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Photo, Print, Drawing Bird-Brady House, Camp Hill, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV

[ Photos from Survey HABS WV-304  ]

More Resources

[ Drawings from Survey HABS WV-304  ]
[ Data Pages from Survey HABS WV-304  ]
[ Photo Captions from Survey HABS WV-304  ]

About this Item

Title

  • Bird-Brady House, Camp Hill, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV

Names

  • Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
  • Elizabeth Brady Bird
  • Mabel Brady
  • Storer College
  • Barron, Mark, historian
  • Bieretz, Renee, photographer
  • Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, sponsor
  • U.S. National Park Service (NPS), Harpers Ferry Center (HFC), sponsor
  • Schara, Mark, project manager
  • Jacobs, James A., project manager
  • Koning, William Cooper, field team
  • Gibbons, Shane, delineator
  • Gibbons, Shane

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 1933

Headings

  • -  houses
  • -  lodging houses
  • -  hip roofs
  • -  stone foundations
  • -  stucco
  • -  African Americans
  • -  2 1/2 stories
  • -  raised basements
  • -  double-hung windows
  • -  hip roofs
  • -  sidelights
  • -  brick chimneys
  • -  skylights
  • -  porches
  • -  fire escapes
  • -  West Virginia--Jefferson County--Harpers Ferry

Notes

  • -  Significance: Built between 1895 and 1897, the Bird-Brady House served as a private residence for teachers and families associated with Storer College, a historically black school founded in 1867 by missionaries of the Freewill Baptist Church. Though spatially linked to the school for most of its history, architecturally the building presented a living space separate from the school's academic buildings and dormitories and embraced the natural setting of area. Early occupants of the house included members of the Lightner and Newcomer families, descendents of Storer College founder, Reverend Nathan C. Brackett. The building's namesake occupants, Elizabeth Bird and Mabel Brady, were sisters and both graduates of Storer who later worked there in administrative capacities in the 1940s and 1950s. The change in ownership of the Bird-Brady House, from white families associated with the founding of the school to two African American women, is reflective of significant changes throughout the Storer College campus in the mid-twentieth century. From the mid 1940s until the school closed in 1955, African Americans began assuming a more active role in how the school was being administrated. Declining numbers of Freewill Baptists combined with the ambitions of African American educators to take more control in guiding the daily activities of the school substantially altered the academic and racial landscape of the college. The Bird-Brady House helps convey the history of domestic life for faculty members at Storer College and the changing roles African Americans played in affecting academic education at the school. After the National Park Service acquired the property in 1962, Elizabeth Bird and Mabel Brady remained in the house as lessees until at least 1970, the year that renovations began. In spite of being converted from domestic use to office space, the National Park Service has continued to recognize the building as the Bird-Brady House.
  • -  Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1590
  • -  Survey number: HABS WV-304
  • -  Building/structure dates: after. 1894- before. 1898 Initial Construction

Medium

  • Photo(s): 7
  • Color Transparencies: 1
  • Measured Drawing(s): 7
  • Data Page(s): 14
  • Photo Caption Page(s): 2

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HABS WV-304

Source Collection

  • Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

Repository

  • Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Control Number

  • wv0547

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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  • Call Number: HABS WV-304
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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Elizabeth Brady Bird, Mabel Brady, Storer College, Mark Barron, Sponsor Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Sponsor U.S. National Park Service, et al., Bieretz, Renee, photographer. Bird-Brady House, Camp Hill, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV. Jefferson County West Virginia Harpers Ferry, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/wv0547/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, C., Elizabeth Brady Bird, Mabel Brady, Storer College, Barron, M., Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, S. [...] Gibbons, S., Bieretz, R., photographer. (1933) Bird-Brady House, Camp Hill, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV. Jefferson County West Virginia Harpers Ferry, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/wv0547/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, et al., photographer by Bieretz, Renee. Bird-Brady House, Camp Hill, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/wv0547/>.