Eudora Welty as Photographer

Photographs by Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Eudora Welty display the empathy that would later infuse her fiction

  • By T.A. Frail
  • Smithsonian magazine, April 2009, Subscribe
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Home by Dark by Eudora Welty
After a year in graduate school in New York City, Eudora Welty returned to her native Mississippi and began taking pictures (Home by Dark). (Copyright Eudora Welty, LLC; Eudora Welty Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

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Related Books

One Writer’s Beginnings

by Eudora Welty
Harvard University Press, 1984

Eudora Welty: A Biography

by Suzanne Marrs
Harcourt Inc., 2005

Eudora Welty as Photographer

by Pearl Amelia McHaney (editor)
University Press of Mississippi, 2009

One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression: A Snapshot Album

by Eudora Welty
Random House, 1971

Eudora Welty Photographs

by Reynolds Price (forward)
University Press of Mississippi, 1989


Eudora Welty was one of the grandest grande dames of American letters—winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, an armful of O. Henry Awards and the Medal of Freedom, to name just a few. But before she published a single one of her many short stories, she had a one-woman show of her photographs.

The pictures, made in Mississippi in the early to mid-1930s, show the rural poor and convey the want and worry of the Great Depression. But more than that, they show the photographer's wide-ranging curiosity and unstinting empathy—which would mark her work as a writer, too. Appropriately, another exhibition of Welty's photographs, which opened last fall at the Museum of the City of New York and travels to Jackson, Mississippi, this month, inaugurated a yearlong celebration of the writer's birth, April 13, 1909.

"While I was very well positioned for taking these pictures, I was rather oddly equipped for doing it," she would later write. "I came from a stable, sheltered, relatively happy home that by the time of the Depression and the early death of my father (which happened to us in the same year) had become comfortably enough off by small-town Southern standards."

Her father died of leukemia in 1931, at age 52. And while the comfort of the Welty home did not entirely unravel—as an insurance executive in Jackson, Christian Welty had known about anticipating calamities—Eudora was already moving beyond the confines of her family environment.

She had graduated from the University of Wisconsin and studied business for a year at Columbia University. (Her parents, who entertained her stated ambition of becoming a writer, insisted that she pursue the proverbial something to fall back on.) She returned to Jackson after her father's diagnosis, and after he died, she remained there with her mother, writing short stories and casting about for work.

For the next five years, Welty took a series of part-time jobs, producing a newsletter at a local radio station; writing for the Jackson State Tribune; sending society notes to the Memphis Commercial Appeal; and taking pictures for the Jackson Junior Auxiliary. She had used a camera since adolescence—her father, an avid snapshot man, helped establish Jackson's first camera store—but now she began taking photography more seriously, especially as she traveled outside Jackson. In 1934, she applied to study at the New School for Social Research in New York City with photographer Berenice Abbott, who was documenting landmarks disappearing in the city's rush toward modernity. Welty's application was turned down.

It hardly mattered. Through the early '30s, Welty gathered a body of work remarkable for the photographer's choice of subjects and her ability to put them—or keep them—at ease. That is especially noteworthy given that many of her subjects were African-Americans. "While white people in a Deep South state like Mississippi were surrounded by blacks at the time...they were socially invisible," the television journalist and author Robert MacNeil, a longtime friend of Welty's, said in an interview during a recent symposium on her work at the Museum of the City of New York. "In a way, these two decades before the civil rights movement began, these photographs of black people give us insight into a personality who saw the humanity of these people before we began officially to recognize them."

Welty, for her part, would acknowledge that she moved "through the scene openly and yet invisibly because I was part of it, born into it, taken for granted," but laid claim only to a personal agenda. "I was taking photographs of human beings because they were real life and they were there in front of me and that was the reality," she said in a 1989 interview. "I was the recorder of it. I wasn't trying to exhort the public"—in contrast, she noted, to Walker Evans and other American documentary photographers of the '30s. (When a collection of her pictures was published as One Time, One Place in 1971, she wrote: "This book is offered, I should explain, not as a social document but as a family album—which is something both less and more, but unadorned.")

