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Refining Rural Spaces: Women And Vernacular Gentility In The Great Plains, 1880-1920, Andrea G. Radke

Great Plains Quarterly

In 1887 the Plains photographer Solomon Butcher met the David Hilton family in Custer County, Nebraska. Mrs. Hilton desired a photograph to send to relatives back East, but felt embarrassed by the family's sod dwelling. She insisted that Butcher not take a photo of the house, but asked the men to drag the Hiltons' beautiful new pump organ out into the field, where the family could pose around the instrument. The sod house remained outside the photograph, and after the session the men returned the organ to the house. To Mrs. Hilton, the organ became her personal symbol of aspirations …