Newberry Library - Photographing Freetowns Exhibition

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Open book Photographing Freetowns Exhibition

Title Photographing Freetowns Exhibition

Date 2017-01-20/2017-04-15

Subjects Photograph collections, Photographs

Description Chicago-area photographer Helen Balfour Morrison is largely unknown today, but she created an impressive body of photographs documenting African American life in Depression-era Kentucky. Beginning in 1935, Morrison traveled to the Inner Bluegrass region near Lexington, Kentucky, where she photographed the residents of two small African American communities, Zion Hill and Sugar Hill.

Her images reveal the dignity, independence, and strength of the close-knit descendants of the freedmen who settled these Kentucky hamlets in the decades following the Civil War. Morrison’s photographs chart the daily lives of these individuals, picturing their work, domestic rituals, and social life. The photographs preserve this proud legacy for future generations and invite further investigation and understanding of the experiences of African Americans in these communities and others during the first half of the twentieth century.

The exhibition will feature nearly 80 of Morrison’s original prints, together with contextual materials from the Newberry’s collections. Also on view will be Morrison’s original home movie of her 1935 trip, plus a slideshow of all of her almost 500 Kentucky images.

Archival Collection Title Newberry Library Archives

Link to Catalog View record

Call Number NL Archives

BibID 991051478805867

Rights Status Copyright Not Evaluated

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 5459px × 3462px 108.18 MB

Filename photographing_freetowns_exhibit_2017_003.tif

Unique Identifier NL1A4P7