Signs of the South: Original and Archival Photographs

Abstract

Original and Archival Photographs What could former fashion photographer possibly have to offer Southern Cultures? A tour of past and present. Charlie Curtis says that it was deep love for preservation that led to this collection of archival photography of Dorothea Lange and Marion Post, along with his own original pictures of signs that he has encountered during his daily travels through Virginia and North Carolina countryside. He spent his youth on Virginia farm, which he says gave him a real soft spot for small towns off highways and dirt roads. For him these places and their signs have become friendly beacons, reminders of stories and culture hidden to speeding passersby: barn-shaped garage and Barker's Snack Shop in Semora; Mildred's Kitchen, Elk's Home, and Hope of Glory Apostolic Church in Eden; electric fence and rusted Coca-Cola signs in Caswell County; stained-glass window in Danville. Even Prepare to Meet God warning, which today still demands attention of even most lighthearted travelers, soon became welcome part of landscape. Charlie Curtis has uncovered invitations, advertisements, admonishment, revelation, and history in his own photos and those images frozen sixty years ago by Lange and Post. Storefronts, billboards, stained-glass windows, spare tires, barn doors, stoops, eating holes--all, he says, hold messages that are truly valuable record, that have something to show us, that are bridges both to past and future. These photos reveal some of mystery that modern world accelerates by without considering. Did 1939's North Carolinians choose to consult old signpost or new one beside it at crossroads outside Stem? Was plaque outside Caswell County Courthouse an attempt at reconciliation? Was it, as Charlie Curtis wonders, the admission within community of its difficult secrets? Or was it merely intended to declare an enduring KKK presence? And what did Klan make of W. M. Mallory and his southern version of Harlem barber shop? Charlie Curtis has slowed down car, pulled us off onto shoulder to think it all over. The Elks Home Midway Lodge, Semora, North Carolina, August 1999, photographed by Charlie Curtis. Harlem Barber Shop, Granville County, North Carolina, November 1939, photographed by Marion Post. Courtesy of Odum Photo Study, Southern Historical Collection, Library of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prepare to Meet God, Eden, North Carolina, July 1999, photographed by Charlie Curtis. …