Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama

Label

Allie Mae Burroughs was a mother of four and the wife of a cotton tenant farmer during the Great Depression. Under this system, the sale of crops and bookkeeping was managed by a landlord who also enjoyed a majority of the profits. Stress and desperation shows on Burroughs’s face in her furrowed brow and deeply tanned skin. Her story would eventually be told by James Agee and Walker Evans in their book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. While photographing the residents of the rural Southeast, Evans and Agee lived in the homes of their subjects. In the text of the book, however, the artists themselves struggle with the possible exploitative nature of their depictions. What does Burroughs’s face indicate about her relationship with the photographer?

From the 2022 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 104, Southern Gothic, curated by Abigail Smith '23, Conroy Intern

Course History

SART 29, Photography I, Virginia Beahan, Spring 2012

SART 30, SART 75, Photography II, III, Virginia Beahan, Spring 2013

SART 29, Photography I, Virginia Beahan, Summer 2013

SART 29, Photography I, Virginia Beahan, Winter 2014

SART 29, Photography I, Virginia Beahan, Summer 2014

SART 17.9, The Photographer as Activist: Making Art Inspired by the Hood Museum's Collection, Virginia Beahan, Winter 2015

GEOG 17, Geopolitics and Third World Development, Patricia Lopez, Spring 2015

GEOG 17, Geopolitics and Third World Development, Patricia Lopez, Spring 2015

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 104, Southern Gothic, Abigail Smith, Class of 2023, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 8–February 27, 2022.

A Space for Dialogue 33, Picturing Family in "The South", Legacies of the American Civil War, Sophia Hutson, Class of 2006, Kathryn and Caroline Conroy Curatorial Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 29-October 22, 2006.

American Photogrophy: 1850-1980, Barrows and Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 26-May 2, 1982.

Homage to Walker Evans, Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 1975.

Image and Gender, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 17-May 27, 1990.

Open House: A Portrait of Collecting, Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, January 19-February 28, 2015.

Palmer Lounge, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 1973.

Portrait Photography from the College Collection, Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, Summer through Fall 1979.

Remembrance of Things Past, Prints and Photographs from the Class of 1935 Memorial Fund, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-September 2, 2000. [Curated by Jennifer Reily, Class of 2000, Class of 1954 Intern for the 65th Reunion of the Class of 1935]

Signs of Modern Life: Photographs from the Collections of Jane and Raphael Bernstein and Dartmouth College, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 13-October 25, 1998.

The Image Impressed, Lower Jewett Corridor, The Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 25-July, 1985.

The Photograph as Document, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, English 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 2-December 15, 1996.

Walker Evans and 1930s America, Israel Sack Gallery [American Works on Paper wall], Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 20-March 16, 2014.

Walker Evans, Artist-in-Residence, Jaffee-Freide Gallery, The Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 27-November 26, 1972.

Publication History

Sophia Hutson, A Space for Dialogue 33, Picturing Family in "The South", Legacies of the American Civil War, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2006, p. 3.

Provenance

The artist; sold to present collection, 1972.

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

We welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Please contact us at: Hood.Collections@dartmouth.edu

Subjects