Slate Photographic Series

Dublin Core

Title

Subject

Slate Quarry Groups and Landscapes (photo #SLATE)

Description

Neil Rappaport photographed in the slate quarries of West Pawlet and other neighboring towns in Vermont as well as just across the border in New York State for approximately twenty-five years (1970-1995). This series begins with a portrait of the final crew working at the old Evans Brothers quarry, by then a Rising and Nelson quarry, just before it closed in the late 1970s. This is the same quarry where Neil began his work when he first moved to the Pawlet area (refer "Covino Slate Quarry" series). Throughout the series there are portraits of individuals and quarry groups that were made from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. And during the summer of 1993, with the cooperation of quarry operators and the Slate Valley Museum, Neil visited every working operation in the area to make a group of company portraits, crafted according to the direction of the operator to represent the unique aspects of her/his operation. These appear in the series as long narrow "banquet camera style" portraits.

The landscape images are intended to show abandonment of old quarries and how modern technology and quarrying methods were dramatically changing the look of the quarries at this time, creating a new industrial geography. As the quarries became more mechanized and the business boomed through the late 1990s, the landscape continued to change with much larger open pits often connected by roadways. The quarry sticks previously used to lift stone from the pits and so dominant at the horizon throughout the area for decades were gradually disappearing.

Type

Series

Sound Item Type Metadata

Sound Recording

Field recording of Slate Quarry Ambient Sound recorded by Neil Rappaport on 01/01/71 (TC2004.3042). From the Neil and Suzanne Rappaport Collection (VFC2004.0002), Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Audio recording © Estate of Susanne Rappaport and Vermont Folklife Center.

Tape 1, Side A