillsthatwouldallow
them to live self-sufficient,economicallyindependentlivesin
a ruralsetting.The role of domesticarchitecturein this programis revealedin the school'smissionstatement,takenfrom
an Armstrongspeech:"Totrainselectedyouth who shallgo
out and teachand lead their people, firstby exampleby getting land and homes."17All Hamptonstudentsin the early
yearsof the institutionwererequiredto performmanuallabor
not onlybecauseit offereda "work-study"
meansof financing
instruction
but
because
academic
paternalistic AngloAmericanslike ArmstrongbelievedAfricanAmericansto be
in greaterneed of acquiringthe disciplinedindustriousness
thatproducedidealAmericanfamilylife.18
Hampton'scurriculumevolved over the years but was
generallydivided accordingto gender,reflectingthe concept of separategenderedspheresof influencethatpremised
the idealizedhome. In 1908, for example,manualtraining
for young men included a number of skills such as woodworking that taught students how to make furnitureand
other items thatwould be "neededin an ordinaryhome."A
more advancedcoursein bricklayingprovidedinstructionin
"layingfoundationand piers;building chimneys and simple fireplaces."A "specialcoursein house construction"was
offeredto those men who "expectto be helped by it either
in teachingor in buildingtheir own homes."19The purpose
of manualtrainingfor young women was, accordingto the
institution's catalogue, "to enable them to make good
homes andto preparethem for industrialteaching."Female
studentswere requiredto performmanuallabor in cooking, sewing,washing,ironing,andcleaningdormitoriesand
teachers'rooms. Creatingthe ideal home was so centralto
the Hampton mission, however,that female studentswere
also allowed to take classes in "simplecarpentry,glazing,
whitewashing,painting,and papering"as well as chaircaning and upholsterybecause they taught girls "to do ordinary repairingand keep their homes clean and attractive,
and to develop what a New Englander would define as
'gumption."'20
Believingthat "honesttoil cannotfail to win
from
respectablepeople,"Hampton'sfaith in pracrespect
tical skills and the chance at assimilationthey promisedis
revealedin a "seven-roomframecottage"builtby Hampton
students in 1923 and used by the School of Home Economics for "the practiceof house-wifery"(Figure4).21 By
adopting the Colonial Revivalstyle popularat the time, a
style made more emphaticwhen the house had its original
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
ARCHITECTURAL
ICONOGRAPHY
53
ington'smind that they becameconflatedin his programof
raceimprovement.He imagineda model AfricanAmerican
primaryschool as looking like "the averagefarmer'scottage," or even better, as having what he considered to be
"the appearanceand characterof a model countryhome."
For Washington, both buildings denoted "a vine-covered
cottagein the middleof a garden,with fruitandflowersand
vegetables growing all about." The interior of his ideal
school would mirrorhis ideal home by includinga kitchen,
dining room, and bedroom, in addition to the classroom.
Because Washington wanted schoolwork to have "some
relationto the needs of ordinarydailylife,"his curriculum
would have childrenmeasurethe numberof squarefeet in
Figure 5 House constructed by Hamptongraduates, before 1919,
their own homes and calculatethe cost of whitewashingit.
from FrancisGreenwood Peabody, Educationfor Life: The Story of
Then, to connect academicand social values, they would
Hampton Institute (GardenCity,N.Y.,1919)
write an "essayon the value of whitewashingin beautifying
the appearanceof a house."26
Washingtonsaw the erectionof his comfortable,tasty,
darkdecorativeshutters,Hampton authoritiesproclaimed framed cottage as more than the creation of a healthful
the middle-classassimilationistaspirationsinculcatedat the physicalenvironment.He also understoodit as more than
institution.If Hamptonstudentssawanyironyin the choice signifyingmaterialachievement.Rather,he maintainedthat
of a style so closely associated with their grandparents' the economic statusimpliedby better housingwould serve
as an efficacioustool of race progressin Americansociety.
enslavement,they repressedtheir objections.22
Booker T. Washington, who graduatedfrom Hamp- In a 1893 speech he told his audience:"When a blackman
ton, employed similareducationalprinciplesat the school has the best farmto be foundin his county,everywhite man
he foundedin 1881, the TuskegeeNormal School.23Wash- will respecthim. A white manknowsthe Negro that livesin
ington became the most famous advocateof what became a two-storybrickhouse whether he wants to or not." This
known as industrialeducation,and he explicitlypromoted was the implicit promise of the Hampton and Tuskegee
economic self-relianceand better housing as a strategyfor educationalmodel, a model that was adoptedin its entirety
improving the status of AfricanAmericans.His program or in modifiedform at manyother blackschoolsthat taught
also dependedon a divisionof laboraccordingto gender,a what was called the gospel of practicaleducation.27
divisionthatwas intendedto translatefrom school to home.
The second culturalinstitution that disseminatedthe
In order for Tuskegee to be self-supporting,Washington iconographyof the ideal AfricanAmericanhome was the
said,the "boysraisethe vegetables,have done the painting, black women's reform movement. Virtually all white
made the brick,the chairs,the tables, the desks;have built women's organizationsexcluded black women, and most
a stable,a carpenter'sshop and a blacksmithshop. The girls settlementhouses turnedawayAfricanAmericans,but the
do the entire housekeeping,including the mending, iron- nation'sJim Crow culturesharpenedblackeffectivenessin
ing, and washing of the boys' clothes; besides they make reshaping the cult of domesticity to meet its own needs.
many garments to sell."24Washington believed that the The success of the black women's reform movement
educationalphilosophyof HamptonandTuskegee,namely, dependednot only on a few elite women, such asJosephine
an emphasison the value of hardwork, practicalskills,and St. Pierre Ruffin,a memberof Boston'sTrinityChurch,or
self-sufficiency,would improvethe statusof AfricanAmer- Mary Church Terrell, who lived in Washington, D.C.'s
icans and that the rise in statuscould be measuredin hous- fashionable LeDroit Park, but on the participationof a
ing standards.Homes such as the one built by graduatesof large,less privilegedpool of blackwomen committedto the
Hampton around 1918 correspondto Washington'sclaim moralimperativeof social uplift. They proceedednot only
in 1893 that the students of industrialeducationwould be to organizehistoricallyhigh-profileactionagainstlynching
able to build a "comfortable, tasty, framed cottage" to
and unjust juvenile legal codes, but engaged in the less
the
"one
room
hovel
that
had
been
their
abode
replace
log
glamorouslabor of improving the everydaylives of black
for a quarterof a century"(Figure5).25 So closelyassociated folk.28These were womenwho alsounderstoodthe iconogwere the domesticideal and the educationalideal in Wash- raphyof the ideal AfricanAmericanhouse.
