Picture of the Month - June 2019

[Mike Costigan]

Chris KC submitted two images of this 1930 Gordon England Stadium, together with the following captions:

The driver is James Madison Carpenter of Mississippi who came to England in 1929 on a scholarship from Harvard, 'bought a car' and spent the next 6 years and 40,000 miles touring the British Isles collecting folk songs from retired performers, ex-mariners and the like.

Photos by kind courtesy of The American Folklife Museum in Washington, who added the following:


Thanks for your interest in James Madison Carpenter and his Austin. That car was both a blessing and a curse to Carpenter, because, though it helped him cover great distances in his collecting work, the open top (and hence, lack of warmth) was impractical for the collecting work he was doing, and also the probable cause of his contracting influenza in the winter months. The car was Carpenter's 'home away from home', and one singer, John Strachan, remembers that Carpenter 'seemed to be sleeping and even eating in his car.' 

In an interview conducted on May 27, 1972 at Carpenter's home in Booneville, Mississippi, Carpenter told American Folklife Center director Alan Jabbour:

'I was foolish enough to get a little open Austin car, instead of getting a closed car.... It had, of course, the top, but it was no good. I bought a big, heavy leather coat with the fleece on the inside, and as I went north, it got colder and colder, and...at first I had my...underwear that I was used to wearing... I first got a lightweight wool... and then, as I drove farther north, I got the heavier and heavier suits, and finally when I got to Aberdeen, I said, 'Give me the thickest, warmest [laugh] woolen suit of underwear you have.' And it was like a coat, but I wore it.'