Allie B. Clay
Born around 1882, Allie (or Allia) B. Clay was the daughter of Fred Lucas, who had been born in Virginia. She married Sam Carter, a farm laborer, and by 1910 they lived on Payne’s Mill Pike. They had a son, Lucas, born in 1904, and another child who did not survive. Sometime before 1920, Allie married again to “racehorse farm” worker Henry Clay.
Like the majority of African American women of her time and place, Allie B. Clay was a domestic worker. Laura Estill Williams employed her as a cook at the Silver Pool Farm on Williams Lane and Pisgah Pike. Clay cooked in a large farm kitchen equipped with a milk separator and other labor-saving devices, had younger assistants to perform some daily tasks, and had the opportunity to influence her employer’s food choices and apply her own touches to the resulting dishes. Nonetheless, her workdays were long and hard, and the pay was undoubtedly low. How long Allie continued to work is unclear. She is not listed as employed in the 1940 Census, but this may have been an interlude between jobs.
Morrison took 28 photographs of Allie B. Clay. She appears working in her employer’s kitchen, sometimes with her young granddaughter, Alice B. Carter; heading home at the end of the day; and relaxing outside with her sister-in-law.
