Snapshots of the South: Eudora Welty's Photography and Contested Images of Race

Abstract

Best known for her Southern fiction, Eudora Welty began her career with the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. Her photographic "snapshots," as she called them, served as a window into the Jim Crow South, focusing on the poor, Black, female experience and providing an image of the South that runs counter to public memory. Welty's photographs alter memories of the segregated South by allowing contemporary audiences to gaze upon the Black experience, highlighting positive experiences and emphasizing a shared history. This altered public memory allows for more possibilities of a shared past and the potential for healing. At the same time, this alteration is problematic because it undermines the reality of the suffering experienced by African Americans. © 2012 Copyright Southern States Communication Association.

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Southern Communication Journal

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