54
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One way blackwomen reformersutilized architecture
wasas a vehicleforreclaimingtheirown history.Blackwomen
organizeda nationalandlocalcampaignto preservean architecturalshrineandthe culturalvaluesit signifiedas a formof
resistanceto the dominantwhite historicalrecord.So, while
white women'sorganizationssavedMount VernonandKenmore,the NationalAssociationof ColoredWomen(NACW)
savedthe FrederickDouglassHome in Anacostiain 1918.29
Black women reformers, however, directed a greater
part of their work towardthe creation of substitutearchitecturalenvironmentsfor membersof the AfricanAmerican
community who could not create their own idealized
dwellings.At these substitutesites, reformersprovidedservices and promotedvaluesthatwere traditionallyassociated
with single-familyhome life. Because most black mothers
were obliged to work outside the home, mostly as domestic servants,blackwomen reformersfounded day care centers, such as the N Street Day Nursery in Washington,
D.C., or the Hope and Lincoln nurseries in New York
City.30Because of the sexualpromiscuityand exploitation
associatedwith boarding houses, black women reformers
establishedcooperativehousing, such as the Phillis Wheatley Club in Clevelandor the White Rose Home for Working Girls in New York City, where institutional controls
replacedparentalauthority.31
In addition to practical services, settlement houses
founded by black women reformers promoted genteel
behaviorsuch as polite conversationand the artsand crafts.
In this respect, AfricanAmericanwomen reformers concurredwith earlierBritish argumentsin favor of arts-andcrafts training, namely, character building through the
decorativeembellishmentof the home and handiworkas a
small-capitalization,income-producing enterprise.At the
AfricanAmerican Locust Street Settlement in Hampton,
Virginia, needlework, basketmaking, chair caning, and
woodworkingwere encouragedbecause,as its founder,Jane
Porter Barrett, wrote, "the chief benefit is in giving the
boys, girls and women the ennobling touch with the beautiful together with the power to earn a penny."32
Similarly, vocational education sponsored by black
women reformerswas affectedby the behavioralcodes that
accompaniedthe iconographyof ideal domestic architecture.Job trainingcould improve a young woman'slimited
job prospects,but it was also understoodas a way of imparting middle-classmodes of genderedconduct.A photograph
of a cooking class had a caption that did not refer to the
low-payingjobs that awaitedthem but to prospectivemarriage: "By learning to satisfy the 'inner man' with science
and skill the PhyllisWheatley Girls are assuringthemselves
of 'living happilyever after.'"33
The work of many AfricanAmericanwomen reformers was not aimedprimarilyat empoweringan independent
female wage earner.At its core, their effort confirmedthe
privilegedcharacterof the single-familyhome by providing
places for an almost ritualreenactmentof the social activities that occurred in the idealized dwelling. What at first
appearsto be a compromise between accommodatingthe
economic realitiesof a woman'sworkinglife and maintaining a valorizedconceptof her domesticdomainwasresolved
in favorof the primacyof a middle-classhome. In 1933, the
presidentof the NACW outlinedthe missionof the organization,including"thestandardizationof the home-a home
characterizedby cleanliness,orderliness,and beauty."She
wrote that "throughthe departmentof Mother,Home, and
Child, we would create a better environment for colored
children ... and encourageNegroes to love home, and to
createhomes (we do not meanmansions,but placesin which
children may be born and have the proper cultural background)."34NACW members were not naive. They were
intimatelyacquaintedwith the physicalprivationsof most
black dwellings, and their statement acknowledgesthose
realitiesby contrastingthe fantasyof luxury,signaledby the
word "mansion,"with the more realisticpossibilityof a modest "home"andits accompanyingset of behaviors.Like educational institutions, women reformers endorsed the
equivalentof Washington'scomfortable,tasty,framedcottage, though by 1933 that cottage was suppose to incorporate up-to-date concepts of standardization.
African American women reformers sanctioned the
iconographyof the ideal AfricanAmericanhome not only
as a way of amelioratingmaterial conditions within their
community,but as a meansof improvingtheir own statusin
the nation. If the image of the ideal dwelling could be
exploited, as Douglass did, as an argumentfor permitting
blackmen accessto the public sphere,it could also be used
by blackwomen as an argumentto lay claim to a mantle of
sexual purity and social dignity long denied by slavery's
legacy.
The black print medium was another powerful agent
promoting the iconographyof AfricanAmericandomestic
architecture. Although differences in editorial styles
reflectedfissuresin AfricanAmericanpoliticalideology,certain goals and methods did unify these journals:they all
sought to combat the rampantracist image of the African
Americanin white popularculture,andthey employedphotography to this end. Similar to photographs used to
counterphysicaland occupationalstereotypes,photographs
of prosperous black dwellings confronted the negative
images of AfricanAmerican domestic architecturein the
white-ownedmedia.Imagesof homes in blackjournalsconAFRICAN
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Figure 6 Photographentitled "The Old
Type of Negro Alley,"from The Crisis,
November 1911, p. 28
Figure 7 Photographentitled "The
New Type of Negro Home," from The
Crisis,November 1911, p. 29
veyed aspiration, accomplishment, and (by implication)
assimilation.
TheCrisis,an organof the National Associationfor the
Advancementof Colored People (NAACP),was edited by
WilliamEdwardBurghardtDu Bois for its firsttwenty-four
years of publicationand focused on agitation for political
rights and social equality.The Crisisalso served as one of
Du Bois'splatformsfor his ongoing ideologicalbattleswith
Booker T. Washington over, among other issues, the role
56
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of industrialeducationversusthe nurturingof whatDu Bois
calledthe "talentedtenth"as the most expeditiousroute to
black empowerment.35Yet both Washingtonand Du Bois
sought improvedhousing, and both saw buildingstandards
as a gauge to measureracialprogress.And like Washington, Du Bois manipulatedarchitecturaliconography.
