"It was a very large plantation, and all the buildings were substantial and commodious, except the negro-cabins, which were the smallest I had seen-I thought not more than twelve feet square interiorly. They stood in two rows, with a wide street between them. They were built of logs, with no windows-no opening at all, except the doorway, with no trees about them, or porches, or shades of any kind."

nw=127&hl=en&start=4&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvictorian%2Bdinner%2Btable%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dopera%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG Victorian Place Setting

Booker T. Washington I cannot recall “a single instance during my childhood” when my family “ate a meal in a civilized manner.” “meals were gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get theirs” Random scraps for children, perhaps a “tin plate held on the knees” for adults.

Frederick Douglass A slave child “is never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded for soiling the tablecloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor” “The children were called, like so many pigs; and like so many pigs they would come.”

“He is never expected to act like a nice little gentleman, for he is only a rude little slave.” As a child, he ate from a wooden trough with an oyster shell.

"...coarse gray gowns, generally very much burned and dirty; which, for greater convenience of working in the mud, were reefed up with a cord drawn tightly about the body, a little above the hips-the spare amount of skirt bagging out between this and the waist proper. On their legs were loose leggins or pieces of blanket or bagging wrapped about, and lashed with thongs; and they wore very heavy shoes. Most of them had handkerchiefs, only, tied around their heads; some wore men's caps, or old slouched hats, and several were bareheaded."

"Each man gets in the fall two shirts of cotton drilling, a pair of woolen pants and a woolen jacket. In the spring, two shirts of cotton shirting and two pr. of cotton pants.... Each woman gets in the fall six yds. of woolen cloth, six yds. of cotton drilling and needle, skein of thread and one-half dozen buttons. In the spring six yds. of cotton shirting and six yds. of cotton cloth similar to that for men's pants, needle, thread, and buttons. Each worker gets a stout pr. of shoes each fall, and a heavy blanket every third year."

Slave clothing was typically made of “negro cloth” Charleston, SC law (1822): “’Negroes should be permitted to dress only in coarse stuffs such as coarse woolens or worsted stuffs for winter—and coarse cotton stuffs for summer…”

“every distinction should be created between the whites and the negroes, calculated to make the latter feel the superiority of the former”

Jacobs Patrollers Setting her house Serving at dinner Escaping Hiding Garret Linsey Woolsey

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?