The Florid Dress

Description

Laughlin wrote that this photograph “takes us to the simple whitewashed cabin, on a Louisiana bayou, of Mrs. Ida Turner, descendant of slaves. She is wearing a floral pattern that contrasts boldly with the sunlit wood. Below hangs the chain to which the cow is usually tied and the tub at which the pigs are fed—playing parts in the design of the picture, as they do in the life of Ida Turner herself.” Laughlin regularly photographed the African American men and women who lived and worked on former plantations around New Orleans to celebrate their resolve and dignity.