Du Bois claimed that "all Art is propaganda,"and in
TheCrisis,readersfoundbefore-and-afterphotographswith
captions assertingthat the dirty "old type of Negro alley"
Figure 8 Photographentitled
"The Old Cabin,"from The
Crisis,October 1920, p. 26
Figure 9 Photographentitled
"The New Mansion:
Residence of J. W. Sanford,
Memphis, Tenn.,"from The
Crisis,October 1920, p. 265
hidden among urbanintersticeswas a thing of the past and
was being replaced by a cleaner, more fashionableapartment house prominentlylocated on a city corner (Figures
6, 7).36 Likewise,he contrasteda pictureentitled "The Old
Cabin"with a picture of the mansion of J. W. Sanfordin
Memphis, Tennessee (Figures 8, 9). In a 1920 issue of The
Crisisspecificallydevotedto domesticarchitecture,Du Bois
featuredphotographsof substantial,stylish homes owned
by AfricanAmericans.Although a photographof the luxu-
riousVilla Lewaro(1917), designedby the AfricanAmerican architectandTuskegeegraduateVertnerW. Tandyfor
Madame C. J. Walker, appearedin The Crisis,Du Bois's
choiceof imagerydidnot privilegeelite homes(Figure10).37
He more frequently displayedmiddle-classhouses, often
bungalows,his analogueto the comfortable,tasty,framed
cottage (Figure 11). Occasionally,artvisuallyconveyedthe
messagethat enlightenedthinkingcorrespondsto contemporaryinteriordesign. In a 1920 drawingused to illustrate
AFRICAN
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Figure 10 VertnerW. Tandy,
VillaLewaro, Irvington,New
York,c. 1917, from The Crisis,
April1922, p. 267
Figure 11 Photographof a
bungalow owned by an African
Americanfamily in California,
from The Crisis,August 1913,
p. 194
58
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Figure 12 Drawingentitled "RuthIs Not Coming Out of College,"
from The Crisis,November 1920, p. 13
Figure 13 Advertisement in 1919 for lots in suburbandevelopment,
from The Crisis,November 1919, p. 354
a short story supporting women's suffrage, the collegeeducatedheroinesits in a fashionableCraftsman-stylechair
similarto the kindof furniturefoundin the cataloguesof L.
andJ. G. Stickley(Figure 12).38
As comparedto TheCrisis,magazinessuch as TheHalfCenturyand The Competitorwere less confrontationalin
content;they were directedto a blackentrepreneurialclass
and imparteda cheerfulboosterismin their tone. Whereas
TheCrisiswas more likelyto publishphotographsof lynching victims, The Competitorand The Half-Centurywere
inclined to providetheir subscriberswith accountsof successfulbusinessenterprisesor the latest fashions.The articles in these more consumer-orientedmagazinesexplicitly
proselytizedan ideal domesticenvironmentas the stage for
middle-classbehaviorby proclaimingthat for typicalblack
subscribersa "homeis no longera mere house, it is an institution."39In the less overtly political monthlies, readers
were taught that a suitable domestic setting was one with
distinct, gender-separatedduties where men worked outside the home and women breast-fedand gave partiesfor
their own blackbabies,not white ones. Maternalbehavior,
moreover,was to be performedon a domesticstagethatwas
not only clean, well-lighted, and well-ventilated,but aestheticizedwith wallsthatwere brightandcheerfulwith harmonious colors. The advertisingsection of popularserials
sought to convincereadersthat ideal blackfamilylife could
be createdeasilyby purchasingetiquettebooks,dolls,washing machines, and a lot in the suburbs (Figure 13).40 In
some AfricanAmericanjournals,consumerismwas upheld
as the path to full participationin the publicsphere.
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Iconography into Building
Like other architecturaliconographies, the image of the
comfortable,tasty,framedcottage can be traced as a independent concept, or it can be examined according to its
impacton real buildings.Outliningsome of the attemptsto
realizethe ideal domesticsettingrevealsboth the powerand
the limitationsof this iconography.Measuringthe impactof
its imageryrequiresthat, while we acknowledgethe historically well-known environmental misery of most African
American domiciles, we also recognize individual, often
obscure,efforts to overcome privation.
In rural areas, architectural agency was manifested
almost immediatelyafter emancipation.At the Port Royal
Experiment on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, slaves
who were freed by federaloccupationin 1861 made physical, decorative, and nomenclative changes to their domiciles. According to Rossa B. Cooley, the Vassar-educated,
white directorof the Port Royal School in the early twentieth century, postemancipation architecturalalterations
includedwithdrawingto a more privatesite, differentiating
functionswithin interiors,painting trim in decorativecolors, and refusingto refer to their domiciles as cabins.Even
though many of the African Americans on St. Helena
owned their own land-and thereforehad greaterincentive
than tenants to make improvements-progress towardthe
creationof a comfortable,tasty,framedcottage was limited
by economic circumstances that could not be overcome
entirelyby gesturesof middle-classarchitecturalvalues.As
Cooley notes, some chimneys in the 1920s were still constructedof wood and daub.41
The principlesof self-sufficiency,thrift, and domestic
instiimprovementthatwere taughtby industrial-education
tutions such as Hampton and Tuskegee were furtherpromulgated by cooperative extension work among rural
AfricanAmericans.42One of the apostles of self-improvement was John B. Pierce, a Hampton-trained, federally
funded farm agent operating in ruralVirginia and North
Carolina. Pierce's demonstration work, which sought to
persuadeblackfarmersto abandonmonocultureandimplement more sound soil conservationpractices,was supplemented by the model house he built in Nottoway County,
Virginia, about 1909 (Figure 14). The house, with its genteel, traditionalarchitecturalstyle,was illustratedin Hampton Institute publications as proof of the success of its
educationalideology and as a reminderof the link between
scientific agriculturalmethods and improvedliving conditions.43 But how did this ideology fare among African
Americanfarmersnot on the federalgovernmentpayroll?
The GloucesterLand and BrickCompany,foundedby
Thomas Calhoun Walker in late-nineteenth-centuryVir60
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ginia, was one scheme that tried to provideAfricanAmericanswith enoughcapitalresourcesto constructthe comfortable,tasty,framedcottageandacquirethe propertyon which
to erect it. Walker,who was a graduateof Hampton Institute, encouragedlandlessblacktenantfarmersin Gloucester
County to pool their money,purchasea tract,and then subdivide it into smaller,more affordableparcels.44Although
Walker,who was to become GloucesterCounty'sfirstblack
lawyer,was able to secureland for tenantfarmers,his cooperativewas unsuccessfulin its other goal of providingnew
property owners with the most sought-after architectural
amenity: the bricks with which to replace the ephemeral
wood-and-daubchimneys that had characterizedso many
Virginia dwellingssince the seventeenthcentury.45Walker
built his own dwelling,and, like Pierce's,it was intendedto
serveas a model of inspirationfor his blackneighbors.Using
many of the building-tradeskills he had learnedat Hampton, Walkerbuilta six-roomhousewith the help of his father
anda housecarpenter.The appearanceof the dwelling,more
than its mere physical comforts, was of great concern to
Walker,who said that "one of the first things we did was to
whitewash it on the outside. It was the first whitewashed
houseI knowof builtby Negroes in Gloucester."He claimed
that the iconographyof housing dependedon its accompanying behaviors:"Beforeyou can makepeople want to own
homes you must build in their minds ideals of home life."
