Lee, Russell, photographer. Negro mother teaching children numbers and alphabet in home of sharecropper. Transylvania, Louisiana. Louisiana East Carroll Parish Transylvania United States, 1939. Jan. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017781947/.
This photograph is relevant for students learning about sharecropping or educational opportunities for Black children in the South in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. The photograph contains many details for children to examine and offers a glimpse into the home of a Black family in Louisiana in the 1930s. Students may be interested in comparing their own educational experiences with the homeschool environment shown in the photograph. This photograph pairs well with the biography The Oldest Student by Rita Lorraine Hubbard, which tells the story of Mary Walker. According to the book, Mary Walker was born into slavery and later worked as a sharecropper before learning to read at age 116. Hubbard explains that Mary Walker worked as a sharecropper for four decades, though she was no longer working as a sharecropper at the time this photograph was taken. Students can examine the photo as they learn about Mary Walker’s story in order to get a better understanding of what it was like to be a sharecropper and why access to education was limited for many Black children at the time.
This 1939 photograph shows a Black mother teaching her two children using a banner showing numbers and the alphabet. The caption states that the photo was taken inside the home of a sharecropper. This photograph offers students an opportunity to peek inside the home of a sharecropping family in the 1930s. Examining this photograph can help students generate questions about what it was like to be a sharecropper, why educational opportunities were limited for Black children, or what it was like for Black families in the South in the early 20th century. Rita Lorraine Hubbard’s biography The Oldest Student will give students the opportunity to learn about Mary Walker, who lived through slavery and decades of work as a sharecropper before finally getting the opportunity to learn to read at 116. As students learn about Mary Walker’s story and examine this photograph, they can learn more about what educational barriers people faced during this time period. This photograph and Mary Walker’s story provide insight into the perseverance and strength of Black families working to overcome educational or socioeconomic obstacles.
This black-and-white photograph was taken in Transylvania, Louisiana, in January 1939 by photographer Russell Lee. It shows a Black woman teaching her children in the home of a sharecropper, though the caption does not explicitly state whether she herself is the sharecropper who resides in the house. She uses a long stick or cane as a pointer while referencing a banner with handwritten letters of the alphabet and the numbers one through ten. The banner appears to read “the rains are falling.” Various household objects are pictured, including an iron, a pitcher, an oil lamp, and a calendar. Teachers can help students understand what it was like for Black families in Louisiana and other Southern states during the 1930s. Students will likely benefit from instruction on sharecropping. According to PBS, sharecropping originated after the Civil War as freed slaves searched for jobs. The article explains that “sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop” (“Sharecropping” 2021). Sharecroppers grew cash crops on rented land, sometimes borrowing equipment and using materials from the landlord on credit. PBS explains that “high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted, requiring the debt to be carried over until the next year or the next. Laws favoring landowners made it difficult or even illegal for sharecroppers to sell their crops to others besides their landlord, or prevented sharecroppers from moving if they were indebted to their landlord” (“Sharecropping” 2021). The article notes that roughly one-third of sharecroppers were Black and two-thirds were white.
- What is happening in this photograph, and how does it relate to Mary Walker’s story as told in The Oldest Student?
- What educational barriers did Mary Walker face before she finally learned to read? How does her experience compare to the children in this photograph?
- How did Mary Walker overcome these barriers?
- What was sharecropping and how did it prevent families from achieving financial stability?
Texas ELAR TEKS
4.6(B-H): Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts. The student is expected to: . . . (B) generate questions about text before, during, and after reading to deepen understanding and gain information; (C) make and correct or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures; (D) create mental images to deepen understanding; (E) make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society; (F) make inferences and use evidence to support understanding; (G) evaluate details read to determine key ideas; (H) synthesize information to create new understanding.
- Teachers can choose from a variety of comprehension skills as a focus of their analysis of the photo and The Oldest Student. Students can generate questions and predictions based on the photograph before expanding their knowledge of sharecropping by reading the text and exploring other resources. The photograph (and others linked below) can help students gain an understanding of sharecropping in order to create mental images as they read The Oldest Student. Students can make inferences regarding the differences between the photograph and the experience of Mary Walker. Alternatively, teachers can focus on identifying the main idea of the text using supporting details from the book.
4.7(A-G): Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed. The student is expected to (A) describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected texts; (B) write responses that demonstrate understanding of texts, including comparing and contrasting ideas across a variety of sources; (C) use text evidence to support an appropriate response; (D) retell, paraphrase, or summarize texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order. (E) interact with sources in meaningful ways such as notetaking, annotating, freewriting, or illustrating; (F) respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate; and (G) discuss specific ideas in the text that are important to the meaning.
- Students can respond to the image and the text in writing as they make comparisons and describe connections between the two. Students can also write about connections between the photo/text and society or with their own educational or familial experiences. Teachers can also have students retell or summarize the text and describe what they see in the photograph.
