Shorpy Higginbotham: 1910

Was your father the Roy Higginbotham who was principal of Minor Elementary School in the 60's and 70's?

martyshoemaker@hotmail.com

I don't want to go back to the "good old days." But everybody should "work" at least a few days (e.g. move a lot of force through a lot of distance all day while either sweating or freezing, dirty, dog-tired, with something aching). Maybe a kid who did some of this stuff will better appreciate the real things in life rather than Britney, American Idol, text messaging, and Fifty-Cent rap.

I'm glad i did - but not too much! In my younger days, I harvested tobacco, hauled hay, milked cows, moved gravel from a creek bed to the barnyard in a mule wagon, picked potatoes behind a mule plow, budded peach seedlings and harvested nursery stock on cold rainy January days. These are cherished memories working with my kinfolk on their farms. I'm glad I did it!

I've rolled cement up a hill in a wheelbarrow and finished it, framed and built buildings, plumbed and wired, and swapped greasy motors in cars. It all pays off as I can save money as a do-it-yourselfer. And it paid off as an incentive to study and go to college so I didn't have to do it for a living!

Looking at these pictures, I don't feel sorry for the people in them as I don't think they knew how "bad off" they were. So they were not! However, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for our hard-working ancestors, my aunts and uncles, and cousins.

Bessie Mine appears to be closed. Information available online shows that the current owner, US Pipe, has filed an application to use the area as a landfill.

My grandfather worked at Bessie and other mines in west Jefferson County. He would have been about Shorpy's age but didn't start to work there until he was 18 or so. After a couple of years working in the pits, he was able to get a position tending the generators and never had to work underground again.

One of the first posters said that Bessie Mine may still be operational. Is that true? When I look it up online, nothing much comes up. I'd love to see some more pictures of the mine, though, and learn a little more about it!

I found him, he is one of my cousins. Henry Sharp Higginbotham b 23 Nov 1896 d. 25 jan 1928, son of Felix Milton Higginbotham and Mary Jane Graham. We descend from the Amherst Co. Virginia Higginbothams. my line was Benjamin Higginbotham who m. Elizabeth Graves and d. 1791 in Elbert Co. GA. Then his son Francis Higgginbotham m. Dolly Gatewood. When they were in old age they moved with with their sons to the new Louisiana Territory, E. Feliciana Parish. My gggfather was Caleb Higginbotham and gggmother was Minerva Ann Bryant of the Manakintown, VA hugenot BRIANT. All the Higginbothams and Bryant sons fought in the Rev. War. My gggg William Guerant Bryant and his brother John, his father, James and Uncle Isaac and Isaac's son James and His Uncle Thomas were all in the battle of Guilford Court House NC 25 Mar 1781. Thomas was killed and Isaac wounded in the head.

Shorpy was my father's (Roy Higginbotham's) uncle, a younger brother of my grandfather, John W. Dolphus Higginbotham. Their ancestor Robert Higginbotham was a Revolutionary War soldier who fought in the Battle of King's Mountain. He died in Huntsville, Alabama, where he farmed for many years. He is buried on his farm and the Huntsville D.A.R. had a ceremony a few years ago at his grave site. There is another Robert B. Higginbotham (also a descendant of Robt. Sr.), buried in Remlap, Alabama, I think, but I don't recall him having an intact headstone.

[P.H., thanks for the information. You have a fascinating family history. - Ken]

I wonder if anyone knows where Shorpy Higginbotham's grandfather, Robert Higginbotham, is buried.
Robert Higginbotham is my Great Great Grandfather.

Kenny Brown
twotreesklb@aol.com

America is still the greatest place in the world to give. I have traveled to a lot of countries. Yes, they have their pluses, but even the poorest americans live better than 99% of the worlds population.

A ten-year-old working in the mines was not unusual. My grandfather was born in 1896 and started in the mines at age ten. He worked for Tennessee Coal and Iron in Jefferson County, Alabama. After his back was broke in a mine accident and suffering from years of black-lung he lived to 84.

Really I'm so scare about you beutiful eye-moment, serius, I think in a lot of stuff's, that amazaing like a time capsule... Don't have the exactly words for tell you my reason's... make my day theses snaps.

I hope back soon.
Carlos "Cx"

... cause of his size he was able to easily go inside all the mechanics stuff.. they see it as a game... some great technologics developments were the outcome of that work-players boys... thats the good one... the bad one is that some of them never play again...

the boy is nameless - a ghost of history - monument to distant struggles most of us will never know.

Nameless? He's Shorpy Higgnbotham!

the most striking thing for me is the transparency the photograph gives. it's as if he were merely an ethereal presence - here one minute, gone the next. we could think of this almost metaphorically - our distance from hardship manifest: this boy and the things he accepts as routine - both committed to a hazy past and our deceptive photographic memory - fragmented. he is commemorated only in wispy tricks of sepia light - what little meaning we can glean from these constitute out understanding. what this boy has experienced, we simply cannot comprehend - just as i cannot determine where he ends and his dismal environs begin. the boy is nameless - a ghost of history - monument to distant struggles most of us will never know. trying to imagine past toils for me, is similar to trying to envisage life in some far-off country. nothing quite seems real.

It is easy to forget from the perspective of our comfortable North American lifestyles that in many places in the world, child labor still runs rampant, not because families want their children to work endless hours in deplorable conditions, but because their very existence depends on the meager income the children earn. Let's not become too complacent and self-satisfied that we've "progressed" beyond the conditions of the early 20th century until we've globally eradicated those same conditions that continue to exist today.

The pictures were taken only 30 years before I was born.
When I was 14 I needed a State of California Work Permit in order to get a summer job (picking cotton).

We could quit school at 16. I didn't do that but many did.
Thank God for the reformers in the early 20th century!

"The golf links lie so near the mill that almost every day, the working children can look out and watch the men at play."

Don

omg. after seeing these pictures, its so hard to believe how far we have gone and what todays world is like compared to back then. The question is, what would they think if they saw what the world was like today and how people are living?!

(perfect example, we now have cars that drive for us!!!)

You can tell Shorpy worked very hard. His hands look like the hands of a 40 year old man, not a 14 year old boy. His arms do appear to be permanently bowed out and his shoulders are sloped from carrying the heavy buckets.

How we could ever have gotten to this point in our society is beyond me. Thank goodness for the progressive people back then who put a stop to such practices and gave kids like Shorpy their childhoods.

Those are the roughest part--it appears that they're rather permanently in that position.

The story about this boy makes me so sad. The photo is so strong. Esthetically - wonderful - artistic movie like.
Thanks for sharing it with all of us. Tamara Razov.