Montgomery Ward Snopes' Studio in The Town (Location)

Opened by Montgomery Ward Snopes after he returns from the First World War, the Atelier Monty transforms a corner store "with a side door on an alley" (127) into what Gavin Stevens calls "a pay-as-you-enter peep show with a set of imported pornographic photographs" (282). The building is owned by the Compson family. The photographs were brought back by Monty from France after World War One. The people of Jefferson are led to believe it is "a photographing studio" (128), and Snopes does take some photographs that can be displayed in the windows. But as the town eventually discovers, the "dark room" in the back was really where he used a magic lantern to project "pictures of men and women together, experimenting with one another" (171): "most of his business was at night like he did need darkness, his trade seeming to be mostly men now, . . . and the customers going and coming through the side door in the alley" (131).