Helen Balfour Morrison (1900-1984), a white photographer from Chicago’s North Shore [Evanston, IL], traveled at least three times over a decade [1935-1946] to Kentucky’s Inner Bluegrass region to photograph African Americans of the rural freetowns or hamlets surrounding Lexington. In her almost 500 photographs, she created a compelling record of the daily lives of the men, women, and children of Zion Hill, Sugar Hill, and other Kentucky locations. Her images show people at home, in town, and at work - often in the kitchens, stables, and pastures of the region’s large thoroughbred horse farms. The pictures reveal the dignity, independence, and strength of these close-knit descendants of the ex-slaves who established communities there after the Civil War.
The online collection at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/nby_morriso consists of 564 images with "bare bones" captions, many of which do not include the names of the persons pictured. Surnames mentioned are: Bell, Blair, Burnham, Carter, Clay or Clary, Cross, Dunlap, Estill, Fisher, Harbut, Jones, Lewis, Livers, McIntyre, Price, Raglin, Saunders, Shearer, and Williams.
63 of the photos were taken on the Idle Hour Farm.
If you recognize anyone in these photos, contact the Newberry Library in Chicago to ask them to add your identifying information: (312) 255-3506.