Photos of Memphis

Memphis appears in Faulkner's fictions more often than any other out-of-Yoknapatawpha location. The first 10 photographs below were taken in the first decade of the 20th century by anonymous photographers working for the Detroit Publishing Company, famous at that time for their huge list of postcards featuring scenes from across the U.S. Their job was to capture the picturesque elements of the American landscape. The last 6 photos, on the other hand, were taken by Marion Post Wolcott, one of the photographers working for the Farm Security Administration who traveled through America during the 1930s to document the effects of the Great Depression.