In early 1936, Welty took one of her occasional trips to New York City. This time she brought some photographs in the hope of selling them. In a decision biographer Suzanne Marrs describes as spontaneous, Welty dropped in at the Photographic Galleries run by Lugene Opticians Inc.—and was given a two-week show. (That show has been recreated for the centennial exhibit and supplemented with pictures she made in New York.)

That March, however, Welty received word that a small magazine called Manuscript would publish two short stories she had submitted. "I didn't care a hoot that they couldn't, they didn't pay me anything," she would recall. "If they had paid me a million dollars it wouldn't have made any difference. I wanted acceptance and publication."

That acceptance foretold the end of her photographic career. Welty used her camera for several years more but invested her creative energies in her writing. "I always tried to get her to start over again, you know, when I got to know her in the mid-1950s," the novelist Reynolds Price, another longtime friend of Welty's, said in an interview. "But she'd finished. She said, I've done what I have to do. I've said what I had to say."

In her memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, published in 1984, Welty paid respects to picture-taking by noting: "I learned in the doing how ready I had to be. Life doesn't hold still. A good snapshot stopped a moment from running away. Photography taught me that to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was the greatest need I had. Making pictures of people in all sorts of situations, I learned that every feeling waits upon its gesture; and I had to be prepared to recognize this moment when I saw it."

She added: "These were things a story writer needed to know. And I felt the need to hold transient life in words—there's so much more of life that only words can convey— strongly enough to last me as long as I lived."

That was long indeed. Welty died on July 23, 2001, at the age of 92. Her literary legacy—not only her stories but her novels, essays and reviews—traces the full arc of a writer's imagination. But the pictures bring us back to the time and the place it all began.

T. A. Frail is a senior editor of the magazine.


Eudora Welty was one of the grandest grande dames of American letters—winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, an armful of O. Henry Awards and the Medal of Freedom, to name just a few. But before she published a single one of her many short stories, she had a one-woman show of her photographs.

The pictures, made in Mississippi in the early to mid-1930s, show the rural poor and convey the want and worry of the Great Depression. But more than that, they show the photographer's wide-ranging curiosity and unstinting empathy—which would mark her work as a writer, too. Appropriately, another exhibition of Welty's photographs, which opened last fall at the Museum of the City of New York and travels to Jackson, Mississippi, this month, inaugurated a yearlong celebration of the writer's birth, April 13, 1909.

"While I was very well positioned for taking these pictures, I was rather oddly equipped for doing it," she would later write. "I came from a stable, sheltered, relatively happy home that by the time of the Depression and the early death of my father (which happened to us in the same year) had become comfortably enough off by small-town Southern standards."

Her father died of leukemia in 1931, at age 52. And while the comfort of the Welty home did not entirely unravel—as an insurance executive in Jackson, Christian Welty had known about anticipating calamities—Eudora was already moving beyond the confines of her family environment.

She had graduated from the University of Wisconsin and studied business for a year at Columbia University. (Her parents, who entertained her stated ambition of becoming a writer, insisted that she pursue the proverbial something to fall back on.) She returned to Jackson after her father's diagnosis, and after he died, she remained there with her mother, writing short stories and casting about for work.

For the next five years, Welty took a series of part-time jobs, producing a newsletter at a local radio station; writing for the Jackson State Tribune; sending society notes to the Memphis Commercial Appeal; and taking pictures for the Jackson Junior Auxiliary. She had used a camera since adolescence—her father, an avid snapshot man, helped establish Jackson's first camera store—but now she began taking photography more seriously, especially as she traveled outside Jackson. In 1934, she applied to study at the New School for Social Research in New York City with photographer Berenice Abbott, who was documenting landmarks disappearing in the city's rush toward modernity. Welty's application was turned down.

