#Whitney Plantation

[wandering-jana]

Live oak.

Whitney Plantation, Louisiana

Oct. 2023

[mediaomnivore]

I found myself in New Orleans, Louisiana on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year so a few friends and I went to the Whitney Plantation, which has been turned into a museum where the history is narrated in a way that centers the experiences of the enslaved people who worked there. This is some of the art we saw.

[ausetkmt]

Alabama sculpture park evokes history of slavery

[hungrytravellers]

New Orleans And All That Jazz

[vague-humanoid]

While often glossed over or ignored in histories of slavery, disabling conditions proliferated among enslaved people. “Anywhere from 360,000 to 540,000 of the 4 to 6 million people in bondage on the eve of emancipation experienced missing or misshapen limbs, deafness, blindness, congenital anomalies, epilepsy, insanity, debilitating diseases, and a host of other apparent and nonapparent conditions,” Barclay explains (16). Anything from losing an appendage in a cotton gin to arthritis represented conditions that enslaved people might endure. Harriet Tubman, for example, suffered from epilepsy. For a few minutes mid conversation, she could abruptly “ease talking, slump over, and later just as abruptly resume the conversation where she had left off” (35).

These conditions also affected family life in complex ways, the subject of chapter two. For family life within the precarity of the plantation system, disability was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, enslaved people with disabilities were monetarily devalued in a system that almost exclusively prized labor capacity. Thus, while for many enslaved people the fear of being sold was persistent and ominous, those with disabilities could dread being sold less. Enslavers saw fewer profits from their sale, and less demand existed. In this sense, disability could provide social stability. On the other hand, disability wrought social stigma within enslaved communities. “Because of stigma attached to some disabilities throughout the nineteenth century,” Barclay explains, “some nondisabled, enslaved people refused to marry or form lasting relationships with those identified as disabled” (60).

[armandposting]

if you're going to go on any plantation tour ever go to the Whitney Plantation, which is a museum and preserved plantation focused exclusively on the history of slavery. it's the first and possibly still only museum dedicated to slavery in the US and does not present itself as a pretty venue but a site of tragedy. and for the love of god go to actually learn something.

[punkinvsblogging]

2025.02.07.

finished a book

started a new book

laundry

dishes

medical record stuff

worked on an application

worked on my resume

applied for a job

SENT A WHOLE EMAIL/Job application (They emailed me back the same day!)

练习一点中文

bought a cross-stich pattern (I don't know how to cross stitch. n_n)

Read something else

nap

had a breakdown oop

Memrise: German, French, Portuguese

Read something in Korean

deleted and blocked almost all of my work contacts on my phone (FEELINGS WERE FELT.)

cleaned my room a little

wrote all of this down and still felt like I did nothing

I will be visiting Whitney Plantation tomorrow. I feel like I'm supposed to be in a different kind of mood. I don't think I should be excited to visit a plantation, but I've been wanting to go there for years, and now I'm finally getting the opportunity. I'm just genuinely worried about myself because I have been feeling very bad lately, and and the situation surrounding my visiting also isn't great. But who knows? Maybe everything will be okay.

[alliluyevas]

tagged by @medievalcat to post 9 books I'm looking forward to reading in 2025.

The last time I did one of these, I only read 3/9 of the books I posted and was disappointed by 2/3 of those, so I really hope for better odds next year, lol. But I'm really excited about these!

Fiction

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. I've been reading a fair bit of non-fiction about Iran before and during the revolution this fall and found it really interesting, and I've been on hold at the library for months trying to get my hands on this one.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (and The Mirror and the Light, but I didn't want to hog all the space with one series). Just finished Wolf Hall today and LOVED it, so now I want to read the rest.

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue: with this and the one above, I'm trying to read more historical fiction from eras and cultures I don't know as much about but find interesting and also more lit in translation!

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman: love Arthurian retellings and I've also been on hold for months with this one.

Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham: I read a lot of domestic thrillers but also hate on them. I liked both this author's previous books so I'm looking forward to her newest book that will be released in 2025.

Non-fiction

Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath by Richard Turley and Barbara Jones Brown: extremely well regarded recent release in the Mormon history field that I haven't read yet. Also incredible cover and title!

Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John Turner (my former professor!): I'm sooooo excited for this book you don't even know. I think the Joseph Smith biography canon desperately needs expansion and I loved Dr. Turner's biography of Brigham Young, I'm excited to see his take on Joseph and his life!

This Is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations by Whitney Nell Stewart: another really well received recent release (albeit in a different field of history.) I have heard nothing but good things about this book and Dr. Stewart as an emerging scholar!

tagging @xoxogothicgirl @mariacallous @willowrosenberg1997 @thebestoftragedy @tak-byvayet and anyone else who wants to do this

[thoughtportal]

In 1915, Marcel Duchamp bought a snow shovel at a hardware store in New York City. He inscribed his signature and the date on its wooden handle. On the evening this episode is released, the fourth version of this classic “ready-made,” which he titled “In Advance of the Broken Arm,” will be auctioned off at Christie’s during their 20th Century Evening Sale. It’s estimated to sell for $2 million to $3 million.

How could a simple snow shovel be valued at such a steep price? Was  Duchamp an unmatched genius, or a product of some of the biggest museums’ dirtiest little secrets: the results of pure, unadulterated capitalism?

Northeastern University professor, essayist, poet, and editor Eunsong Kim has illuminated the underlying influences of industrial capitalism and racism behind some of the most prized museum collections in her new book, The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property. She traces how Duchamp was brought to prominence through the patronage of collectors Louise and Walter Arensberg, heirs of a fortune wrought by the steel industry. Their family operated steel mills in the same setting as titans such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, whose wealth also underlies their own valuable art collections.

And as it turns out, the “death of the author,” celebrated in conceptual art like that of Duchamp, is a convenient idea for the ultrawealthy. Devaluing labor pairs well with violent crackdowns on striking workers to deny them adequate pay. Or even Frederick Winslow Taylor’s development of “scientific management,” a system that is still cited today but is based on the idealization of the slave plantation.

How much of the Modernist archive was canonized by union-busting bosses? How much of conceptual art in the 20th and 21st centuries has been buoyed by the reverence of scientific management? In this episode, Editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian sits down to talk with Kim about her new volume, which challenges generations of unquestioned received knowledge and advocates for a new vision of art beyond cultural institutions. In the process, they discuss the craft of writing, how a White artist was counted as a Black artist at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and how Marcel Duchamp got away with selling bags of air. {listen}

[little-desi-historian]

So, I’m researching the seven years war.

All I have to say is, God damn it! English, French, and all colonizers (extremely derogatory).

Also, George Washington and Robert Rogers are here to!

I’m convinced you can’t research the American revolution without researching the seven years war first.

Just this once, in this sole instance, historical! Washington had a very small semblance of moral high ground, he was an aid to camp on the English side, but he didn’t want war, he did everything in his power to prevent the war. His superiors and the French still blamed him.

I’m still dragging all colonial powers equally, additionally, Jefferson and Washington aren’t safe from my disdain.

👏 Tallmadge 👏 only 👏 gets 👏 a 👏pass 👏 because 👏 by 👏 the 👏 regency 👏 era 👏he 👏 hated 👏 slavery and 👏 we 👏 fully 👏would’ve 👏lost 👏 the 👏 revolution 👏 were 👏 it 👏 not 👏for 👏 the 👏 culper 👏 ring 👏 and 👏French 👏 backing. 👏

Tallmadge & slavery: not an exception, but in hindsight, better than most. (borrowed from @mollafer)

Above average, comparatively. Re: Benjamin Tallmadge the historical figure. (An opinion from @mollafer I generally agree with, and, but, cultural genocide and subjugation are still… well that).

