Grandmother MacDuffey with blackberries she has picked from nearby swamps. Irwinville, Georgia.

John Vachon, May 1938. Library of Congress.

Images like this are an invaluable visual record of the folklife of the rural South at a time when few others were documenting it. I can just imagine the cobbler or preserves she might have made! According to her grandson, Winston, this is Toby Julia Turner McDuffie (1875-1961).

Scene in the cooperative store at Irwinville Farms, Georgia.

John Vachon, May 1938. Library of Congress.

Repaired house at Irwinville Farms, Georgia. There are twenty-three houses repaired in this manner on this Resettlement Administration project.

Carl Mydans, June 1936. Library of Congress.

The casual visitor to Irwinville will still see houses of this vernacular style today. Many have been in the same families for generations.

School. Irwinville, Georgia.

Arthur Rothstein, September 1935. Library of Congress.

The Irwinville School was lost to fire, I believe, sometime after World War II.

 

 

Putting up jelly at Irwinville Farms, Georgia.

John Vachon, May 1938. Library of Congress.

John Pope. Son of a farmer at Irwinville Farms, Georgia.

John Vachon, May 1938. Library of Congress.

Mrs. Carrol in her kitchen at Irwinville Farms, Georgia.

John Vachon, May 1938. Library of Congress.

Carroll is probably the correct spelling of the woman’s name, but I can’t be sure.