It hardly mattered. Through the early '30s, Welty gathered a body of work remarkable for the photographer's choice of subjects and her ability to put them—or keep them—at ease. That is especially noteworthy given that many of her subjects were African-Americans. "While white people in a Deep South state like Mississippi were surrounded by blacks at the time...they were socially invisible," the television journalist and author Robert MacNeil, a longtime friend of Welty's, said in an interview during a recent symposium on her work at the Museum of the City of New York. "In a way, these two decades before the civil rights movement began, these photographs of black people give us insight into a personality who saw the humanity of these people before we began officially to recognize them."

Welty, for her part, would acknowledge that she moved "through the scene openly and yet invisibly because I was part of it, born into it, taken for granted," but laid claim only to a personal agenda. "I was taking photographs of human beings because they were real life and they were there in front of me and that was the reality," she said in a 1989 interview. "I was the recorder of it. I wasn't trying to exhort the public"—in contrast, she noted, to Walker Evans and other American documentary photographers of the '30s. (When a collection of her pictures was published as One Time, One Place in 1971, she wrote: "This book is offered, I should explain, not as a social document but as a family album—which is something both less and more, but unadorned.")

In early 1936, Welty took one of her occasional trips to New York City. This time she brought some photographs in the hope of selling them. In a decision biographer Suzanne Marrs describes as spontaneous, Welty dropped in at the Photographic Galleries run by Lugene Opticians Inc.—and was given a two-week show. (That show has been recreated for the centennial exhibit and supplemented with pictures she made in New York.)

That March, however, Welty received word that a small magazine called Manuscript would publish two short stories she had submitted. "I didn't care a hoot that they couldn't, they didn't pay me anything," she would recall. "If they had paid me a million dollars it wouldn't have made any difference. I wanted acceptance and publication."

That acceptance foretold the end of her photographic career. Welty used her camera for several years more but invested her creative energies in her writing. "I always tried to get her to start over again, you know, when I got to know her in the mid-1950s," the novelist Reynolds Price, another longtime friend of Welty's, said in an interview. "But she'd finished. She said, I've done what I have to do. I've said what I had to say."

In her memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, published in 1984, Welty paid respects to picture-taking by noting: "I learned in the doing how ready I had to be. Life doesn't hold still. A good snapshot stopped a moment from running away. Photography taught me that to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was the greatest need I had. Making pictures of people in all sorts of situations, I learned that every feeling waits upon its gesture; and I had to be prepared to recognize this moment when I saw it."

She added: "These were things a story writer needed to know. And I felt the need to hold transient life in words—there's so much more of life that only words can convey— strongly enough to last me as long as I lived."

That was long indeed. Welty died on July 23, 2001, at the age of 92. Her literary legacy—not only her stories but her novels, essays and reviews—traces the full arc of a writer's imagination. But the pictures bring us back to the time and the place it all began.

T. A. Frail is a senior editor of the magazine.

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Comments (80)

T.A. Frail:

Thanks for a most enjoyable article about one of my favorite writers. Actually, I am also trying to reach you directly as my friend former NY Times economics reporter Leslie Wayne recommended you.

I am a former Boston Globe arts reporter turned biographer, currently writing the biography of renowned American female violinmaker Carleen Hutchins. See: www.quincywhitney.com. The Hutchins Consort of San Diego, CA, will be making its Debut East Coast Tour in October, 2011. www.hutchinsconsort.org.

Do you know who plans concerts at the Smithsonian? At the Library of Congress? Or how I can find this information? I would be deeply grateful. Best regards, Quincy

Posted by D.Quincy Whitney on January 7,2011 | 10:03 AM

Wonderfully well-written article that adds fuel to the fire for discussions about the artistic depth of writers who “paint” pictures with words. This provides me with great material for conversations with photojournalists who demur they cannot write – from artists, who not only write well, but tell stories so well with pictures. I especially appreciated the history-context for Ms. Welty by Mr. Frail – and the wonderful use of quotes by Ms. Welty to provide additional insight... Thank you.

