[Mule Power] Metadata

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Title

  • Main Title [Mule Power]
  • Series Title Joe Clark, HBSS, 1939-1989
  • Series Title Tennessee Molasses Stir-off

Creator

  • Photographer: Clark, Joe
    Creator Type: Personal

Date

  • Creation: 194X

Language

  • No Language

Description

  • Physical Description: 1 photograph : b&w ; 8 x 10 in.
  • Content Description: Narrative by Junebug Clark in the summer of 2014: Mules and horses were the common 'power plant' used for turning the mill that the stripped down sorghum stalks were fed. The juice from the stalks were pressed and extracted to later be boiled down into molasses in large metal vats. Overall Background: These Molasses Making Stir-off photos were shot by Joe Clark HBSS in the early to mid-1940s. Either on the farm of Fred Whitaker about four miles southwest of Cumberland Gap, or in Cumberland Gap on the farm of Baptist preacher the Rev. Hugh Vancel. More information about these images can be found in scrapbooks in the Clark Family Collection at the University of North Texas Special Collections Library. Specifically in a Detroit news pictorial article published December 13, 1942 titles "stir-off party" where mountaineers make molasses and merriment. Also in life magazine published November 13, 1950 [page 156] titled “Stir-off Time in Tennessee, Fun Starts in Hills as Molasses Boils.’ Also in the library is the NBC Today Show story on Joe Clark HBSS by Bob Dotson. It features Joe Clark returning to Cumberland Gap Tennessee to photograph a molasses stir off taking place in the same location as some of these photographs and attended by some of the same people in the early 1980s. Let me briefly set the scene of the time and era that these photos were made. World War II was raging. Television did not exist. Radio reception sporadic in this mountain country. School was held only three months a year mostly during the winter months. Most news of the changes in the outside world was learned, they say, “By looking at pictures in the Sears catalogs.” They farmed steep and rolling hillsides of very poor land. In most of America, to help in the war effort, the rationing of food and other essentials was prevalent. Very few of these Tennessee mountaineers and hill folk had homes with electricity. None with indoor plumbing. Water came from wells which was diverted from nearby streams. Heat in the winter months from a single fireplace. It is where Joe Clark, HBSS was born and raised. Now living in Detroit Michigan, he returned to photograph and capture the memories and the good times of the people he knew so well so well and to document their lives which he saw changing.

Subject

  • Keyword: stir-offs
  • University of North Texas Libraries Browse Structure: Agriculture - Domestic Animals - Mules
  • Keyword: harvests

Primary Source

  • Item is a Primary Source

Coverage

  • Coverage Date: 1940~
  • Place Name: United States - Tennessee - Claiborne County - Cumberland Gap

Collection

  • Name: Clark Family Photography Collection
    Code: CFPC

Institution

  • Name: UNT Libraries Special Collections
    Code: UNTA

Rights

  • Rights Statement: Reproduction and publication of materials in this collection are subject to the policies of the UNT Special Collections department. Copyright restrictions may apply.

Resource Type

  • Photograph

Format

  • Image

Identifier

  • Accession or Local Control No: UNTA_AR0749-127-036
  • Archival Resource Key: ark:/67531/metadc286482

Note

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