The planfor owningpropertyandimprovinghousing,which
was supplementedby Pierce'sextensionwork in the region,
paid off; Walkerclaimedthat 881 out of 995 blackfamilies
owned their own dwellingsby 1930.46
Janey McBride Leonard also realized her dream of
inhabitinga comfortable,modest house. Her story,entitled
"JaneyGets Her Desires," was recounted in affectionate
detailby anAfricanAmericanemployedin the FederalWriters' Projectin 1938, RhussusL. Perry.47AfterLeonardhad
worked her way through Tuskegee and inherited land in
Macon County,Alabama,she beganto applythe lessonsshe
had learnedabout crop improvementand small-scalemarketing. She made money and by 1930 had moved into her
dreamhouse.The seven-roomdwelling,whichwas designed
by Leonardwith the help of LauraDaily, a Tuskegeehome
demonstrationagent, is described by Perry as a "creamcolored ... prettylittle bungalow."Analysisof the recordof
extensionworkamongruralAfricanAmericans,however,has
shown that Leonard'sstorywas unusual.The lessonstaught
by extensionagentsbenefitedblacklandowners,not the far
more numerousblacksharecroppingtenants.48Fundamental
inequitiesin capitalandlabordistributionwerenot addressed
by extension work, and without ownership, tenants were
reluctantto improvehousing.
Figure 14 John B. Pierce
House, Nottoway County,
Virginia,c. 1909, from Jackson
Davis, "The Negro in Country
Life," Southern Workman41
(1912): 16
The incarnationof the comfortable,tasty,framedcot- cizing exemplarydwellings,remodelingexistingstructures,
tage was also undertakenin urbanareaswhere stylisticand and building new demonstration houses.51Founded by
rhetorical postures marked its assimilationistagenda. In MarieMeloney, editorof the women'smagazineTheDelinLouisville, Kentucky, in the late 1920s, cooperation eator,the Better Homes Campaign eventually became a
between black businesses,financialinstitutions,and social national programunder the direction of Herbert Hoover
welfare groups led to the extension of utilities to a large in the late twenties. Both racesparticipatedin this popular
tractof open land adjacentto a blackneighborhood.Capi- program,and by 1930, AfricanAmericanschaired 388 of
talized by a blackbank,built by a blackconstructioncom- the 5,960 local committees.52Newly constructedAfrican
pany, promoted by the Urban League, and designed by a American sites included "a little yellow cottage with its
black architect, William C. Bonner, the new addition to white trim,"one of seventy-fivenew houses in Port Huron,
Louisville'surbanscene accommodatedmostly,though not Michigan,and a practicehouse constructedby Penn School
entirely, African American homeowners. The styles that students on St. Helena Island.53Among the Campaign's
Bonnerchose for the houses,Craftsman-likebungalowsand stated goals was the encouragementof "sound, beautiful,
Dutch Colonial Revival cottages, architecturallysegued single familyhouses,"along with instructionin home manblackhomeownersinto the surroundingwhite middle-class agement for girls and instructionin house building,repair,
In Baltimore,a joint-stock,limited-profit and home finance for boys. Participantswere told that
neighborhoods.49
to
approach
philanthropic housing was begun by the home life was made happier"throughthe developmentof
Homemakers'Building Association in the early twenties. home music, home play, home arts and crafts,"and they
Neighborhood houses were purchasedby the association, were encouragedto participatein a "discussionof the probrepaired, and subsequently leased to moderate-income lem of characterbuildingin the home."54
African Americans at a limited profit. Inhabitants could
In his introductionto TheBetterHomesManualof 1931,
either rent the buildingsor contributemore money toward James Ford outlined the criticalsocial functionsthe Camthe purchaseof their dwellings.In either case, the associa- paign hoped to achieve through domestic architecture:
tion assured prospective investors that the "leases of all "Improvementof homes is a primarymeans to the develhouses rented should be drawnto control the characterof opment of individualcharacter.It is, however,of tremenoccupancyand insure sanitaryand moral use so as to edu- dous sociological importanceas well, becausethrough the
cate the tenantsin propersocial habits."50
conscious selection of environing factors in homes which
The Better Homes Campaign, begun in 1922, also arethe chief environmentof childrenit becomespossiblein
sought activeimprovementof Americanhousing by publi- the long run to redirect the trends of civilization."55To
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61
Ford, the function of buildingwent well beyond healthful
shelterand child nurturing.Instead,his words pointed to a
more sinisterspecter of eugenics through architecture.
With the onset of the GreatDepression,whatprogress
AfricanAmericanshad madetowardattainingthe domestic
ideal in the boom years of the 1920s was largelystanched.
Economic collapse and the subsequentgrowth of publicly
funded housing projectsinformedby Europeanarchitects
presentedan entirelynew set of conditionsand hurdlesfor
blackAmericans.But even before the 1930s the underlying
premiseson which the domesticidealwas constructedwere
being questioned.
Evaluating the Image
Judging the meaning and value of the comfortable,tasty,
framedcottage is not easy.56For manyAfricanAmericans,
the notion of decent housing has been fraughtwith possibility,contradiction,and equivocation.An evolvingcritique
of the idealizedblackdomesticsettingmaybe demonstrated
Figure 15 Plan D for a one-story dwelling, from W. E. BurghardtDu
in the work of Du Bois. Although his architecturaltheory Bois, The Negro American Family(Atlanta,1908), 72
deserves a fuller treatment,a brief overviewhelps to illuminate the problematicnatureof the iconography.
The importanceof architecturefor Du Bois is apparent in his groundbreakingbook, ThePhiladelphia
empirical data that not all black Americans were the degenNegro:A
SocialStudy(1899). Rooted in a positivistfaith that knowl- erate wastrels that white supremacists claimed, and, while
edge could overcome ignorance and prejudice, Du Bois he was scrupulous in enumerating the architectural defisought to combatwhite supremacydisguisedas racialDar- ciencies in many black homes, he also indicated that
winism by showing that environmentalfactors, including progress among members of his race could be proved by
architectureand discrimination,led to social pathologies evidence in the built environment. Among his measurable
amongAmerican'surbanblackpopulation.Du Bois'sanaly- standards were exterior finish, glazed windows, cleanliness,
sis of Philadelphia'sAfricanAmericanarchitectureimplied quality of furniture, and tasteful decoration.
