FORTY-NINE COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS DOCUMENTING AMERICAN OUTHOUSES AND PRIVIES, 1970S
Item #1734
A wonderfully focused vernacular photographic survey of American outhouses, privies, and portable toilets, comprising forty-nine color snapshots, each approximately 3⅜ x 3½ inches. Dating primarily from 1977 and 1978, with at least one image identified as 1972, the photographs record structures ranging from weathered wooden and brick rural privies to school and church facilities, modern portable toilets, and humorous commercial and parade references to the outhouse.
Many are photographed in their surroundings—cornfields, farmyards, roadsides, wooded areas, and small Midwestern communities—and several include interior views. Locations recorded on the versos include Tipton County, Bristol, Rochester, Lafayette, and other sites in Indiana; Napoleon, Ohio; and Illinois. Other captions identify structures behind a former country school, near churches, along highways, and at local events. One particularly detailed caption credits photographer Marguerite Wiebusch, who may have assembled or contributed to the larger group.
An engaging folk-architectural typology documenting a rapidly disappearing feature of the rural American landscape, with additional interest for scholars and collectors of vernacular architecture, sanitation, roadside culture, and conceptual or serial photography.
About half of the photographs bear manuscript locations or dates on the versos; others are blank. Generally very good, with occasional light edge wear, minor surface marks, and the characteristic fading and reddish color shift of 1970s snapshots.
Price: $350.00