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Posted by: Stephen Winick
A photo in the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division (known colloquially around the institution as P & P) shows white men in formal attire, sitting row upon row at tables, apparently waiting to be served. The caption, which came to us with the photo itself, is “’Possum’ dinner tendered to President-elect William Howard …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is the third in a series of posts about folklife related to the Virginia Opossum, the only marsupial native to the United States. Find the series here! In 1910, Maggie Pogue Johnson, an African American woman from Virginia, published a dialect poem about classic African American cuisine, or what we would today call “soul food.” …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is the second in a series of posts about folklife related to the Virginia Opossum, the only marsupial native to the United States. (Find the whole series here!) The first post looked at the history of the phrase “Awesome Possum.” Future posts will look at songs, stories, and foodways related to the animal. But …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is the first of a series of blog posts celebrating Didelphis virginiana, commonly known as the North American opossum. (Find the whole series here!) This cat-sized nocturnal animal is the only new world marsupial that lives north of Mexico, and therefore the only marsupial native to the United States. In most American dialects of …