A search of AltaVista for "goat cart" yields a myriad of resources,
including some references to postcards and photographs, antique stores and
reenactments. In Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," you'll remember, in the final
scene, Porgy summons his goat cart so he can follow Bess to New York. Used
ubiquitously in the rural south and in Europe for light hauling, I assume
this image of Porgy riding to New York in a Goat Cart is intended to
underscore the futility of his quest. Porgy, a cripple, had entered in the
first scene in his goat cart. The opera, therefore, is framed by the entry
and exit of this device, which, in this way stands as a metaphor for the
destruction and passing of rural life. The photographs of people posed in
goat carts, I image, just like those taken by the roving city photographer,
with camera and pony in tow, were images that nostalgically recreated a
lost or dying way of life.
Robt Baron

At 08:08 AM 6/10/00 -0400, john & heather wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
>Poster:       john & heather <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: InfiNet
>Subject:      goat cart photos
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Dear listers,
>
>I'm at a local history museum in High Point, North Carolina.  A
>colleague in Lexington, NC called me the other day and sparked my
>interest.  We both have 1930s photographs of small children posed in a
>cart hitched to a goat.  The cart has plaques with the town name and
>year on it, but obviously has either been repainted many times or can
>easily be removed.  One of the Lexington photos bears the stamp of the
>photographer with "[name], Traveling Photographer".  My donor said she
>knew lots of local people with such photos, but that was all the
>information she gave me.
>
>We can make some assumptions, but I'd like to hear from anyone who knows
>more about this.  Were goat carts a specific prop to the Southern United
>States?  Were traveling photographers more prolific during the
>Depression? If there are any good books on itinerant 20th century
>photographers and their props, that would be great.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>
>John Marks
>High Point Museum
>
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===========================
Robert A. Baron
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/

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