Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

Note that there is not a negative available for each image on the contacts sheets. It is not possible to reproduce images that appear only on a contact sheet.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Al Clayton Photographs #4859, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Al Clayton in December 1996 (Acc. 96201).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Clayton, Al, 1934-
• Coles, Robert. Still hungry in America.
• Cookery, American--Southern style.
• Country music--Photographs.
• Documentary photography--United States--History--20th century.
• Egerton, John. Southern food : at home, on the road, in history.
• Grand Ole Opry (Theater)--Photographs.
• Photographers--United States--History--20th century.
• Photography--United States--History--20th century.
• Poor--Southern States--Photographs.
• Southern States--Photographs.

Photographer Al Clayton of Atlanta, Ga., was trained as a medical photographer and photojournalist. In the 1960s, he was asked by the Southern Regional Council help provide Congress with evidence of malnutrition among the poor in the American South. In summer 1967, Clayton traveled through the Mississippi Delta, eastern Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama, documenting poor people's lives. In July 1967, his photographs were presented at a hearing on Capitol Hill, where they helped to spur senators to call for increased funding for anti-poverty programs. Two years later, the photographs were collected in Robert Coles's Still Hungry in America (1969).

Clayton also contributed photographs to books by John Egerton's Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History (1987) and to humourous books, chiefly about food, including Critter Cuisine (1992) and Dreadful Delicacies (1993), both with Mary Ann Clayton, and The Quotable Hog: Root or Die (1994).

The collection includes contact sheets (proof sheets containing contract prints from more than one negative that are often used to select individual images for printing) and photographic negatives by photographer Al Clayton of Atlanta, Ga. Included are images used in Still Hungry in America by Robert Coles (1969) and Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History by John Egerton (1987). There are also images relating to country music, the Grand Ole Opry, and to life in the American South.