Memphis Moment: Marion Post Wolcott

By Steve Pike

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-913126.mp3

Memphis Moment: Marion Post Wolcott, by Steve Pike.

Memphis, TN – On July 14, 1938, photographer Marion Post Wolcott was offered a job with the Farm Securities Administration. She was one of many photographers hired to produce a picture of life during the Great Depression. These photographs introduced urban Americans to the harsh realities of life in small towns and on farms and ranches.

The archive they created is an important source for anyone interested in the depression. Wolcott spent more than three years in the Mid-South. Much of her work dealt with the cotton industry in the upper Mississippi Delta. Wolcott's photographs of the Memphis Cotton Carnival are among her most famous. In 1941, she retired to concentrate on being a wife and mother.

Several of Marion Post Wolcott's photographs are on display in the exhibit "When Cotton Was King" at the Pink Palace Museum.