[Portrait Study, Probably South Carolina or Louisiana]

about 1929–1931

Medium

Platinum print

Dimensions

20.6 × 15.4 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-384579

In 1929 Julia Peterkin's novel *Scarlet Sister Mary* (1928), a depiction of twentieth-century plantation life, won the Pulitzer Prize. About the same time, she began collaborating with Doris Ulmann on a book that was initially to be built around photographs of African American life and customs in areas of the South designated by Peterkin (1880-1961), such as New Orleans, Mobile, and South Carolina. It appears that changes in their relationship caused this work, entitled *Roll, Jordan, Roll* (1933) ([https://primo.getty.edu](https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=GETTY_ALMA21132793620001551&context=L&vid=GRI&lang=en_US&search_scope=COMBINED&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=all_gri&query=any,contains,julia%20peterkin&mode=basic)), to evolve into a collection of Peterkin's writings with scattered illustrations by Ulmann. It is still unclear who selected and sequenced the pictures. Although this study of an adolescent girl was not used in the volume, it seems to represent much of what is said in Peterkin's chapter on the subject of children. She describes this critical time in a child's life: "Twelve is the age of responsibility, when the recording angel in heaven …