Washday at the Stooksberry Homestead
John Rice Irwin, who was interviewed in the late 70s, was five years old when TVA came. "Washday at Stooksberry Farm" (without Hine's caption) was often reprinted in the press to demonstrate the primitive conditions of the people of the Norris Basin.
John Rice Irwin: "The biggest concern that I can remember that the people had was in regard to some newspaper articles that came out, apparently in newspapers across the country. I'm not sure about that, but I do remember seeing, and have copies somewhere, [of] a full-page pictorial . . . of the people in that area. Well, they showed the Henry Stooksbury family with the old ladies out in front of the big log cabin with their bonnets, washing their clothes. And people up there felt that they were being portrayed as if they were isolated, ignorant mountain people. And I don't know what part TVA played, whether the pictures were from TVA, or whether it happened at the same time; but that was the one big criticism that I recall more than anything else, I think."
--TVA and the Dispossessed
