Architect Jobie Hill is creating a national survey of America's slave houses

2020-02-28T11:00:00-05:00

Since 2012, Hill has surveyed hundreds of structures that she believes once served as a home to enslaved African Americans. More often than not, the buildings bear no visible trace of their past; many have been converted into garages, offices, or sometimes—unnervingly—bed-and-breakfasts. In some cases the structures have fallen into ruin or vanished entirely, leaving behind a depression in the ground.

Writing in Atlas Obscura, writer Sabrina Imbler takes an in-depth look at the work of Jobie Hill, the Iowa City architect who started Saving Slave Houses, a project that aims to catalog, document, and ultimately preserve the remaining "living and working environments of enslaved people" in America.

Among many other thought-provoking comments, Hill tells Imbler, “There has never been a national survey of slave houses, except for the one I’m trying to do."

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Architect Jobie Hill is creating a national survey of America's slave houses