Shorpy is funded by you. Help by purchasing a print or contributing. Learn more.
- Warning Sign
- Interesting movie career
- Vale, Oregon scenes - July 4, 1941
- Gosh, those guys are y-o-u-n-g!
- Painful Memories
- The car
- Gibson Girls
- High fashion
- Oh my
- Glad you liked this.
- Beautiful Clock
- The Brass Pole Late 1950
- Main street U.S.A.
- Simplicity
- One swole, one not so much
- Like mother, like daughter
- Tendentious? more
- Top Shelf
- RE: 8 Gardiner Way | Maybe they're lost?
- I made this
- Impressive
- From a big garden
- That brings back memories
- Canny
- Off The Grid
- Impressive inventory
- A winning smile
- The Eternal Flame
- Triple Crossing?
- Justifiably proud!
Photos submitted by Shorpy members.
Colorized photos submitted by members.
Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.
© 2019 SHORPY INC.
[REV 25-NOV-2014]
Vintage photos of:
Poe House: 1930
Richmond, Virginia, circa 1930. "Edgar Allan Poe's mother's house." 8x10 inch acetate negative by Frances Benjamin Johnston. View full size.
Poe Neglected Stucco
I got to wondering what the back of this house might have looked like before the old whitewashed stucco crumbled away, and before the second floor chamber window got replaced by a door and landing, later removed. Here's a quick Photoshopped stab at it, but the door and windows could still use some new paint and putty, and that kitchen yard is a disgrace.
More important question
As most of us Shorpy viewers question, previous commentrs non withstanding,
Does this structure still stand?
I think more important than not, most Shorpy viewers look at this site to see the past, and almsot immediately we look to see if the structure still stands, and if any photography of current state exists.
Quoth Cartman
Mr. Garrison, why do Poe people smell like sour milk?
Here a Poe house, there a Poe house
Poe moved around a lot, so it's not surprising that there are Poe houses in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. (The last is only a facade on a NYU Law School building). Boston had an Edgar Allan Poe Square and a house, but both vanished sometime after 1930. Richmond has a Poe Museum which advertises being "only blocks away from Poe's first Richmond home." Perhaps that's what Johnston photographed. It's gone too, as is the house of his foster family the Allans.
In the immortal words of Bette Davis
"What a dump!"
Let us not forget ...
this photo was his grandmother's home, NOT his,
[Erm, this is NOT his grandma's house. - Dave]
and he was born in 1809, so by 1930 this grandmother's home may have been neglected for 121 years before [???] his birth. Look around you, even just at your own grandmother's home today and see if the place hasn't fallen into disrepair and decay and see if creeping slums have enveloped the area as in the case of my grandmother's dwelling. Many once-elegant and genteel neighborhoods, even from the 1940's have turned into wastelands, especially those next to run-down urban areas as in Detroit, Philly, Hartford and New Haven, Ct. Not all real estate escalates in value. Also, this is a back alley, not a front entrance, which is usually more attractive. Poe himself may have never imagined such a dump for his grandma.
It's No Wonder
Comes as no surprise to me that Poe had Ravens at his chamber door. No mortals were tall enough.
Ghost of Poe?
Look at the base of the water pump right of center. Interesting!
RSS | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Photo Use | © 2019 Shorpy Inc.
Today's Top 5