Slavery is still an atrocity and makes people chattel and enforces white supremacy, it was designed as such.

American revolution, an ever growing master list of reading, compiled by me (I’m willing to crowd source should anyone have recommendations!).

New Orleans: Whitney plantation. Slavery from the black experience.

White man’s law.

On historical fiction and representation.

[kolajmag]

KOLAJ INSTITUTE NEWS

Plantations as Buildings, Metaphors and Systems of Power

Artists Tyler Allen (La Marque, Texas, USA); Rashad Ali Muhammad (Clinton, Maryland, USA); Alicia Saadi (New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA); Jennella Young (Brooklyn, New York, USA); and Karin Williams (Socorro, New Mexico, USA) gathered at Kolaj Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 13-17 October 2024 for a week-long artist residency focused on Plantations as buildings, metaphors, and systems of power. On Monday, the artists visited the Whitney and Laura Plantations. On Tuesday, they heard a presentation from Jeanna Penn (Oakland, California, USA) about Reconstruction and how she incorporates history, material culture, and archives into her artwork. Penn also spoke about contemporary artists who use history in their artwork. Ric Kasini Kadour presented a curatorial framework for the larger Castles project to which the artists are invited to contribute artwork. Click Read More below to learn about these individual artists. Read More

To participate in an upcoming virtual residency or to learn more about the Castle project, CLICK HERE.

*****************************

Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE | GET A COPY

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[geneajournals]

Georgia Land Lots - A key to researching deeds

I first encountered the term land lot in the Early County, Georgia Tax Digest. As I transcribed the tax information on Mingo Bryant I noted the land lot number and did not give it any thought. Little did I know that this was the key component for Georgia property records. Land lots are unique to Georgia.

Georgia Land Lots

After the American Revolution, the new state of Georgia experienced an influx of people seeking their fortunes.  Fueled by the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became the major cash crop.[1]  The state of Georgia coveted the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) territories for expansion of the plantation system. Increasing the population of Georgia would ultimately increase the state’s political power in Congress.[2]

 

Georgia. Drawn by S. Lewis. D. Fairman sc. (Boston: Published by Thomas & Andrews. 1812). Shows Cherokee and Muscogee territory. [3]

Over a period of time Georgia  obtained ancestral Cherokee and Muscogee lands. In 1803 the state of Georgia devised a Land Lottery system to redistribute the land to white settlers.  As Georgia gained aboriginal domains, new counties were created by the Georgia Assembly. Land within the county was surveyed and divided into districts.  Each district was subdivided into numbered land lots.[4]

Georgia held eight land lotteries between 1805 and 1833.  The lands west of the Oconee River and south of the Altamaha River were distributed in lotteries prior to 1833.[5]  Each lottery had different size land lots, eligibility and fees.  

Early County was created in 1818 from Muscogee (Creek) lands.  It was part of the third land lottery which took place in 1820.[6]  The original county was divided into districts 1 to 28 (except 24 and 25).  Each land lot was 250 acres and the grant fee was $18.00 per land lot.[7]  Click on the link 1820 Land Lottery for additional information.

1830 map of Early County, Georgia showing land districts. [8]

Early County, Georgia, District 6

Look at this MAP to view the 1820 District Plat survey of Early County, District 6.  Click on the double headed arrow to expand the map. This will enable you to zoom in and see the actual land lot numbers.

Several of my ancestors are recorded living in District 6, Early County Georgia in the 1870 U. S. Census. So far my only ancestors associated with a land lot number are my 2nd great-grandparents, Mingo and Jane Bryant.  In the 1879-1881 and 1883-1884 Early County tax digests Mingo is recorded in District 6 with 250 acres real estate, [land lot] no. 223. [9]

Beginning in 1885 Jane Bryant appears in the Early County, Georgia Property Tax Digest as follows:

Now I have a land district and land lot number for Jane Bryant.  My next step will be to search for a deed to the property.

