"Slave Huts at Hermitage, Savannah, Ga.," Postmarked January 5, 1908

The cabins in this photograph were once home to families of enslaved workers on Henry McAlpin's Hermitage Plantation, near Savannah, Georgia. From the early-to-mid-1800s, these workers made McAlpin's plantation prosper by producing barrels, lumber, and cast-iron products, and growing rice--but mostly by making bricks at the plantation's brickworks. Enslaved workers built about 50 cabins with this brick--an unusual building material for slave quarters.