All weekend long on booktv. For a complete schedule visit booktv. Org. In 1936, five years before they published let us now praise famous men, james agee and photographer walker evans produced a feature article for Fortune Magazine titled cotton tenants. It was about three poor families in alabama living through the great depression. The 30,000 word article and accompanying photos were never published by fortune, but cotton tenants was discovered decades later in a collection of agees manuscripts housed at the university of tennessee. During this event hosted by the Jimmy Carter Library and museum, editor john summers leads a Panel Discussion about the book and the work of james agee and walker evans. Carter library, president ial library here in atlanta, georgia. Im thrilled to be moderating this illustrious panel tonight. I think we will begin by introducing the book that we are going to be talking about, cotton tenants. James agee, walker evans. We will get started. In 1936, Fortune Magazine, which was a relative babe among business magazines in this country, sent one of its staff writers, james agee, the hale county and west Central Alabama with the assignment detail the stories of the abject poverty and their lives of tenant farmers. Agee, a tennessean by birth, educated at harvard, was but 26, 27. Known mostly as a poet, film critic and a writer of screenplays, but he was also developing some talent as a long form journalist, ma a style that fortunes editors liked. And he drew the assignment. At his request, fortune paired him with a documentary photographer agee barely knew, walker evans, whose previous work in the south had drawn good news. The two of them spent two months in hale county with three different families, and they produced by magazine standards a mammoth and powerful piece of work, a 90 page, 30,000 word manuscript, and more than 50 images. For reasons that remain the subject of debate and speculation to this day, Fortune Magazine never ran the manuscript. Five years later, agee and evans, to use the current parlance, repurposed the manuscript into a 471 page book, let us now praise famous men, which was published in 1941, five years after fortune had turned down the manuscript. It didnt survive. It quickly went out of print after selling a paltry 600 copies. It won some praise, but it was criticized for its inconsistent voices, the clashing styles of presentation, long winded string of consciousness and indole justness. James agee died in 1955 at age 45 of a heart attack. He has been described as a hard liver, an alcoholic, chainsmoker, the serial merrier who lived a life of self neglect. Sounds like a journalist. [laughter] by the time he had his happiest achievement, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his biograph autobiographical book, a death in the family. He had been dead for three years. But there was life after death for let us now praise famous men. Nearly 20 years after it failed to ignite, 1960 it was courageously, i might say, republished to a much different reception. The book hit american readers differently this time. It caught on. It became an iconic mainstay in the book bag of College Students all across the country. But the original manuscript had remained unpublished. It resided in Greenwich Village in the basement, in agees papers for years, until his daughter dont need papers to the university of tennessee. The manuscript is now published by Melville House in conjunction with the baffler magazine. The baffler ran an excerpt in the last several months. Its on sale here later. Im going to stop there. Am going to introduce our guests who will tell you the rest of the story, and we will try to save some time at the end for your questions. First of all, john summers. John is the editor of cotton tenants, and we owe him a great deal of gratitude for the presence of the book today. The baffler magazine is in print and Digital Journal of art and criticism now in its 25th year. John and the Baffler Foundation purchased the magazine two years ago and he runs it from cambridge, massachusetts. John has his ph. D and intellectual history and universe of rochester and is the editor of three books of cultural criticism. He was born and raised in gettysburg, pennsylvania, on the masondixon line, it just to show how he still has some geographical confusion, he claims he is very much a southerner. I said almost a southerner. [laughter] well, thats relative, you know, down here. Okay, hugh davis, associate professor of english at Piedmont College in georgia. He is the author of the making of james agee, which came out in 2008 and is the editor of a new scholarly edition of let us now praise famous men that will be coming out next year, i believe. Currently, he is working on an edition of agees letters. He got his bachelors degree in jackson which i can tell you having lived across the street from is in the shadow of his masters at the university about them and ph. D in english at the university of tennessee where, agee papers are housed. Is of course titles make me want to sign up for his classes. Southern literature and black and white is one. Freaks is another. And rednecks, hillbillies and georgia crackers, the south and its representation from the bottom up. [laughter] chip simone and like someone of us is a transplanted atlantan from worcester, massachusetts. He studied under the famous Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of design and has been making photographs for more than five decades. Two years ago the high museum here in atlanta brought special attention to chips work, and a show that exhibits 64 of his prints. Capture a watershed period and his professional career. His transition, not only digitally generated images, but also to color. You will know why chip is here to discuss walker evans when i read you this, which he wrote, im at the generation that learned expressive photography in a very parochial way. Serious photography was done in black and white. Color was vulgar. The shape of the image was dictated by the format of the camera, as cropping was not acceptable. I have abandoned arbitrary rules like these and continued to open my mind to the potential of new technologies. After 35 years in the darkroom, i moved into the