Jacksonville Public Library

O. N. Pruitt's Possum Town, photographing trouble & resilience in the American South, Berkley Hudson

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

individual biography

illustrations

index present

non fiction

O. N. Pruitt's Possum Town

bibliography

1267402099

Berkley Hudson

Documentary arts and culture

photographing trouble & resilience in the American South

"Photographer O.N. Pruitt (1891-1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus--known to locals as "Possum Town." His body of work recalls many FSA photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider with an agenda; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town and its residents. He photographed his fellow White citizens and Black ones as well, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi's last public and legal executions by hanging, and most grimly, a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images of events in the moment, Pruitt's documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers today an invitation to meditate on the vexing interrelations of photography, community, race, and historical memory. Columbus native Berkley Hudson was photographed by Pruitt, and for more than three decades he has considered and curated Pruitt's expansive archive, both as a scholar of media and visual journalism and as a community member. This stunning book presents Pruitt's photography as never before, combining more than 190 images with a biographical introduction and Hudson's short essays and reflective captions on subjects such as religion, ethnic identity, the ordinary graces of everyday life, and the exercise of brutal power." --Back cover

A photobiography of a time and place -- O.N. Pruitt: an insider photographer -- By the flow of the inland river -- World famous hunting dog trainer Er M. Shelley, circa 1930 -- Happy Feed Store, circa 1925 -- Oscar West, circa 1930 -- Touched with pity -- A cultural crossroads: Tennessee Williams, May 1952 -- Miller's Traveling Museum, World Fair freaks, circa 1930-1935 -- Camel ride at Locke's Zoo, circa 1923 -- Princess Picture Show, 1944 -- Catfish Alley fire -- Seven bellhops and Gilmer Hotel manager, circa 1930 -- Vanishing tribes -- Minstrel show, circa 1920s -- A racial crucible -- A spunky folk hero : a farmer named Sylvester Harris, 1934 -- Boxer Jack Dempsey, Truman Capote's parents, the "Egyptian Marvel" of the Great Pasha, and Madame Flozella, 1930 -- Sunday-go-to-meeting -- Baptisms, circa 1930s -- Reading Pruitt: a bibliographic essay