- Teachers can pair this photograph with Rita Lorraine Hubbard’s biography The Oldest Student, which tells the story of a former sharecropper who learns to read at age 116. The text gives students an opportunity to consider what barriers its subject, Mary Walker, faced in her path to literacy, how she overcame them, and how the United States changed during her lifetime. Teachers can guide students in considering how Mary Walker and other Black mothers like the woman pictured worked to overcome difficult circumstances. Students can write responses to the image and text, making specific references to each to show their understanding.
- Teachers can use the “art talk” strategy from the Creative Learning Initiative when introducing the photograph to students. The photograph is rich with details, and students will benefit from the opportunity to examine the photograph, make observations, ask questions, and connect the photograph with the text. Students can use a graphic organizer to record their observations and questions.
- The Austin ISD Creative Learning Initiative offers instructions on how to use their “art talk” strategy.
- “CLI Month: Art Talk/Mes de Cli: Charlas de Arte.” The Creative Learning Initiative Blog, December 8, 2021. https://creativelearningatx.wordpress.com/2021/10/23/cli-month-art-talk/.
- After analyzing the photograph, students can read The Oldest Student and make connections between the photograph and the text. They can compare and contrast the scene depicted in the photograph with Mary Walker’s educational journey as described in the book. This gives students an opportunity to practice comparison skills and make connections with the text. They can record their thoughts in a graphic organizer or writing journal. Students can also complete a “think-pair-share” activity as they share their thoughts with a classmate.
- “Think-Pair-Share.” The Teacher Toolkit. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/think-pair-share.
- Some may criticize teachers for sharing a photograph that relates to socioeconomic barriers for Black families in the early 20th century because they are uncomfortable discussing systemic racism or the aftermath of slavery. The Oldest Student directly mentions slavery, so those who oppose teaching children about slavery may also criticize the use of this photograph alongside the book.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice project offers resources for teachers “teaching hard history.” “Teaching Hard History: Grades K–5 Introduction.” Learning for Justice. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery/k-5-framework/introduction#:~:text=As%20they%20learn%20more%20about,about%20activism%20and%20action%20civics.
- This article from the National Park Service provides information on education for Black children during Reconstruction, and how Black families overcame systemic barriers in pursuit of education for their children. It includes the time period mentioned in The Oldest Student. “African Americans and Education during Reconstruction: The Tolson’s Chapel Schools (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, August 8, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/articles/african-americans-and-education-during-reconstruction-the-tolson-s-chapel-schools.htm.
- This article from PBS is full of relevant information on the role of education and literacy for former slaves during Reconstruction, including the role of the Freedmen’s Bureau and information on overcoming barriers to literacy. The article uses a question-and-answer format in dialogue with historians. “Schools and Education during Reconstruction.” PBS. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reconstruction-schools-and-education-during-reconstruction/.
- This guide from the Harvard Library offers information on anti-Black racism in education, and links to additional resources for educators. “Confronting Anti-Black Racism Resource: Education.” Harvard Library. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://library.harvard.edu/confronting-anti-black-racism/education.
- This photograph from the same photographer shows another mother and sharecropper teaching her two children at home in Texas.
- Lee, Russell, photographer. Wife of Negro sharecropper teaching her children their ABCs. Near Marshall, Texas. Texas Harrison County United States Marshall, 1939. Mar. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017782726/.
- This photograph (also from the same photographer) shows a white sharecropper washing her children’s feet. As noted by PBS, two-thirds of sharecroppers were white.
- Lee, Russell, photographer. Mother washing feet and cleaning up daughters in sharecropper's shack. Southeast Missouri Farms. Southeast Missouri Farms Missouri United States New Madrid County, 1938. May. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017781178/.
- This photograph shows a mother and three children from a family of sharecroppers in the doorway of their Arkansas home.
- United States Resettlement Administration, Rothstein, Arthur, photographer. Wife and children of sharecropper in Washington County, Arkansas. United States Washington County Arkansas, 1935. Aug. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017720758/.
- Teachers can learn more about sharecropping through the PBS website.
- “Sharecropping.” PBS, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/.
- The Penguin Random House website gives more information on The Oldest Student by Rita Lorraine Hubbard.
- The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read by Rita Lorraine Hubbard: 9781524768287: Penguinrandomhouse.Com: Books.” PenguinRandomhouse.com. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557388/the-oldest-student-how-mary-walker-learned-to-read-by-rita-lorraine-hubbard-illustrated-by-oge-mora/.
- This blog post from the Library of Congress offers additional information on education during the time of slavery and how to use primary sources in the classroom. Wesson, Stephen. “Education in Enslaved Communities: Teaching with the Library.” The Library of Congress, August 16, 2022. https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2022/08/education-in-enslaved-communities/.