Poems of Cabin and Field

Poems of Cabin and Field
Paul Laurence Dunbar, et al.
Illustrated with Photographs by the Hampton Institute Camera Club and Decorations by Alice Morse
Dodd, Mead & Co., 1899
Southern Civilization Collection
Vanderbilt University Special Collections

The poems in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s book Poems of Cabin and Field reflect African American life and culture during the post-Civil War era.  They offer insight into the African American experience and the quest for freedom, dignity, and equality.  Beginning in 1899. Many of Dunbar’s publications were illustrated with photographs taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club which bas based at the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), an historically black college in Hampton, Virginia.  New York book designer, Alice Cordelia Morse, incorporated local flora and fauna of the Hampton Institute for the book’s covers and interior illustrations, including trumpet vine flowers, cotton and tobacco plants, and rabbits.