Category: Photography

Source: Image Collections Online – “Prayer house on way to Coffin’s Point”

This is another Hohenberger photograph, taken at Coffin Point on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, in 1938. There is no term in either the Thesaurus of Graphic Materials or in the Library of Congress subject heading authority file for “praise houses.” This is an oversight that should be remedied, but there just isn’t enough justification for us proposing such a heading, since there are only two images in our collection that it would apply to. So I had to find another way to describe this photo. African American churches is as close as I could get. It is not perfect, and I hate that, but it’s the best I could do.

Why does it matter? If you search our catalog for “praise houses,” you will not find this photo. If something is unfindable, it’s not of much use to our patrons.

As far as I can tell, this (and the other praise house Hohenberger photographed) are no longer extant. This makes his photos of them even more important, I think.

Source: Image Collections Online – “Jennie Smith on porch”

Part of my job (a too small part, but I’m a little biased) involves working on adding metadata to the Frank Hohenberger photo collection. I have lamented and complained and whined that there is not a good way to blog about these images, because some of them are quite wonderful. But it just occurred to me that the “press this” bookmarklet might be the perfect solution.

So, I give you one of the first images I cataloged: Jennie Smith sitting on her porch in Barbourville, Kentucky, smoking a corncob pipe, taken by Hohenberger in 1933. I love everything about this photo.