Posted by Kevin E. Dayhoff on November 2,2010 | 03:18 AM

What an interesting post; I loved the video of her photographs. If you are interested in Eudora Welty's life why not visit her web site? It shows her home that she lived all of her life and also the lovely gardens that she adored.


http://www.eudorawelty.org/

Posted by Jennifer Dee on July 12,2010 | 04:37 AM

The video is great! Can anyone tell me the name of the photo of the black lady in the hat in the video at 2:29? Her eyes cut right through me and make me cry! I'm writing a poem about it, but need the name! Thank you!

Posted by Phyllis on April 15,2010 | 07:50 PM

I own number 43 of 90 of "Twelve Photographs", signed by Welty in 1980 and released by Palaemon Press Limited. The entire collection was contact-printed from the original negatives by Gil and Gib Ford of Jackson, MS.

Can anyone direct me to a reliable source to gain knowledge of the value of this collection?

I'd appreciate it. She is one of my greatest heroes.

Thanks.

Posted by Amy on October 1,2009 | 05:00 PM

this is sooo cuutee.

Posted by on September 29,2009 | 04:08 PM

i love this work

Posted by Gabrielle on September 29,2009 | 10:14 AM

I like her story.She inspires me to become a better person :D

Posted by Angel Thonpson on September 29,2009 | 10:13 AM

i love her artwork it is very inspring

Posted by Raven on September 29,2009 | 10:12 AM

SHE WAS SURELY THE BEST AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER OF ALL TIME.HER LEGACY WILL LIVE ON

Posted by Joshua Magee on September 29,2009 | 10:11 AM

I think Eudora Welty was a very impressive photographer as well as writer... basically what I'm saying is that her pictures are AWESOME!!!

Posted by Kristen N. on September 29,2009 | 10:10 AM

I think that she was the best photographer of her time. I enjoy her work very much. This time of her life,I think, prepared her for her writing career.

Posted by Ike N. on September 29,2009 | 10:09 AM

She was surely the best author if all time. She will be missed, but her legacy will live on.

Posted by on September 29,2009 | 10:09 AM

Eudora Welty has some of the most spectacular photograps I have ever seen. R.I.P.

Posted by Jesse Love on September 29,2009 | 10:06 AM

Eudora Welty was an amazing photographer and author. She was very sucessful and had a wonderful career. Her legacy will still live like micheal jackson. R.I.P

Posted by Isaiah Garrett on September 29,2009 | 10:03 AM

To me, Wudora was a hreat photographer and enthusiast. Her work will always be remembered and will live on as long as we have art on this planet. She really can inspire people to do there best in what they want to do.RIP!

n sorry if i mispelled "enthusiast" :P

Posted by Cahlen on September 29,2009 | 10:01 AM

She is a very vivid photographer/writer. She is some what like my art teacher( Mrs. Hamburg).... and i love her for that

Posted by Kylin Gibson on September 29,2009 | 09:59 AM

I highly respect Eudora Welty, not only as a photographer and Author, but also as a woman in general. She has inspired me to be better as an artist, a girl, an author, and a functioning member of society.

Posted by Alliyah R. Taylor on September 29,2009 | 09:58 AM

I would like to see what she would have written if she was in the future.

Posted by Douglas Campbell on September 29,2009 | 09:51 AM

I think that Eudora Welty is a great writer I enjoy her photography and short stories.

Posted by Brittney W. on September 29,2009 | 09:51 AM

I would like to comment on how are photographs are so unique!I think that she made a very wise choice when she decided not to do photography because of the death of her father!!!!She was really being thoughful!

Posted by Julia J. on September 29,2009 | 09:50 AM

She is very talented.She is both a writer and a photographer.I would have loved to meet her in person.

Posted by Rahzizi Ishakarah on September 29,2009 | 09:49 AM

If Eudora Welty was still alive, I think she would make more photography with digital cameras - Nytaya B.

I wish I could go back in time to see how she created her photography. - Victoria W.

I wish I could see Eudora Welty as a young woman planning the plants for her flower garden. - Jaquasia M

I wish I could go in her house and look around - I would like to have seen how she set up a darkroom in her kitchen. - Adarrius M

I wish I could see Ms Welty write one of her stories. Armand J.

