Text by Julia Peterkin (1880-1961) – American storyteller
Images after photographs by Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) – American Pictorialist photographer
New York: Robert O. Ballou, 1933
Deluxe edition of 350 total copies, this is one of 23 hors commerce copies designated not for sale
Presented to “H.L.B.” signed by Ulmann and Peterkin as issued
90 full-age copperplate hand-pulled photogravure plates with tissue guards
Embossed brown textured paper boards with white gilt-stamped cloth spine and tips, top edges gilt, deckled edges
Lacking the plain slipcase and additional loosely inserted photogravure that was issued with the for sale copies (may have been omitted from the hors commerce copies)
Large quarto; 290 mm x 225 mm

Julia Peterkin’s, “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” was a collaboration piece with photographer Doris Ulmann. Ulmann provided photographs of former slaves and their descendants on a plantation in the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina and Peterkin wrote the text. This edition was published in 1933 by Robert O. Ballou in New York. It is a deluxe edition of a total of 350 copies and is signed by Peterkin and Ulmann.

This deluxe edition is of a higher production quality than the trade edition, which featured only seventy-two plates in total. Limited edition copies that were offered for sale came with a separate print of one of the photos and a slipcase. Neither is present here, and it is unknown if the hors commerce copies would have included the photo and slipcase, or if they were selling points intended to help market the commercial deluxe edition. There is a hint of soiling, but otherwise it is a fine copy. The piece is in large quarto.

Julia Peterkin (Laurens County, South Carolina 1880-1961 Fort Motte, South Carolina)

Soon after marrying a plantation farmer in 1903, Julia Peterkin began writing short stories inspired by the everyday life and management of a plantation. She was particularly interested in African-American folk life in the South Carolina Low Country. Peterkin was praised by Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Walter White for her avoidance of the racist stereotypes prevalent in the writing of Caucasian writers of her time. Some of her better known works include, “Green Thursday,” (1924), “Black April,” (1927), and “Scarlet Sister Mary,” (1928) which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Doris Ulmann (New York City 1882-1934 New York City)

Born into a wealthy New York family, Doris Ulmann had a progressive education at the Ethical Culture School. Later at Columbia University and again at Clarence H. White School of Photography, Ulmann began to focus her studies on American photography. Around 1917, she became an active member of the Pictorial Photographers of America, founded by Clarence H. White and other promoters of Pictorialism. Ulmann began to capture images of Mennoite and Shaker communities, as well as rural Appalachians and residents of the South Carolina coastal plain. Ulmann’s images were used to illustrate novels, including Allen H. Eaton’s “Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands” (1937). Despite her education, Ulmann considered herself an ‘amateur’ in the sense that she did not take photographs for commercial gain. Today, her work is found in the collections of the University of Oregon, the New York Historical Society, the Smithsonian and the J. Paul Getty Museum.