Plan D in "The Negro American Family" represents Du
that improved housing-for instance, replacing common
alley privieswith privatebathrooms-would improve the Bois's best evidence of material, architectural, and racial success (Figure 15). This one-story dwelling was constructed of
race and race relations.57
His focus on domestic building continuedin his 1908 frame and sheathed in horizontal weatherboard painted white
study "The Negro AmericanFamily,"perhapsthe earliest, with green trim, similar to the middle-class New England
most sweepinghistoricaloverviewof the historyof African cottage models that Du Bois said were so lacking in the
Americanhousing. Publishedby AtlantaUniversity,where South. In plan, the house consisted of four rooms, two on
Du Bois was a professor from 1897 to 1910, his aim in each side of a wide hall; it can be considered a one-story verstudyinglocalruralandurbanfamilieswas twofold:to prove sion of what he had, in an earlier study, referred to as "the
that environmentalandnot biologicalfactorsaccountedfor plan of the old Virginia mansion, with a wide hall and rooms
the low status of African Americans, and to show that on either side in both stories."59The separation of rooms by
"among the mass of poor homes there is growing up a a passageway is significant. Although there is nothing in the
strongbeautifulfamilylife."Accordingto Du Bois, achiev- study stating that the owners were responsible for the design
ing this domestic ideal in the rural South was hindered of the dwelling, such an arrangement of rooms would suggest
because"therewas no idealhome-makingto which the bet- that Du Bois granted an increased gentility to the inhabitants
ter class of freedmen could look. There were no white, based on their greater sensitivity regarding personal privacy.
green blinded New England cottages scattered here and Architectural amenities included glass windowpanes and plasthere, no middle class dwellings."58Du Bois proved with tered walls, while further hallmarks of refinement are indi62
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Crisis,February1911, p. 18
Figure 17 Drawingby John HenryAdams, Jr., with a caption that
reads: "1910. 'New and dangerous species of Negro criminallately
discovered in Baltimore.He will be segregated in orderto avoid
lynching,' " from The Crisis,February1911, p. 19
catedby a walnutwardrobeandbureau,a washstandin each
bedroom, and a parlor table described as a "center-table
standing upon three legs with glass feet" resting upon a
"somewhatworn"floor carpet.60A particularlytelling measureof the family'sstatuswas the presenceon all the beds of
a feathermattress,a centuries-oldmarkof materialwealth.
Du Bois points to other objectsin the dwellingas marksof
the inhabitants'behavior:the religiouspicturesas a sign of
their piety, the butter-makingequipmentand food storage
facilitiesas proof of their thrift,and a varietyof magazines,
novels, and newspapersas an indicationof their literacy.In
1908 Du Bois placed high value on the idealizedimage of
substantialdomestic architectureand the culturalvalues it
signaled.
Only a few years later, Du Bois seriously challenged
some of the fundamentalpremises of the iconography of
the comfortable,tasty, framed cottage. Although he continued to publishphotographsof prosperousblack-owned
housesas proof of the materialprogressof the race,Du Bois
realized the dilemma for AfricanAmericansin relying on
domesticvirtueas a meansof assimilation.He did not question whethera particularbuildingstyle was appropriate;he
did not call for a more Afrocentricarchitecture.Rather,by
publishing certain articles and drawings,he undermined
some of the basic foundations of the comfortable, tasty,
framed cottage. First, Du Bois attackedthe assimilationand-acceptance,cause-and-effecttheory of Washingtonby
pointing to arsonand bombing attackson blackhomeowners when they moved into white neighborhoods.61Two
drawingsby Henry Adams,Jr., published in The Crisisin
1911, summarizeDu Bois'scritiqueof domesticvirtue as a
strategyfor assimilation.The promiseof the iconographyis
depicted by a drawingon the left of a businessmanwith a
captionthat reads:"The colored man that saveshis money
and buys a brickhouse will be universallyrespectedby his
white neighbors"(Figure 16). The accompanyingdrawing
on the right is of the same prosperous man depositing
money in a bank (Figure 17). Here, however, the caption
shows how the domestic covenant proselytizedby Washington was nullifiedby racism:"New anddangerousspecies
Figure 16 Drawingby John HenryAdams, Jr., with a caption that
reads "1900. The colored man that saves his money and buys a brick
house will be universallyrespected by his white neighbors," from The
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of Negro criminallatelydiscoveredin Baltimore.He will be
segregatedin order to avoid lynching."62
Du Bois recognized that the possession of respectable
housing, far from inspiringrespect, often incited violence.
According to one black school principal in the South, "a
Negro did not always feel as safe in a neat cottage with
attractivesurroundingsas he did in a tumble-downshack."63
In responseto a requestfor police protection,one harassed
blackhomeownerin Clevelandwas told that "coloredpeople had no right to purchasesuch a nice home." Thinking
back on the Klan's beating of her father, Eunice Rivers
acknowledgedthat the familywas too well housed for white
racialcomfort. Her father'stidy dwelling upset traditional
power relationsbecause,as she put it, a "Negro'ss'posedto
be in a little cabin."64In another instance, a blackwoman
boughta lot andbuilt a cottageon the West Side of Chicago
around 1910, but it was only after she moved in that her
white neighbors realized the new home was owned by a
African American. Whites arrived in the middle of the
night, threatened the family with murder if they did not
move out, and then proceededto tear down the house and
destroyall its contents.65In readingone horrorstory after
another it becomes clear that it was not only the presence
of blackpeople in the neighborhoodbut blackpossessionof
a nice house that provokedwhite fury.We might even say
that middle-classhousing constructedrace. Thomas Calhoun Walker recognized this radical power of domestic
architectureto subvert hierarchiesof servant-and-master
status. In arguing for land and home ownership, Walker
understoodthat "not only were the Negroes static but the
white people had a fixed and unalterableconviction as to
what was the Negro's 'place.'It was the place of an obedient servantwhether in home or field.... That was one of
the chief factorsin my becoming so strong an advocateof
everyNegro havinghis own home, a place of which he was
the sole master."66
So intimatelyassociatedwas middle-class
domestic architecturewith the construction of whiteness
and white superioritythat blackpossessionof the comfortable,tasty,framedcottageoften ignited,like the act of reading or voting, a violent white response entirely out of
proportionto the possibilityof any real changeto the racial
power structure as a result of that particularaction. For
many whites, the middle-class home was defined fundamentally not so much by physical characteristics,such as
size, construction, and paint color, but by the white skin
color of its owner.