I would like to see Eudora Welty as a young, energetic woman, working on her incredible photography and writing. - Micaiah T.

I would like to see what kind of writing and photography Eudora Welty would produce in the modern age. - Ambria G.

Posted by Power APAC elementary students on September 24,2009 | 11:43 AM

I really wanna say i love how her photographs and stories inspires me and everyone else i believe that reading about her and learning about her life can inspire me to achieve and recieve everything she got! She a great artist and a respected person!
Dnt you think!?
YEA!!!!!

Posted by Veronica Crawford and Doressa Williams on September 24,2009 | 09:39 AM

That was a great comment Krystal!

Posted by Trever Mason on September 24,2009 | 09:39 AM

in my opinion, eudora is one of the greatest photographers of all time. she really makes an impact in the lives of current photographers! her many works were so versitile. ITS A REAL COMFORT TO KNOW THAT ART HAS LIVED AND WILL KEEP ON LIVING 4EVA!!!!!!

Posted by Krystal Jackson on September 24,2009 | 09:38 AM

Reading all these comments are so fun!!!!Rest in peace Eudora!

Posted by Trever Mason on September 24,2009 | 09:34 AM

Her writings and photography are well known. Hearing her death may have been a tragedy to most people, but her work is still with us.

Posted by Jamaud Bell on September 24,2009 | 09:23 AM

This is a great site.

Posted by Nathan on September 10,2009 | 10:16 AM

she makes a photo go to unique levels, the way she made the picture up close far away and techture

Posted by Cameron Coleman on September 10,2009 | 09:56 AM

I think that Eudora Welty is a very respected writer and photographer that may be an inspiration to a lot of photographers and writers.

Posted by Milton W. on September 10,2009 | 09:56 AM

I respect Eudora Welty as a writer and photographer. It's comforting to know such accomplished people have come from Mississippi.

Posted by Chris on September 10,2009 | 09:54 AM

She lived a very interesting life and her stories are funny and inspiring.I wish I could meet her in person.

Posted by Kayla Spires on September 10,2009 | 09:46 AM

This is great stuff.

Posted by Nathan on September 10,2009 | 09:46 AM

I believe that she showed sentimental meaning in her photos and stories.

Posted by Trever Mason on September 10,2009 | 09:45 AM

you are a good artist!!!!!!! I really look up to you your artwork are marvolous, terrrrrrrrific, and are a good start for me.... thanx alot!!!!!!

Posted by Veronica Crwaford on September 10,2009 | 09:42 AM

i think your artwork was excellent. You were wonderful in the photography era.Happy 100th birthday.RIP

Posted by josef tofresh cornelius on September 10,2009 | 09:41 AM

Mrs.Welty is a very fluid and vivid writer. Both my art Teacher (Mrs.Martha Hamburg) and I have great interest in her writings and photographs.

Posted by Earnestine Kirkwood on September 10,2009 | 09:40 AM

thank for your great photography
happy 100th birthday

Posted by Dion R. on September 10,2009 | 09:40 AM

Eudora Welty was a very unique writer. I think she is a wonderful inspiration to Mississippians. My art teacher (Martha Hamburg) is EXTREMELY inspired by this writer. After I have read over her biography, I was also inspired. Power APAC, Jackson, MS

Posted by Sherrell Ford on September 10,2009 | 09:36 AM

She is a great photographer and artist and she has inspired me to become a better artist.

Posted by Nick Fitch on September 10,2009 | 09:35 AM

She was A great photographer and author.

Posted by Doressa Williams on September 10,2009 | 09:35 AM

My teacher is so inspired by this particular writer and photographer, she has us researching her.
Personally, I think Eudora Welty is a great inspiration.

Posted by Sherrell Ford on September 10,2009 | 09:23 AM

Eudora Welty's writing and photography told the world about Mississippi. It is also fun to take a look back in time and compare what you see today as what was realistically represented by her works.

