Antebellum houses are a highly significant and irreplaceable cultural resource; yet in many cases, various factors lead to their slow deterioration with little hope for a financially viable way to restore them. In Hancock County, Georgia, intensive cultivation of cotton beginning in the 1820s led to a strong plantation economy prior to the Civil War. In the twenty-first century, however, Hancock has been consistently ranked among the stateʼs poorest counties. Surveying known and undocumented antebellum homes to determine their current condition, occupancy, and use allows for a clearer understanding of the outlook for the antebellum houses of Hancock County. Each of the antebellum houses discussed in this thesis tells a unique part of Hancockʼs history, which in turn helps historians better understand a vanished era in southern culture.
Covering the full range of building in the South from 1607 to the 1820s, An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape is now available for the first time in paperback. This unique and exhaustive compilation traces the origin and development of an American architectural vocabulary in the colonies and states of the eastern seaboard from Delaware to Georgia. From the fortified earthfast dwellings of Jamestown to the intellectualized landscape of Monticello, southern architectural forms underwent major changes in their early period, as did the language of building. Carl R. Lounsbury's illustrated glossary of architectural and landscape terms delineates regional and traditional terminology as well as classical influences introduced in America through English architectural books and by professionally trained craftsmen. Featuring 1,500 terms ranging from building types to methods of construction, Lounsbury's book is the first of its kind to identify and define the language of building during this formative period of American architecture. Abundantly illustrated with over 300 photographs and drawings, An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape is an ideal, and now affordable, resource for architectural and cultural historians, preservationists, students of architecture, and anyone who works with older buildings.
Covering the full range of building in the early South from 1607 to the 1820s, this handsome, informative reference identifies and defines the language of building during a formative period of architectural development. The 1,500 architectural and landscape terms, ranging from building types to methods of construction, delineate both regional and traditional terminology as well as classical influences introduced by English architectural books and professionally trained craftsmen. Abundantly illustrated with some 300 bandw photographs and drawings. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Few things evoke thoughts and memories of the past more than a house from a bygone era, and few places are identified and symbolized more by historic dwellings than the American South. Plantation houses built with columned porticos and wide porches, stout chimneys, large rooms, and sweeping staircases survive as legacies of both a storied and troubled past. These homes are at the heart of a complex web of human relationships that have shaped the social and cultural heritage of the region for generations. Despite their commanding appearance, the region's plantation houses have proven to be fragile relics of history, vulnerable to decay, neglect, and loss. Today, only a small percentage of the South's antebellum treasures survive. In Southern Splendor: Saving Architectural Treasures of the Old South, historians Marc R. Matrana, Robin S. Lattimore, and Michael W. Kitchens explore almost fifty houses built before the Civil War that have been authentically restored or preserved. Methodically examined are restoration efforts that preserve not only homes and other structures, but also the stories of those living in or occupying those homes. The authors discuss the challenges facing specific plantation homes and their preservation. Featuring over 275 stunning photographs, as well as dozens of firsthand accounts and interviews with those involved in the preservation of these historic properties, Southern Splendor describes the leading role the South has played, since the nineteenth century, in the historic preservation movement in this country.
From early colonial times to the onset of the Civil War, the finest examples of antebellum architecture in the South are revealed in glorious photographs and a scholarly text. This handsome volume is the culmination of a distinguished series that has explored the historic buildings of the Old South. The fruit of fifteen years of travel and research, Architecture of the Old South surveys the most beautiful and historic buildings of the region and illustrates them with color photographs, old prints and drawings. The authoritative, and sometimes amusing text documents a surprising conclusion-that most of the great buildings of the Old South were created by Yankee builders and that the South participated more fully in the mainstream of American life before the Civil War than has been fully appreciated. Indeed, the illustrations and text of Architecture of the Old South, though presenting famous shrines, explore the unexpected by-ways of Southern architecture and history. The great buildings of great cities-Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans-and plantations and country houses of the gentry are well represented. But here also can be found a wealth of the unfamiliar-frontier cabins, eccentric houses built by gentlemen amateurs, grand designs of professional designers from England and Europe. When the "Architecture of the Old South" series was begun in 1981, the New York Times praised the first of these volumes as "dignified and handsome, with engaging texts that strike a neat balance between architectural scholarship and social history." Mills Lane, a native Georgian who was educated at Harvard, boasts that he is "a Yankee above the waist and a Southerner below the waist." He has brought to his subject an affection and familiarity with the South balanced by a wider perspective. As publisher of The Beehive Press, located in a house facing one of Savannah's verdant squares, Lane has produced more than fifty books about the cultural and social history of Georgia and the South. In an age that seems to spin bigger and faster, Lane was honored with a 1993 commendation by Dartmouth College Library for his "clear vision, patient scholarly investigation and persistent progress". As author, Mills Lane has written eight previous volumes in the "Architecture of the Old South" series, state-by-state surveys of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky-Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Misssisippi-Alabama and Louisiana. 250 illustrations
With these words William Baldwin and Elizabeth Turk lay the foundation for a stunning visual journey into the Southern home. The images found within these pages tell as much about the definition of home as they do about certain aspects of design. Taken from the Historic American Buildings Survey or HABS collection--which began as Depression-era works program--these images document the grace and unique nature of the Southern home. While some of the images show the grandeur of the old plantation house, others reveal a much simpler side of Southern living. And while there are always elements that are distinctive to each home there is an ever-present theme that reminds the reader that home is not just a structure, but also a reflection of our dreams. Compiled from over seventy years of HABS images, this arrangement is a matchless illustrated history of Southern architecture and design. Whether a stately mansion or a decaying rural farmhouse, the images within are a visual essay into the true nature and being of the South and Southern home.
In the battles to determine the destiny of the United States in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, St. Louis, then at the hinge between North, South, and West, was ideally placed to bring these sections together. At least, this was the hope of a coterie of influential St. Louisans. But their visions of re-orienting the nation's politics with Westerners at the top and St. Louis as a cultural, commercial, and national capital crashed as the country was tom apart by convulsions over slavery, emancipation, and Manifest Destiny. While standard accounts frame the coming of the Civil War as strictly a conflict between the North and the South who were competing to expand their way of life, Arenson shifts the focus to the distinctive culture and politics of the American West, recovering the region’s importance for understanding the Civil War and examining the vision of western advocates themselves, and the importance of their distinct agenda for shaping the political, economic, and cultural future of the nation.