Du Bois's evolving analysisof the comfortable, tasty,
framedcottage eventuallyalso rejectedthe set of behaviors
that accompanied the iconographic model, particularly
those components that sanctified domestic activities and
64
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honored women only in their capacity to run their own
home. For the majorityof black women, this was an economicallyunattainablepedestalof statusbecausemost had
to performsomeone else's domestic labor in order to support their families.67 For Du Bois, training black women
in domesticscience only servedto reinforcethe demeaning
image of servitudethat was standardfarein white commercial and performingart. Even more painfulwas the historical legacyof sexualexploitationof blackwomen workingin
white homes.68A drawingthat Du Bois published in The
Crisispointedlymocksthe pseudoprofessionalism
of domestic science as it was taught in industrialschools modeled
after Hampton and Tuskegee (Figure 18). Entitled "The
New Education in the South: Domestic Science for Colored Girls Only,"the drawinguses irony to illustratethat
for manyAfricanAmericanwomen, domesticlaborwas too
oppressingto be understoodas noble.69Du Bois'seditorial
choice of visualmaterialalso underminedthe entire assimilationist project. In effect, Du Bois implied that in the
shadowof slaveryand racialexploitation,the ideal African
Americandomestic setting can never be a straightforward
aping of white architecturalvalues.
Finally, in a 1920 essay entitled "The Damnation of
Women,"Du Bois assailedthe gendereddivisionof laborat
the root of the cult of domesticity.70He appropriatedthe
valued term "independence"for black families and associated an orientalizeddebaucherywith traditionalwhite families. "The familygroup,"Du Bois wrote, "whichis the ideal
of the culturewith which these folk have been born, is not
basedon the idea of an economicallyindependentworking
mother. Ratherits ideal harksback to the shelteredharem
with the mother emergingat firstas nurse and homemaker,
while the manremainsthe sole breadwinner."
Du Bois went
beyond the economic condition of black women and
broachedan issue that affectswomen of all races. He proclaimed:"Wecannot abolishthe new economic freedomof
women. We cannot imprison women again in a home or
require them all on pain of death to be nurses and housekeepers."Twelve years after "The Negro AmericanFamily,"Du Bois determinedthat the comfortable,tasty,framed
cottage was not only damned by its failure as an architecturalstrategyfor assimilationbut by the underlyingsexism
of its accompanyingbehavioralexpectations.
Conclusion
Tracingthe iconographyof the comfortable,tasty,framed
cottage is not an exercise in antiquarianism.Its rhetoric
echoes in current public discourses concerning the burgeoning middle-class black population, a persistent black
Figure 18 Drawingentitled
"The New Educationin the
South: 'Domestic Science for
Colored GirlsOnly,' " from
The Crisis,September 1913,
p. 247
underclass,and the limited ability of schools to alter patterns of poverty and academicachievement.71Whether it
is called a middle-classdomestic environment,a place for
impartinghuman and social capital,or an improvedchild
ecology, the compelling imageryof the comfortable,tasty,
framedcottagecontinuesto hauntwhite andblackAmerica.
Toni Morrison'sexplorationof the devastatingpsychic
consequencesof the image demonstratesits persistentand
unresolved character.72In Morrison'snovels about earlytwentieth-centuryculture,middle-classdomestic architectureis an inefficacioustalisman,a blightupon the wholeness
of black character. Like the African American women
reformersbefore her, Morrison knows that the ideal middle-classhome is not merelya physicallydefinedshelterbut
is instead a place where "they learn the rest of the lesson
begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pats of
bleedingheart:how to behave."In TheBluestEye,the desire
for a prettygreen-and-whitehouse, with the assimilationit
promises,an image uncannilysimilarto Du Bois'sPlan D,
is so powerful that the inability to possess it can, like the
inabilityto possess blue eyes, destroyintegratedblackpersonhood. Morrisonindicts the messengerof this domestic
iconography-namely,industrialeducation,with its emphasis on "thrift,high morals,and good manners"-as a cruel
trick played on lower-classAfricanAmericans.She asserts
that such a set of behaviorsis an unnaturalrepressionof the
"funkinessof passion,the funkinessof nature,the funkiness
of the wide rangeof humanemotions."73The aestheticvalues of the "FamilyRecord"of 1880, with its tableandtasteful floral decoration(see Figure 3), are unmaskedas dead
and desiccatedvalues in TheSongof Solomon,where Ruth's
table is marredwith a water mark and disguisedwith the
shardsof a decaying and self-consciouslyArts-and-Crafts
dried-flowerarrangement.74
Yet Morrison equivocateson the subject of homelife,
and, like Du Bois, she is unsure about defining a suitably
funkyalternativeto the nuclearfamilydwellingas bearerof
social meaning and personal solace. She rejects the consumerismandclassismof the comfortable,tasty,framedcottage, but she is not able to abandonentirely the home as
the font of wholeness. Her heroines are nurturedby two
parents in a secure though rundown house with cracked
windows. In place of materialcomforts, Morrison imbues
her domicilewith affection.Her idealhouse is enrichedand
its windows are repairednot becauseof the Better Homes
Campaign,sociological quantification,or modern design,
but because"love, thick and darkas Alaga syrup,eased up
into that cracked window."75The question remains for
Morrison and for Americanbuilding history:what kind of
house expressesthat thick, darklove?
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Notes
1. An earlierversionof this paperwaspresentedat the TenthAnnualArchitecturalHistory Symposiumof the Universityof VirginiaSchool of Architecturein October 1997.
2. Cf. Toni Morrison,"BlackMatters,"in Playingin theDark:Whiteness
and
theLiteraryImagination(Cambridge,Mass., 1992), 5.
3. See, for example,John LelandandAllison Samuels,"The New Generation Gap,"Newsweek,17 March 1997, p. 53.
4. One incident is recounted in "Voicesof the People," ChicagoTribune
Magazine,28 December 1997, p. 16.
5. OlaudahEquiano, "The InterestingNarrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano or GustavusVassa,the African,"in Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed.,
TheClassicSlaveNarratives(New York,1987), 16.
6. Mary Prince, "The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave,"in
Gates,ed., ClassicSlaveNarratives,192, 193, 196,198, 202. For the "piazza"
and brusharbor,see Carl Lounsbury,An IllustratedGlossary
ofEarlySouthernArchitecture
and Landscape
(New Yorkand Oxford, 1994), 269; andJ.
Daniel Pezzoni, "BrushArborsin the AmericanSouth,"PioneerAmerica
20 (1997): 25-34.
SocietyTransactions
7. FrederickDouglass, "Narrativeof the Life of FrederickDouglass, An
AmericanSlave,"in Gates, ed., ClassicSlaveNarratives,262, 274, 323, 324.
