ABSTRACT

This chapter demonstrates that the Shotgun House is part of the late nineteenth century modernism-albeit a form of 'accidental' modernism born of economy and local culture and it is an oversight not to include it in the history of American architectural modernisms. Its minimalist use of space and material, as well as methods of construction that were drawn from diverse traditional building methods. The chapter assesses the lasting cultural impact of the shotgun as 'architecture of the underprivileged', as a symbol of an 'accidental modernism', and as a physical starting point for the Blues, it is important to define the context of the Mississippi Delta during the sharecropper era. The sharecropping system, under the guise of a pseudo-cooperative business, led to a culture of scarcity that manifested itself in the Blues, and was represented in an architectural type common to this setting: the shotgun house.