The state of Georgia still uses districts and land lots in legal descriptions of land.  Georgia requirements for property surveys specify,  “The land lot, district, section, militia district number (in Headright Grant areas), city (if known to be within the city limits) and county shall be called out in said description.” [13]   A  legal description of land in a Georgia deed consists of the land lot, district, lot number and a recorded plat map.  A more detailed legal land description has details of the metes and bounds in lieu of the recorded plat map. [14]

Sources

Wikipedia contributors, "Eli Whitney," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eli_Whitney&oldid=1158507059 : accessed July 31, 2023).

Wikipedia contributors, "Georgia Land Lotteries," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georgia_Land_Lotteries&oldid=1132885851 : accessed 31 July 2023).

“Georgia,” digital image, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~31711~1150506:Georgia : accessed 31 July 2023), citing A New and Elegant General Atlas. Comprising All The New Discoveries, To The Present Time. Containing Sixty Three Maps, Drawn by Arrowsmith and Lewis (Boston: Thomas & Andrews, 1812), map 45.

District Plats of Survey, Survey Records, Surveyor General, RG 3-3-24, imaged as "District plats of survey." 1805/1833. Georgia Archives (http://cdm.georgiaarchives.org:2011/cdm/landingpage/collection/dmf. : accessed 29 July 2023).

“Schley County, GAGenWeb Project Page -- Land.” the GAGenWeb Project ( https://sites.rootsweb.com/~gaschley/land.htm : accessed 1 August 2023).

Lucian Lamar Knight, A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians, Volume I (Chicago: New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1917), p. 488, digital images, Google Books (https://www.google.com/books : accessed 29 July 2023).

“Third or 1820 Georgia Land Lottery”, Georgia Gen Web, Crawford County Georgia (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/county/crawford1/Land/thirdlottery1820.htm : accessed 30 July 2023).

Carlton Wellborn, Orange Green and W.Hoogland, Map of the state of Georgia, drawn from actual surveys and the most authentic information. (New York: W. Hoogland, 1830); digital image, Library of Congress (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3920.tr000287 : accessed 3 August 2023); clip of Early County, Georgia.

Early County, Georgia, "Georgia, U.S., Property Tax Digests, 1793-1892,"  all years read for entries relating to Mingo Bryant; consulted as "Georgia, U.S., Property Tax Digests, 1793-1892"; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 19 Sep 2021) > Early > 1878-1882 > images 120, 247, 391, 537 and 688 of 702. 

Early County, Georgia, Tax Rolls 1883-1887, unpaginated entries arranged chronologically, all years read for entries relating to Jane Bryant; consulted as "Georgia, U.S., Property Tax Digests, 1793-1892"; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 19 Sep 2021); Images 427, 577 and 733.

Ibid

Early County, Georgia, 1890 Tax Book, Damascus Militia District 854, entry for Jane Bryant; digitized in "Georgia, Property Tax Digests, 1793-1892", database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 Apr 2021) Early > 1890 > Image 157; citing Georgia Tax Digests [1890], Georgia Archives,  Morrow, Georgia.  

Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia, electronic edition, Georgia Secretary of State (https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/180-7 : accessed 1 August 2023), Technical Standards For Property Surveys,  “Rule 180-7-.02 Land Titles and Location.”

John Bennett, “Georgia Real Estate Legal Descriptions,”  post, Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/georgia-real-estate-legal-descriptions-john-bennett# : published 8 May 2023).

[tours2go]

Visit the Whitney Plantation of New Orleans and step back in time as you explore the 18th-century plantation museum, the only one of its kind in Louisiana. On this 5-hour tour (including travel time from New Orleans,) you’ll see museum exhibits, memorial artwork, and restored buildings. Learn about an important part of American history as recorded from first-person slave narratives. The Whitney Plantation is a self-guided audio tour experience. Please make sure to download the Whitney Plantation app on your cell phone, tablet, or iPad to listen to an audio tour. #Tours2Go #ToursToGo

[kazekirasan]

Now that spinning and weaving could be fully mechanised, the speed and quantity of textile production increased enormously. What was needed next was to provide the ever-hungry machines with enough raw material to work with, cotton, in particular. Cotton was picked, sorted, and cleaned by hand, usually using slave labour on large plantations in the southern United States. Eli Whitney (1765-1825) from Massachusetts, moved to a cotton plantation in Georgia where he created a way to speed up cotton production. The time-consuming process of separating the sticky seeds from cotton balls was now done by Whitney's Cotton Gin ('gin' meaning 'machine' or 'engine'), which he invented in 1794.

