Ahn’s First German Book, 1873

Among old schoolbooks, this is an elegant one, and it comes with a story. I had been photographing abandoned, often forgotten one-room schoolhouses for some years when I learned of a log schoolhouse rescued from destruction by a woman whose ancestors had built it in 1842. Moved from its original location in Burke County, North Carolina, to her home in Asheville, she had it reconstructed, log by log, peg by peg, stone by fireplace stone. She filled it with objects saved from its early days, and it began its life as a tiny private museum known as York Log Schoolhouse, enjoyed by visiting teachers and students for many years. 

I located the schoolhouse and its preserver, Lassie Woody, who invited me to photograph the interior. This began a friendship of repeated visiting and photographing, and recording her oral cultural history of the schoolhouse. On one of my visits, I was allowed to examine and photograph the fragile schoolbooks, repositioned on rustic tables, benches, and chairs as individual objects in their log wall environment. Later, toward the end of her life, Lassie gave me all the books and ephemera in the schoolhouse, saying “I want you to have these. You can make use of them in your photography project.” Deeply touched, but not knowing what this foretold, I itemized, packed, and shipped them home to California.

Within several years, Lassie died. One night, two months after her death, the schoolhouse, long and lovingly preserved, caught on fire. All was lost except the log walls and fireplace, now gone as well, too fragile to preserve. But the old schoolbooks, luckily sent away, survived. I began photographing them again, this time far removed from their log cabin environment, as objects in formal still life arrangements, of which this image is one. These schoolbook photographs - and the books themselves, presented in display cases - are now part of the exhibition Schoolhouse Odyssey: Exploring Remote Location Ghost Schools and Voices from the Past - A Literal and Metaphorical Journey.

Nineteenth century schoolbooks were few, and by necessity used and reused by generations of students. When opened and examined they are often inscribed with several dated signatures, eccentric doodles, sketches, lessons practiced in the margins, and private messages. These inscriptions, combined with antique calligraphy, illustrated lessons, poems, and stories, reveal and preserve an overlooked archive of quiet voices from the past.