In Photos, Eudora Welty Captured Life in 1930s Mississippi

I am glad she took photos of ordinary life of the black citizens of Mississippi and that you published them here. I think too often we picture nothing but cotton picking, segregated facilities, sharecropper shanties, barefoot, ragged children, and lynchings when we think of that period in the deep South. Those were real enough, but as these photos show, black families and communities also had full lives, dignity and pride.

I sat beside Ms. Welty in 1967 at a dinner at Denison University. I did not know her work at that time, but she was an enchanting dinner guest. I didn't know what path my life would take as I was just out of high school. But her grace, her charm (Southern and otherwise) led me to her short stories as I came to know of her work. And there are so many times that I've later thought back to that brief encounter so long ago to realize that she was a light shining on a narrow pathway into a different life. A pathway to a different view of what true genius could be. And it's sad to me that she never received the recognition that she deserved.

I first read “why I live at the p.o.” in 1973 freshman year of high school. I grew up in a house full of books and of readers, but this story was one of the first things that made me fall in love with reading and books. Thank you Miss Welty. Your eye with the camera was as brilliant as your pen.

My gosh these are astounding. Poverty crushes everyone, black and white. Every photograph shows the indented lines of worry, fatigue, exhaustion, strain. Yet, somehow the grace of humanity finds a way to shine through. In the absurd; in music; in shared burdens; in care for children and the sick; in political responsibility; even in a brief moment of relaxation and distraction. Just a little ice will do it, but you have to carry it; side by side makes it a little lighter. All work has dignity. The blind weaver, who cannot see but constructs a vision for others to see, these are symbols worthy of Homer. This is a camera that loves its subjects, as surely as the writer loves her characters.

We have known for a long time that Eudora Welty had an "ear" for the South; now we know she alway had the "eye" as well. Marvelous photographs. Commenters have described the images as "content" and "resigned". I think it was somewhere in between for ALL people in those days. Perhaps the correct phrase is "accepted with grace". People had little since of entitlement in those days, and due to most being quite religious, had a great humility and had strong feelings of gratitude. Their "glass was half-full", never "half-empty". My parents were born in 1908 and 1901. Their own parents were born in between 1855-1879 in rural AR and MO. This was THEIR life! They were white but they would be poor by today's standards. But they never complained - they were grateful for what they had. I wonder today if we didn't think more about gratitude than victimization if we all wouldn't be much happier and far less angry. It was a far better mindset than that of today. As I get older, while I deeply begrudge my old body's betrayal, I try to remind myself on a daily basis that I am blessed to have some financial comfort - not "wealth" but enough money that if I need a VERY expensive oxygen portable concentrator that Medicare won't cover, I can afford to buy it. Acceptance with grace. Eudora Welty photographed this.

What would the blocks of ice be for? Cooling the refrigerator for a day (or a week?)? Some dish best served cold?

Miss Welty's stories are more than "short stories of comedic interfamilial strife and everyday adversities." Some of them are very funny, but many of them grip the heart with the same stark and painful reality we see in so many of these photographs. I came upon Eudora Welty in my early twenties and froze in my tracks. The simplicity of her language, the power of her stories, made Hemingway seem mannered to me. She was fearless in revealing the story behind the story, as many Southern writers of the time were, but the style of the telling was entirely her own.

Ms. Welty delivered the commencement address at my college graduation (Brandeis University, 1979). It was 90+ degrees with a blazing sun. She read the introduction to this book of photos. Only years later, did I realize what a privilege it was to hear her speak, even if it was to read from a book.

Marvelous photo documents of rural Mississippi in the 1930s. Heartbreaking to be sure but needed to record the poverty and racism prevalent in the 1930s. Thanks for posting this presentation.

Art in artlessness. Beautifully composed images, speaking of so much lost opportunity.

Read her short stories . She’s a marvelous writer . “I lived in the Post Office “

These are such poignant photographs. My upbringing was in North Carolina during the era of Eudora Welty’s photographs, and some of them are painful to see especially the one showing the“colored entrance.” It reminded me in a painful way of my childhood when I appeared at the “colored entrance” for the Saturday western movie. The fare back then was 9 cents for children under 12. It appears that in MS the fare was 15 cents? They must have been a lot richer than we were in NC.

I am very glad to have been made aware of this aspect of the work of Eudora Welty, whose writing remains among my favorite among American writers. The humanity she illuminates in her photos, both her own and that of her subjects, is identical to her greatest writing. Thanks for this article.

Having recently returned from my first visit through many parts of the south, I so enjoyed a tour of Eudora Welty's home/museum in Jackson, but was quite disappointed with a docent led tour of the state capitol. While there were lovely stained glass window panels in tribute to Native Americans and white pioneers in Mississippi history, there was nothing in recognition of the enslavement of Africans , the Jim Crow era, nor civil rights struggles in the entire building. I was shocked and saddened for what it said about the power structure in today's MS.

Truly heart breaking then, still is.

Even as a girl growing up in the 80s in Pike Co MS, these photos so resonate as what MS was and is, tho for the few thousands of brave souls who have stayed and fought for a better MS. Thank you, Ms Welty, for capturing images on paper as well as in our minds!

These photographs break my heart.

Just lovely photos. Yes, it was still the segregated south, (I can remember "colored" and "white" water fountains) but the people seem content in a way I think wouldn't be found there today. (NOT a comment having anything to do with "integration" and the passing away of the Jim Crow south!)

The South, especially at that time, was so darn surreal to an outsider's eye that it seems impossible to take a bad photo of these people living as they did.

For those who read French, probably the only book length academic study on Welty’s photos : Geraldine Chouard, Naissance d'une vision : Eudora Welty et la photographie (Paris : M. Houdiard, 2012). Great read.