First powered by horses or water wheels, the cotton gin eventually harnessed steam power. The machine pulled raw cotton through a comb mesh where a combination of revolving metal teeth and hooks separated it and removed the troublesome seeds. A single cotton gin could process up to 25 kg (55 lbs) of cotton every day. As cotton production rocketed, so more and more slaves were used on the cotton plantations to pick the cotton balls that fed the insatiable gins. The machine was so successful, it was illegally copied by plantation owners everywhere. The slave population in America rose to nearly 4 million by 1860. Cotton was exported far and wide, the USA accounting for 75% of the world's cotton production. In Britain in 1790, cotton accounted for 2.3% of total imports; by 1830, that figure had rocketed to 55%. British textile mills worked the raw material and exported it out again with such success that cotton textiles accounted for half of Britain's total exports in 1830. As the historian R. C. Allen notes, in global terms, "Cotton was the wonder industry of the Industrial Revolution" (182).

jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The Canadian engineer William Sturgeon (1783-1850) was inspired by the work of the French scientist André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836) and the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) to create the first electromagnet in 1825. The device was a horseshoe piece of iron within a coil of wire that could carry electricity and so magnetise or demagnetise the iron. The magnetic force created could then be used to lift an object, but when Sturgeon invented the commutator, his electromagnet could now drive a motor making it a much more versatile power source. This power source has been used in everything from the telegraph (see below) to today's washing machines.mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The first photograph was taken using a camera obscura by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) in 1826. The photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras, is a little blurred, but it is the oldest surviving photograph of a real view. The camera obscura, essentially a box with a small aperture covered by a lens, was not new since artists and engravers had been using them to help their work. What was new was Nièpce's idea to permanently capture the image projected through the lens onto light-sensitive silver chloride-coated paper. This new technique was called heliography, but it had two significant drawbacks. The first problem was the image faded away into black when exposed to light. The second problem was the image was captured in negative (light areas in real life were shown dark and vice-versa). Niépce solved the problem using a bitumen solution to cover a glass or pewter plate, and so he captured the view from his window. The photograph idea was further improved by Louis-Jacques Daguerre (1789-1851), who used copper plates treated with silver to capture a positive image. The daguerreotype was bought by the French government and made public, which resulted in a boom in photographic studios. In 1840, the English inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) made the first paper negatives from which any number of prints could be made.

The arrival of the photographic camera not only permitted people of all classes to have their portraits taken but it revolutionised art. Many fine artists no longer wished to recreate the world around them as accurately as possible because the camera could easily achieve this. Instead, artists strove to capture the momentary effects of light and colour or communicate a certain emotion in their work. The arrival of the camera was one of the reasons for the development of impressionism and symbolism in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is most commonly applied to reciprocating engines as just described, although some authorities have also referred to the steam turbine and devices such as Hero's aeolipile as "steam engines". The essential feature of steam engines is that they are external combustion engines,[1] where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term steam engine can refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers etc.), such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed and patented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright.[1] It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by the Howard and Bullough company made the operation completely automatic. This device was designed in 1834 by James Bullough and William Kenworthy, and was named the Lancashire loom.

By the year 1850, there were a total of around 260,000 power loom operations in England. Two years later came the Northrop loom which replenished the shuttle when it was empty. This replaced the Lancashire loom.

[biggj2008]

Two art monuments at the Whitney Plantation