Snapshots of Pickens Walker at 132 Rutledge and at Montessori School; Dee and two of the West girls

Scanned page 97 of Book 2 — Scan of original. Open full size →

Top — three small sepia snapshots in a row, all of Pickens:

Left: a small boy in white shirt and pale shorts seen from behind, possibly on a lawn.
Center: the same boy on a piazza in a “Native American” costume — feathered headdress, fringed light-colored shirt, dark trousers — standing for the camera, hands clasped in front.
Right: the same boy in the same costume, captured mid-dance, one leg kicked up, beside a piazza railing.

Middle — two snapshots flanking a block of caption text:

Left: a small boy (Pickens) seated on a tricycle on a brick walk beside a wooden stair railing.
Right: Pickens standing on a porch holding a large American flag, with a row of small children lined below saluting.

Caption between the middle images, in blue ink:

Pickens at 132 Rutledge —

Pickens at Montessori School with Louisa F. S. Laughlin →

Bottom — a larger sepia snapshot: three young girls in heavy winter coats and dark hats — the center child wearing a dark tam, the others in caps. Caption beneath, in blue ink:

Dee and two of the West girls —

AI Notes

Album page with six sepia snapshots arranged in three clusters. Top row of three small prints all show Pickens: one rear-view in white shirt and pale shorts, two in a ‘Native American’ costume (feathered headdress, fringed shirt, dark trousers) on a Charleston piazza — first standing for the camera, then captured mid-dance with one leg kicked up. Middle row has a photograph of Pickens seated on a tricycle on a brick walk beside a wooden stair railing (left), and a longer photograph of Pickens at his Montessori school holding a large American flag while a row of small children stand below on a porch (right). Caption block between the middle images in blue ink. A larger snapshot at the bottom shows three young girls in heavy winter coats and dark hats. [corrected upper-right photo (Pickens dancing alone in the same costume, not carried by an adult); confirmed middle-right photo shows Pickens holding the flag with classmates saluting below, consistent with the ‘Montessori School with Louisa F. S. Laughlin →’ caption that arrows to this image; corrected bottom caption — the central girl is ‘Dee’ (Emma Dee Walker, the compiler’s daughter), not ‘Sis’.]

A Charleston Montessori school in the late 1910s places the Walker children in an unusually early American adoption of Maria Montessori’s method: the first U.S. Montessori school opened in Tarrytown, NY in 1911, and by 1916 the movement had spread to about 100 schools across 22 states before declining sharply in the 1920s.