FAUST44
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Prepare a two-bucket bath and put on your Sunday best, it's time for the Molasses Making Stir-off! Circa 1943 in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee - all photos by Joe Clark. This was typically the last social event in the Fall season.
Prepping and tasting the molasses, dancing, games, local musicians - young people also came to find romance and court.
Harvesting the sorghum, extracting cane juices, boiling it down into molasses - this process can take weeks of constant care and everyone rallied together - families, neighbors and friends all helped out.
Hauling a five-gallon barrel of sorghum juice over the the fire pit
Making molasses
Making molasses
Watching the molasses syrup as it boils down - everyone uses short pieces of sorghum cane stalk to make “sop sticks” which are used to dip into the molasses syrup for a taste
Sop sticks
It says: Teacher Ralph Livesay with wide open collar (the blonde on the right), and Otto Walker with miner’s lamp
Sop sticks
Sop sticks
Dancing on the cane
Dancing on the cane
Musicians and dancing
Kiss Game - kind of like musical chairs with no chairs and a kiss was the prize
Kiss game
Shoes in a Circle - you take off your shoes, add to pile, then everyone rushes in and tries to find and put on their shoes the fastest
Hoedown
Dancing
Sing along!
The romantic walk home
NumptyDumptyLump
"Molasses making". Yeah I know the merkin cooter bumping slang from 1943. It was my favorite arcade game.
cresch5842
I think he called himself the Hillbilly Snapshooter. Used to go to a restaurant that featured a lot of his work!
DesdemonaMoor
...and not a cell phone in sight.
Whenthepiecesaresmalltaketwo
#14 um don’t think the young lady is totally okay with the man kissing her
Blamblam101
Dancing on Caine came back strong in the 80's.
thedarkcanuck
You know what these people had that we kinda don't anymore? A sense of community.
smalltownking
I wouldn't want to live there, but I'd love to be a time traveling tourist passing through
bottledham
They still do this in rural Missouri. I went to an event about 15 years ago on a farm where they claimed to have been doing it since the civil war. Several families from around the area brought sorghum cane and there was at least 100 people there. They had live music, BBQ, and everyone took turns stirring the mollasses.
KKinDK
This was so cool to look at! Thanks for sharing this wonderful slice of rural life in the 40s!❤️
Green11ndys
Reminds me of The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, in Boston's North End. A massive storage tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst, sending a 25-foot wave of sticky syrup rushing through the streets at 35 miles per hour.
BlazeDragon777
This looks amazing. I miss the idea of what community used to be.
IWantedOneOfThoseLongUsernamesTooSoIGotOne
I can't think of hoedowns without thinking of Whose Line
Bluefasa
The chestnut blight must have just passed through a few years earlier for them, their forests must have been a depressing sight.
Cuppyycaakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
veronicablood
how much molasses was made? Did everyone get some, or was this the only income in the county?
pullingsixty
#6 This one looks like a painting.
InitHello
What did they do with the rest of the mole?
MinasTiriths
I bet (or wonder if) Steinbeck would love this post.
Canigetbannedagain2
Don't forget about the great molasses flood... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
Cuppyycaakes
Best me to it! They say on super hot days you can still kinda smell it in areas of the North End
Canigetbannedagain2
Oh my ..
bottledham
OP did the photos actually say what year it was? Ralph Livesay enlisted in spring of 1943 and served for the rest of the war, so this might have been in fall of 1942 or earlier.
bottledham
FAUST44
Sorry for delay. It absolutely could be 1942. The source said "early to mid 40s". 1943 was my guess. Check out the link, bonus is a narrative written by a woman named Junebug (relative to the photographer).
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc286566/
bottledham
I'll check it out. Thanks for posting all these cool old photos. I follow your account and always enjoy your posts.