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Accompanying the stories in Digital Yoknapatawpha is a repository of historical photographs.

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These are available under the visualizations tab.

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Totaling 225 photographs, the archive provides a glimpse of what

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life looked like in northern Mississippi between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries.

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The photographs are drawn from several different collections.

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Clicking on the collection link opens up an historical note,

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and a gallery view of the photographs.

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The introduction contextualizes the photographs,

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and explains how these photographers,

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just like writers, were trying to capture a particular perspective.

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Clicking on the individual photographs brings up the full-size image along with information about its provenance.

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Many of the photographs are not just valuable as archival material,

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but are beautiful in-and-of themselves.

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For example, this picture of “cotton hoers” in Clarksdale, Mississippi

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by famous Depression-era photographer, Dorothea Lange,

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stands out for the way she has captured the hard, long days of the farm workers depicted.

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Or, this poignant image by noted photographer Marion Post Wolcott that shows

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the stark reality of racial segregation in the Jim Crow South.

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When looking through this wealth of material and considering how it sheds light on “A Rose for Emily,”

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it is interesting to observe some of the pictures that were taken of people in and around town.

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One thing that is noticeable is the number of men public space.

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They play dominoes on the sidewalk,

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hang out on the town square,

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and linger in front of stores.

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Women are less visible.

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We may ask ourselves why this is.

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Is this just a happenstance result of the collection?

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Did women not want to be photographed?

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Did women not hang out in groups in public?

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Thinking of “A Rose for Emily,” what must it have been like for Emily, an upper-class woman,

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to go around town on Sundays in her buggy with Homer Barron, a day laborer?

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What would it have been like for any woman in a small town to try to have a public relationship with a partner of her choosing?

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Of course, one should not draw conclusions from only a few photographs, and it is worth studying all of them.

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They are a powerful reminder of the ways in which Faulkner’s time was different than ours.