Newberry Library - Photographing Freetowns: African American Kentucky through the lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935-1946

Photographing Freetowns: African American Kentucky through the lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935-1946

Overview

Loading details...

You do not have the permission to view Original image

Title Photographing Freetowns: African American Kentucky through the lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935-1946

View website digcoll.newberry.org/photographing-freetowns

Date 2017

Subjects Kentucky

Description Helen Balfour Morrison (1900-1984), a white photographer from Chicago’s North Shore, traveled at least three times over a decade to Kentucky’s Inner Bluegrass region to photograph African Americans of the rural freetowns or hamlets surrounding Lexington. In her almost 500 photographs, she created a compelling record of the daily lives of the men, women, and children of Zion Hill, Sugar Hill, and other Kentucky locations. Her images show people at home, in town, and at work - often in the kitchens, stables, and pastures of the region’s large thoroughbred horse farms. The pictures reveal the dignity, independence, and strength of these close-knit descendants of the ex-slaves who established communities there after the Civil War.

Rights Status No Copyright - United States

Contributing Institution Newberry Library

Newberry Open Access Policy The Newberry makes its collections available for any lawful purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without licensing or permission fees to the library, subject to these terms and conditions.

Size 1920px × 860px 257.61 KB

Filename pf-screenshot.jpg

Unique Identifier NL1XPQ2