8. Harriet Beecher Stowe used a similar stratagemin UncleTom'sCabin
(1851/52; reprinted., New York,1981), 19-20; cf. AndrewJacksonDowning'sideal home, VictorianCottageResidences
(1842; reprinted., New York,
1981), ix; Adam Smith, The Theoryof Moral Sentiment(London, 1759),
36-38, 51. For the cottage type, see John E. Crowley," 'In HappierMansions, Warm and Dry': The Inventionof the Cottage as the Comfortable
Anglo-AmericanHouse," Winterthur
Portfolio32 (Summer/Autumn1997):
169-188.
9. For literacyandrace,see MichaelWarner,TheLettersoftheRepublic:
Publicationand the PublicSpherein Eighteenth-Century
America(Cambridge,
Mass., 1990), 11-14.
10. Galusha Anderson, The Storyof a BorderCity During the Civil War
(Boston, 1908), 254-255.
11. ElizabethKeckley,BehindtheScenes,or ThirtyYears
a SlaveandFourYears
in the WhiteHouse(1868; reprinted., Salem,N.H., 1993), 142-143.
12. Nast's 1863 versionin Harper'sWeeklyshowsFatherTime breakingthe
shacklesof a slavein place of Lincoln.
13. Michael Hatt, " 'Making a Man of Him': Masculinityand the Black
Body in Mid-Nineteenth-CenturyAmericanSculpture,"OxfordArt Journal 15, no. 1(1992): 26.
14.MattieJ. Jackson,"The Storyof MattieJ.Jackson,"in Six Women's
Slave
Narratives,intro. William L. Andrews(New Yorkand Oxford, 1988), 35.
15. AlphonsoA. Hopkins, TheLifeof ClintonBowenFisk(New York,1888),
104-113; E. P. Thompson, TheMakingof the EnglishWorkingClass(New
York,1966), 740-746.
16. Clinton B. Fisk, Plain Counsels
for Freedmen(Boston, 1866), 14, 33,
61-64.
17. Mae BarbeeBoone Pleasant,HamptonUniversity:OurHomeBy theSea
(VirginiaBeach, 1992), 17-18, 23-24; Robert FrancisEngs, Educatingthe
and Disinherited:SamuelChapmanArmstrongand Hampton
Disfranchised
Institute,1839-1893 (Knoxville,Tenn., 1999), 57-85.
18. For industrialeducation,see CharlesAlpheusBennett,HistoryofManualandIndustrialEducation,1870-1917 (Peoria,Ill., 937), 310-401; Francis
GreenwoodPeabody,Education
for Life:TheStoryofHamptonInstitute(New
York,1918),55-144; cf.JamesAnderson,TheEducation
ofBlacksin theSouth,
1860-1935 (ChapelHill, N.C., 1988).
19. HamptonNormal and AgriculturalInstitute, TheFortiethAnnualCatalogue(Hampton,Va., 1908), 41-43.
66
JSAH
/ 61:1,
MARCH
2002
20. Ibid., 43-45.
21. Hollis BurkeFrissell,"AnnualReportof the Principal,"SouthernWorkman 41 (1912): 307.
22. "TradeSchool,"SouthernWorkman
54 (1925):43. See also, "TheHome
in Home-Economics Education,"ibid., 157-161; "TradeSchool,"Southern Workman55 (1926): 570.
23. For Washington'scontroversialhistoricallegacy,see Louis R. Harlan,
BookerT Washington:
TheMakingofa BlackLeader,1856-1901 (New York,
The Wizardof Tuskegee,
1901-1915 (New
1972), and BookerT Washington:
York,1983).
24. Booker T. Washington, "A Speech before the National Educational
Association,Madison,Wis.,July 16, 1884,"BookerT Washington
Papers,ed.
Louis R. Harlan, 14 vols. (Urbana,1972), 2: 261.
25. BookerT. Washington,"A Speechat the MemorialServicefor Samuel
ChapmanArmstrong,Hampton,Va.,May25,1893,"Washington
Papers,3:317.
26. Booker T. Washington, "EducationalEngineers,"SouthernWorkman
39 (1910):404-406.
27. BookerT. Washington,"Speechat HamptonInstitute,Nov. 18.1896,"
in SelectedSpeechesof BookerT Washington,
ed. E. Davidson Washington
(Garden City, N.Y., 1932), 43; Frances Reynolds Keyser, "What One
WomanHas Done for the YoungGirlsof Florida,"TheCompetitor
1 (March
1920) 55-57.
28. Willard B. Gatewood,Aristocratsof Color:The BlackElite, 1880-1920
(Bloomington, Ind., 1990), 66, 110, 283; Ronald M. Johnson, "From
Romantic Suburb to Racial Enclave: LeDroit Park, Washington, D.C.,
1880-1920," Phylon45 (1984): 266; Isabel Eaton, "RobertGould Shaw
House and Its Work,"The Crisis6 (1913): 141-143; Anne Ruggles Gere,
Intimate Practices:Literacyand Cultural Workin U.S. Women'sClubs,
1880-1920 (Urbana,1997),6, 70, 118;DaphneSpain,HowWomenSavedthe
City(Minneapolis,2001), 98-103, 118-122.
29. MaryB. Talbert,"TheFrederickDouglassHome," TheCrisis13 (1917):
174-176; idem, "Concerningthe FrederickDouglassMemorial,"TheCrisis 14 (1917): 167-168; and "The Douglass Home," The Crisis15 (1918):
164.
30. A. W Hunton, "Women'sClubs:Caringfor the Children,"The Crisis
2 (1911): 78-79; and "The 'N' Street Day Nursery,"The Crisis3 (1912):
165-166.
31. Jane E. Hunter, "The Phillis Wheatley Association,"SouthernWorkman 60 (1931): 513-518; "Women'sClubs,"TheCrisis4 (1912): 38-39.
32. A. W. Hunton, "ASocialCenterin Hampton,Va.,"TheCrisis4 (1912):
146; Louise E Price, "Virginia'sWelfare Work with Negroes," Southern
Workman56 (1927): 326.
33. The Competitor
1 (March 1920):53.
34. Elizabeth Lindsay Davis, LiftingAs They Climb(New York, 1996),
87-90.
35. W. E. BurghardtDu Bois,"TheTalentedTenth,"in TheNegroProblem:
A SeriesofArticlesbyRepresentative
AmericanNegroesof Today(1903; reprint
ed., Miami, 1969), 33-75.
36. For Du Bois'stheory of art, see W. E. BurghardtDu Bois, "Criteriaof
Negro Art,"The Crisis32 (1926): 296; and Keith E. Byerman,Seizingthe
Word:History,Art, and Self in the Workof W E. B. Du Bois(Athens, Ga.,
1994), 100-137.
