National Humanities Center Life on an Antebellum Plantation a live, online professional development seminar

Focus Questions How did the self-contained environment of a plantation—its layout, buildings, isolation, and use of the land—influence the lives and self-image of the enslaved? What made a plantation "home?" What made a plantation "hell"? How did a slave reconcile "home" and "hell"? What can plantation photographs tell us about plantation life?

John Michael Vlach Professor of American Studies and Anthropology, The George Washington University The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts Common Places: Readings in Vernacular Architecture (with Dell Upton), By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife Plain Painters: Making Sense of American Folk Art Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery The Planter's Prospect: Privilege and Slavery in Plantation Paintings Barns (winner of the 2003 Kniffen Prize for Best Book on North American Material Culture).

Focus Questions How did the self-contained environment of a plantation—its layout, buildings, isolation, and use of the land—influence the lives and self- image of the enslaved? What made a plantation "home?" What made a plantation "hell"? How did a slave reconcile "home" and "hell"? What can plantation photographs tell us about plantation life?

Final questions, thoughts, comments?

Final slide. Thank you.