Rendville, Ohio, 1953-1957

Extent:

5 boxes

Scope and content:

These images represent James Karales' first major photojournalistic work, a study of a small mining town in Ohio which was one of the first racially integrated towns in the U.S. Subjects include white and African American adults and children, families, miners at work, houses, local stores, street scenes, landscapes, and social gathering places such as churches and dance halls. Racially mixed people may appear in some images.

In 1958, Edward Steichen bought some of the Rendville pictures for the Museum of Modern Art and Helen Gee exhibited the photographs at the Limelight Gallery in Greenwich Village, marking this photographic work as a breakthrough for Karales.

Series includes contact sheets, small work prints, large finished prints, and negatives (closed to use), all black-and-white. Prints are marked on the back with the photographer's original image identifier and whenever possible they are arranged in that identifier order, which also usually reflects a rough chronological order. A CD with jpeg files of selected images is included in the series; files have been migrated to a library server.

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