Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
July 1939. "Corner of tobacco farmer's front room. Shows enclosed stairway and corner of the new fancy bed. Person County, North Carolina." (Whitfield home.) Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange. View full size.
I've visited an abandoned mill town here in North Carolina where the company houses look similar. In particular the enclosed stairs are something you don't see much anymore; in the mill town the steps for every single stairway were apparently removable, because they were all missing.
The bed appears to have tiger maple veneer -- fancy indeed.
Thomas Jefferson's home has cat doors for the inside rooms--only, being the architect he was, his were single round "portholes" near the bottom and in the center, just the right size for cats.
There appears to be a cut-out in the lower corner of the stairway door. I wonder if this family had a cat?
While cats are usually considered pets these days, on farms they were necessary to keep the vermin population under control.
Calendars appear to show January and June 1939.
See link below for how those months would be displayed on this type of calendar:
...the calendar on the left is showing the month of January; the one on the right is showing March.
Conjecture: the photo was published in July, but taken in February?
[The calendar on the right is June 1939. - Dave]
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5