Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South

Photographs of architecture in the southern states

Prints and Photographs Division

Collection digitized? No. A selected image is provided here as a sample of the collection.

The culmination of Frances Benjamin Johnston's work as an architectural photographer is the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, a systematic record of the early buildings and gardens of nine southern states that was executed between 1933 and 1940 with the financial assistance of thc Carnegie Corporation. Miss Johnston (1864-1952) worked chiefly in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana and to a lesser degree in Florida. She was one of the first to document vernacular building traditions, photographing not only the great mansions of the South, but churches, graveyards, row houses, offices, kitchens, warehouses, mills, shops, farm buildings, and inns. The survey includes records of severely altered and poorly maintained structures and numerous shots of interiors, furnishings, and architectural details. In recognition of the scope and technical excellence of the Carnegie Survey the American Institute of Architects presented an honorary membership to Johnston in 1945.

The Library received 6,800 negatives covering eight states (Mississippi is not available) on deposit from Miss Johnston and then purchased them from her estate in 1953. Most of these, as well as 1,200 photographs without negatives, are available as photographic prints. As with the Historic American Buildings Survey, the images are arranged geographically by state and county. They are accessed through a collection card index, as well as the master card catalog for the architectural collections. A published microfiche, Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, 1927-1943 (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1985) reproduces the photographs in the collection.

Material from the survey has been used to illustrate publications by Henry Irving Brock, Frederick D. Nichols, Samuel Gaillard Stoney, and Thomas T. Waterman and has been reproduced for the picture collections of several American museums and universities.

Other photographs by Miss Johnston are discussed in the entries for the Francis Benjamin Johnston Collection and the Pictorial Archives of Early American Architecture.

U.S. Library of Congress. Reference Department. Guide to the Special Collections of Prints & Photographs in the Library of Congress (Washington: 1955. NE53.W3A52), compiled by Paul Vanderbilt, no. 338.

Vanderbilt, Paul, "Francis Benjamin Johnston, 1854-1952," Journal of the American Institute of Architects (NA1.A326), v. 18. November, 1952: 224-228.

Note: Information for this entry was compiled in the late 1970's for inclusion in: Special Collections in the Library of Congress: A Selective Guide. Compiled by Annette Melville. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1980. The entry was revised in 2000.

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January 9, 2009