Posted by Briana on September 9,2009 | 04:21 PM

The article gave me a lot of information I had not previosly inquiried...I wish it had been a little shorter. it was totaly awesome to see sombody famous from Mississippi actully respecting Mississippi. She truely captures the escience of Mississippi.

Posted by stephen setzer on September 9,2009 | 04:15 PM

The article was really informative and I learned about her life. Her photograghs truley capture the essence of her life back then and are AWESOME!!! :]

Posted by James Gill on September 9,2009 | 04:14 PM

I see that Eudora Welty was a really passionate artist and even though she didn't get to really succeed in her photography, She succeed in her writing and won alot of prizes and awards.

Posted by Imani Smith on September 9,2009 | 04:13 PM

Welty's work is an inspiration not only to photographers and writers, but also to everday people. She gives life lessons through her work and perseverance.

Posted by Candace C. on September 9,2009 | 04:12 PM

It seemed that her photos are very informational about mississippi's past during the depression,and I thought it was cool the way she wanted to express the way life was through writing,I'm inspired...very nice.=]

Posted by Valarie Wigley on September 9,2009 | 04:08 PM

Welty has provided a window into past times and events. She is an inspiration not only to photographers and writers, but also to people of all kinds. She inspires people to persevere and to find their passion.

Posted by Candace C. on September 9,2009 | 04:02 PM

WELTY WAS A WELL RESPECTED ARTIST IN MY EYES.

Posted by EMMONICABINGHAM on August 27,2009 | 09:52 AM

She is a in spiring person to me.she really is a great photographer and write.

Posted by angel s. knott on August 27,2009 | 09:43 AM

EUDORA WELTY HAD GOOD WORK AND SHE HAD GOOD WRIGHTING SKILLS AND SHE WAS STRONG. SHE LIVED THROUGH MANY THINGS LIKE THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND SHE LIVED THROUGH HER FATHERS DEATH OF LEUKEMIA. SHE WAS A GOOD ARTIST AND PHOTOGRAPHER GOODBYE.

Posted by Quinton McDaniels on August 27,2009 | 09:39 AM

i think that she was a very inspiring woman to all mississippians and not just that to all artists and dont even stop at that to all women just to be able to know her would change a lifestyle.

Posted by genesis j. on August 27,2009 | 09:20 AM

Welty's life was full of adventures.SHe didnt care what people said about her.Her picture inspired me.Welty was a brave woman.I love her so much.

Posted by Keiuna Walker on August 27,2009 | 09:16 AM

I THINK EUDORA WELTY IS AMAZING,SHE INSPIRES ME TO KEEP DRAWING MORE PICTURES AND TO NOT CARE HOW PEOPLE JUDGE ME IN A WAY THAT IS WRONG,I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT HER.

Posted by MARISSA on August 27,2009 | 09:16 AM

The picture that I like the most was the one when she was on the wall.Welty was a brave and a beautiful woman.She never let nobody run over her.I wish I would met her when I was a girl.I would took picture,Wrlty was history and she will stay hiator until I die.

Posted by Keiuna Walker on August 27,2009 | 09:10 AM

Welty was a vivid example of extraordinary talent that exhibits her physical and mental being. I enjoy Welty's photography side more than her literary side.

-Naturella Apac Rep Jackson Mississippi.

Posted by Brittany Calhoun on August 19,2009 | 04:04 PM

Eudora Welty's photographs and literature are very inspiring to me as an artist because of the powerful social feelings they convey. As a photographer, i hope to emulate her knack for capturing meaningful images.

Power APAC, Jackson, MS

Posted by Caroline Hudson-Naef on August 19,2009 | 04:04 PM

Eudora Welty's photography helped open peoples eyes to the everyday amaricans in the deep South and how they live. Her photos are very motivational and don't try to hid or cover up the real way people where living during the ealy 30s. I am very thrilled to be using her work as an inspiration to create my own contemporary styled photograhpy basied off her works in my APAC Art class.

