Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) was born and educated in New York City. A graduate of the school of the Ethical Culture Society, a socially liberal organization that championed individual worth regardless of ethnic background or economic condition. In the late 1920’s Ulmann made trips each summer to document the rural people of the South, particularly the mountain peoples of Appalachia and the Gullahs of the Sea Islands. With a profound respect for her sitters and an ethnographer’s eye for culture, Ulmann took portraits and photographs of artisans at work.
(All images courtesy of The Doris Ulmann Photograph Collection at the University of Oregon)