An Image of Society: Exploring Race and Power in the Ervin Yarbrough and Claude Culbreath Photograph Collection Open Access

Abstract

If photography historian Alan Trachtenberg rightly proclaims that “historical knowledge declares its true value by its photographability,” the history of Emory College in the early twentieth century may be bolstered by the collection of twenty-six silver gelatin prints in the Ervin Yarbrough and Claude Culbreath Photograph Collection housed at the Oxford College Archives in the Oxford College Library. Beginning as a visual analysis, “An Image of Society: Exploring Race and Power in the Ervin Yarbrough and Claude Culbreath Photograph Collection” expands to an interdisciplinary historical analysis on the relationship between race, power, and two Southern social institutions: Emory College and the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity that highlights a harrowing lacuna within Emory’s history.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction                                                                                                                           1

Introduction Images                                                                                                        7

Literature Review                                                                                                                11

Chapter II: Visual Analysis                                                                                               18

Chapter II Images                                                                                                                29

Chapter III: Historicizing the Photographs                                                                   45

Conclusion                                                                                                                           59

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Art History and History
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	History, United States Art History
Keyword	US South Culbreath Collection Southern History Systemic Racism in Art Systemic Racism Photography
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi, Emory University
Committee Members	Linda Merrill, Emory University Maria Montalvo, Emory University

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