Posted by Rebecca Harrison on August 19,2009 | 04:01 PM

I ADMIRE EUDORA'S WRITING AND PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS! HER PHOTOGRAPHS WERE AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by on August 19,2009 | 03:53 PM

Her insight inspired me to pursue photography as a career. I strongly agree with her thought that life doesn't hold still, and you have to capture the moment before it slips away

Posted by Jonathan Faulkner on August 19,2009 | 03:52 PM

I think that she is one of the best of the best artists who ever lived. Her work is great, woundrful, the bomb, and beautiful.

Posted by on August 19,2009 | 03:52 PM

I think that Eudora Welty had a long life. I think if she was alive today she would be successful.- Xavier C

I think she was an expressive writer. - Tyler T

I think she's a great writer in many ways. Ryan N.

Her photographs express early Mississippi life. Mary O.

I think her photography expresses in her own way of life. Maggie A.

Posted by elementary emphasis students, Power APAC on August 19,2009 | 12:43 PM

she was a strong confident woman and didn't care what people thought of her

Posted by jordan smith on August 18,2009 | 10:13 AM

She is an inspiring person to me.She really is a great photograher and a writer.How she lived a long time towrite and take pictures.If she was still living I would love to meet her.When she died at the age of 92 I was 4 years old, now I am 11 years old.

Posted by angel on August 18,2009 | 10:11 AM

Eudora Welty was a great writer and photographer.I wish she was still here today to write more books and take more pictures!!!!!!

Posted by Dasia on August 18,2009 | 10:10 AM

I wish i could have known her as a girl, so that iwould know what her life was like and how she lived

Posted by taylore walker on August 18,2009 | 10:03 AM

Welty seems like someone who carries on her works to the younger generations to inspire them. It's really astounding how she did so much in a lifetime!

Posted by Kenny Bryson on August 18,2009 | 10:02 AM

welty was a very inspirational artist and not just in drawing as some people would think but as an artist in nature and life.

Posted by mississippi chic on August 18,2009 | 10:02 AM

it was art of her life of the problems and triumphs.

Posted by afro on August 18,2009 | 09:54 AM

I love her photographs she took. Her life was full of adventures. She love writing her stories. She put hard work in her work.she had a good live.

Posted by Keith Thompson on August 18,2009 | 09:48 AM

welty was a very inspirational artist and not just in drawing as most people would think but in a part of nature and life.

Posted by mississippi chic on August 18,2009 | 09:48 AM

Thanks for a fine article about a favorite author. I had not been aware of Welty's talent as a photographer. lkm

Posted by LKMarshall on May 25,2009 | 07:23 AM

THIS IS EPIC!!!

Posted by jetson2833 on April 13,2009 | 01:16 AM

Ms. Moellring: Again, I'd suggest contacting the Mississippi Dept. of Archives and History....

Posted by Thomas Frail on April 13,2009 | 09:16 AM

Congratulations on a great article. Having enjoyed the privilege of meeting Ms. Welty on a number of occassions as a student at Millsaps College in Jackson, and being lucky enough to own one of her originals, I thought you very accurately captured her sincerity and the feeling she conveyed in each of her photographs. Welty is one of our country's great treasures in my opinion, and I think you did an excellent job of sharing some of the reasons this is the case.

Posted by Jonathan C. Hancock on April 8,2009 | 10:50 AM

Are there prints of her's available for sale?

Posted by Genny Moellring on April 5,2009 | 08:45 PM

Ms. Miller: I don't know of any specific sources of photos Ms. Welty took when she was young, but you might try the Mississippi Department of Archive and History, where her pictures repose. Thanks for your interest.

Posted by T.A.Frail on March 31,2009 | 08:48 AM

Do you know of any sources that show Eudora Welty's photographs when she was a child? Please inform...I am a teacher looking for children's photographs to inspire my students to take photos of their own surroundings and then to use their own work for lessons across the curriculum. Thanking you in advance for your attention to my request....Sincerely...cathymiller

Posted by Cathy Miller on March 27,2009 | 08:31 PM



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