"Vlach interweaves contemporary reports, oral histories of former slaves and archaeological evidence of surviving outbuildings in an unemotional but powerful manner."--New York Times Book Review

"[Vlach] presents us with a book that is at once album, introduction, and overview of the complexity and diversity of southern plantation architecture."--South Carolina Historical Magazine

"This is a solid piece of documentation which forcefully illuminates a neglected yet pivotal aspect of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reality."--Maryland Historical Magazine

"One of the most user-friendly studies of African-American material culture ever written."--American Historical Review

"Contribute[s] significantly to the architectural no less than the social history of the United States from colonization to the Civil War."--Journal of the Early Republic

"A visually stimulating, engagingly written introduction to this important aspect of southern culture."--Southern Cultures

"Splendid. Using photographs and drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) dating back to the 1930s, oral histories of former slaves taken by the Federal Writers Program, antebellum travel accounts and agricultural journals, modern agricultural histories, and the vast literature on the history of slavery, Vlach deftly weaves an account of plantation life in the slave's territory, back of the 'Big House.'"--Design Book Review

"John Michael Vlach proves himself America's foremost scholar of African American material culture in this gracefully written and profusely illustrated examination of the vernacular architecture of plantation slavery. Drawing upon the best of folklife studies, architectural history, cultural geography, and historical archaeology as well as the records of the Historical American Buildings Survey and his own extensive fieldwork, Vlach has produced an indispensable study."--Charles Joyner, author of Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community

"Vlach expands our understanding of slave life while illuminating the little-known world of antebellum southern agriculture. Back of the Big House confirms Vlach as the preeminent scholar of African-American material culture."--Dell Upton, University of California, Berkeley

"John Vlach's Back of the Big House uses material culture to make important statements about slave culture and society in particular and Southern culture and society in general. His images from the Historic American Buildings Survey evoke the antebellum South better, perhaps, than ever before."--Daniel C. Littlefield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Back of the Big House by John Michael Vlach is featured as a source for the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division for Images on African American History. If you are interested in other sources relating to African American history, visit the Library of Congress website

John Michael Vlach is Professor of American Studies and Anthropology and director of the Folklife Program at the George Washington University. For more information about the author take a look at his website.


Table of Contents from Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery by John Michael Vlach

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter 1. The Plantation Landscape 1
Chapter 2. Big House Quarters 18
Chapter 3. The Yard 33
Chapter 4. Kitchens 43
Chapter 5. Smokehouses 63
Chapter 6. Outbuildings 77
Chapter 7. Barns and Stables 107
Chapter 8. Production Machinery and Buildings 123
Chapter 9. Overseers' Houses 135
Chapter 10. Buildings for Slave Welfare 142
Chapter 11. Quarters for Field Slaves 153
Chapter 12. Plantation Landscape Ensembles 183
Chapter 13. Conclusion 228
Notes 237
Index 251