37. The Crisis 23 (1922): 287; "WealthiestNegro Woman's Suburban
House,"New YorkTimesMagazine,2 November 1917,p. 6; CarsonAnthony
Anderson,"The PracticeofVertnerW Tandy,"master'sthesis (University
of Virginia, 1983), 132-137.
38. Willis Richardson,"The Deacon'sAwakening,"
TheCrisis21 (1920):13.
39. Robert L. Vann, "Why This Magazine,"The Competitor1 (January
1920):2.
40. CharlesH. Carroll,M.D., "HealthHints to Mothers,"The Competitor
1 (January1920):40-42; TheCrisis22 (1921):285. For etiquetteand social
in Mind:BlackSoutherners
in theAge of
behavior,see Leon Litwack,Trouble
Jim Crow(New York,1998), 81.
41. ElizabethLasch-Quinn,BlackNeighbors:
RaceandtheLimitsofReformin
theAmericanSettlementHouseMovement,1890-1945 (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1993), 106-109; RossaB. Cooley,HomesoftheFreed(1926;reprinted., New
York,1970), 117-158.
42. ErwinH. Goldenstein,"BookerT. WashingtonandCooperativeExtenReview40 (April1989):4-14.
sion,"NegroEducational
43. Jackson Davis, "The Negro in Country Life," SouthernWorkman41
(1912): 16-21.
44. J. W. Churchand CarlyleEllis, "The Devil and Tom Walker,"World's
Work24 (1912): 702-703; cf. George F Bagby,"WilliamG. Price and the
GloucesterAgriculturalandIndustrialSchool,"VirginiaMagazineofHistory
andBiography108 (2000): 56-57, 61, 78, 81.
45. Thomas CalhounWalker,TheHoney-PodTree:TheLifeStoryof Thomas
CalhounWalker(New York,1958), 108.
46. Ibid., 78, 85, 106, 114.
47. RhussusL. Perry,"JaneyGets Her Desires,"in James Seay Brown,Jr.,
ed., Up BeforeDaylight:Life Historiesfrom the Alabama Writers'Project,
1938-1939 (Tuscaloosa,Ala., 1982), 169-175.
48. KarenFerguson,"Caughtin 'No Man'sLand':The Negro Cooperative
Demonstration Service and the Ideology of Booker T. Washington,
1900-1918,"AgriculturalHistory72 (Winter, 1998):47-53.
49. J. M. Ragland,"Negro Housing in Louisville,"SouthernWorkman58
(1929): 22-28. For a similar development in Atlanta,see "Model Negro
53 (1924): 336.
Suburb,"SouthernWorkman
50. SarahCollins Fernandis,"AMore ExcellentWay,"SouthernWorkman
53 (1924): 526-528.
51. James Ford, "BetterHomes in America,"in BlancheHalbert, ed., The
BetterHomesManual(Chicago, 1931), 741-748; Janet Hutchinson, "The
Curefor Domestic Neglect: BetterHomes in America,1922-1935,"in Perin VernacularArchitecture,
no. 2, ed. CamilleWells (Columbia,Mo.,
spectives
1986), 168-178.
52. Helen Storrow,"BetterHomes for Negroes in America,"Opportunity
9
(June 1931): 174-177; and Blanche Halbert, "Leadership for Better
56 (1927): 169-171; "WhyAmericaWill Have
Homes,"SouthernWorkman
Better Homes," SouthernWorkman58 (1929): 216-223; "Negro Citizens
Demonstrate'BetterHomes,' " SouthernWorkman
59 (1930): 171-188.
53. John M. Gries andJamesFord, NegroHousing(1932; reprinted., New
York,1969), 249-257; "Penn School Prize,"SouthernWorkman
53 (1924):
394-395.
54. Ford, "BetterHomes in America,"742-743.
55. JamesFord, "Introduction,"in Halbert,ed., BetterHomesManual,x.
56. For a condemnation,see KevinK. Gaines, UpliftingtheRace:BlackLeadership,Politics,andCulturein theTwentieth
Century(ChapelHill, N.C., 1996),
78-80.
57. W.E.B.Du Bois, ThePhiladelphia
Negro:ASocialStudy(1899;reprinted.,
Philadelphia,1996), 293-294.
58. WE. BurghardtDu Bois, ed., "The Negro AmericanFamily,"Atlanta
13 (1908): 51-52.
UniversityPublications
59. WE. BurghardtDu Bois, "TheNegroes of Farmville,Virginia:A Social
Study,"BulletinoftheDepartment
ofLabor,no. 14 (Washington,D.C., 1898),
26.
60. Du Bois, "Negro AmericanFamily,"71-73.
61. See, for instance, "Dynamite in Kansas City," The Crisis3 (1912):
160-162.
62. ForJohn Henry Adams,Jr., see WayneMartinMellinger,"Ancestors:
John Henry Adams and the Image of the 'New Negro,' " International
ReviewofAfrican-American
Art 14, no. 1 (1997): 29-33.
63. Litwack,Troublein Mind, 335.
64. Kenneth Kusmer,A GhettoTakesShape:BlackCleveland,1870-1930
(Urbana,1976), 167;Litwack,Troublein Mind,29.
65. Louise de Koven Bowen, TheColored
Peopleof Chicago(Chicago, 1913),
np.
66. Walker,Honey-PodTree,105.
67. In 1918, for example,68 percentof blackmothersin Athens, Georgia,
workedas laundresses;David C. Barrow,"SanitaryConditionsAmong the
Negroes of Athens, Georgia,"Phelps Stokes Studies,no. 4, Bulletinof the
Universityof Georgia18 (July 1918):22.
68. Litwack,Troublein Mind, 342.
69. TheCrisis6 (1913):247.
70. The essay originallyappearedin Darkwater:Voices
from withinthe Veil
and is reprintedin W.E. B. Du Bois:A Reader,ed. David LeveringLewis
(New York,1995), 299-312.
71. See, for example,JamesTraub,"SchoolsAreNot the Answer,"New York
TimesMagazine,16January2001, pp. 52-57, 68, 81, 90-91.
72. See also GiavannaMunafo," 'No Sign of Life'-Marble-Blue Eyes and
LakefrontHouses in TheBluestEye,"Literature,
Interpretation,
Theory6, nos.
1-2 (1995): 1-9.
73. Toni Morrison, TheBluestEye(New York,1970), 83.
74. Toni Morrison,Songof Solomon(New York,1977), 12.
75. Morrison,BluestEye, 12.
Illustration Credits
Figures 1-3. Libraryof Congress,Prints and PhotographsDivision
Figure4. Photographby author
All others as noted in captions
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
ARCHITECTURAL
ICONOGRAPHY
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