ULMANN, DORIS. Roll, Jordan, Roll. Text by Julia Peterkin. A lavish title illustrated with 90 full-page, hand-pulled copper photogravures after photographs by Ulmann depicting former slaves and their descendents on the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina. Large 4to, 1/2 gilt-lettered white linen over embossed brown boards, scattered staining and wear; off-setting, but overall the plates are clean and bright; top edge gilt. Roth 78; Parr/Badger I 135. one of 350 copies signed and numbered by ulmann and peterkin on the colophon. New York: Robert O. Ballou, (1933)
Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) was a New York society woman who studied photography with the renowned Pictorialist artist Clarence White. The publication Roll, Jordan, Roll, a book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Julia Peterkin about the vanishing black culture, known as Gullah, of the South Carolina islands and coastal areas, featured Ulmann's stunning photogravure reproductions.
Ulmann was a superb portrait photographer who directly engaged with each of her subjects. In 1930 she wrote, "A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitute for me an interesting face. For this reason, the face of an older person, perhaps not beautiful in the strictest sense, is usually more appealing than the face of a younger person who has scarely been touched by life."
Ulmann's longstanding project was a pictorial record of the people and cultural practices of the "Southern Highlands" of the Appalachian Mountains. In collaboration with musician, actor, and folklorist John Jacob Niles, she made expeditions to Appalachia between 1928 and 1934. A master technician, she produced remarkably detailed platinum prints of highlight studies, which are offered in lots 70-71.