digital realm. Digital technology not only changed the apparatus and a medium that transform how i absorbed the Digital World and profoundly changed how i express what i see. So these are panelists, and were going to start with john. I would love to give you the first word here. I mean, lets talk a little bit about Fortune Magazine in the 1930s but it starts on the cusp of the depression. Henry decides to keep it going nonetheless. He had big ideas for a different kind of this is journalism. And hes hiring people like james agee, archibald Dwight Macdonald out of your mac. Tell us about that period of time and if you would, segue into cotton tenants and tell us about how that sure. I was just chewing over your idea that he could himself so badly in some respect because he was a journalist. I think is because he was a poet. Thats what he started out as. The other interesting thing about that, self conception as a journalist is that a lot of the people that emmylou hired on the staff of Fortune Magazine which was founded in 1930, he announced the new magazine the week of the stock market crash. Many of them didnt think of themselves as journalists either before or after. He had this idea, he founded Time Magazine in 1923 and he was a kind of, these magazines were very important to magazine very important period in the 20s as a way of guiding new College Educated opinion, especially in the rural areas. Readers digest was done at this time. The new yorker is often, it was founded at this time. The magazine which include time and fortune in 1930 in life magazine, 1936 were really carries hybrid. Luce himself conceived journalism as a technique. He wanted to provide brisk summaries of the news any particular week for his audience, very busy people, the striving middleclass, the upwardly mobile middle class. Fortune he conceived of specifically as an effort to reach Business Executives and managers. You have to remember when you think about agees journalism in this period in the early 30s, that the people he was writing for, they were business people. There were 100,000 of them by 1935, the subscription numbers were really good. It was a very successful magazine, as most things that luce put his hand to. Agee came to Fortune Magazine right out of harvard. He graduated, it must be may or june of 1932, and in some he got this job. As you mentioned, you know, agee made his adjustments as people like archibald made adjustments and macdonald did as well. But what happened at fortune, right around 1932, 33, 34, and would extend into 1936 was henry luce, you know, it was unusual in one respect in that he believed that business in america should serve some point. There should be an and the business. It didnt message you have to have a broad social and that there should be some point to it, which automatically testing wishes and for most of our business folks from today. He had kind of an enlightened sense of what this is journalism could be about. He didnt mind criticism of business. Thats right. Lets face it, when its 1933 and its 1934, its kind of hard to defend business. He had a henry hoover conception of heroic business, but in the early part of the depression it was almost impossible for any honest person to continue to take that line. So fortune and its writers including agee begin to confront some of the more unseemly side of the country. So fortune ran pieces about they ran a piece about the Tennessee Valley authority, which agee wrote and which luce told him was told there was one of the best things ive ever been printed since fortune had been around. So they were brought and pragmatically open to new deal reforms. And i keep mentioning Dwight Macdonald because he is a particular point of entry into the agee biography but in this respect its important. Like macdonald wrote a three or four part series on u. S. Steel in 1936 for fortune again is a subject of a great deal of controversy around the office. Previous to that theyve been plenty of corporate profiles. Infect Fortune Magazine more or less invest in the invented the corporate profile. It was a kind of task system that it been that way for some time to digital anybody looking come even from the person, so that luce editors, they would run along in Depth Profile and then they would show the subject of the profile, the draft and present them with well, were going to run this. So thats how they got that off the ground. The profile that macdonald was writing was a little bit hardhitting. He tried to put an epigraph on the fourth installment by linden, so that was a little bit too far. So this political change is happening right around tim aroue the agee come in the Office Politics you might say, around the time that trammell gets the assignment in the summer of 36. By the time he finished writing it that fall, there was a long fallout over the next 18 months. They are not quite sure why they didnt mind but we have a pretty good idea. It comes from a very political viewpoint, you can feel it as hes writing it. I would like you to show us the poet of james agee if you would, do a little reading here to set up anyway you like. I have read just a little bit from the beginning that says where agee talks a out what it s theyre doing. I would say its not quite, you can judge for yourself. I would say its not quite a political viewpoint but the passage im not ready to read definitely the moral charter in my say of the rest. Agee says, this is an introduction to a civilization for which any reason puts a human life at a disadvantage. Civilization which can exist over putting human life at a disadvantage. Is where the night of the name nor of continuous. And human beings whose life is nurtured in an advantage which is accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings. And who prefers that this should remain as it is in the human being by definition only. Having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer and the scavengers of the deep sea. And heres than what followed the instructions for you, the reader. Only if we hold such truth to be selfconfident and inescapable and quite possibly more serious and quite certainly more indie than any others, may we in any honest and appropriateness proceed to our story, which is a brief account of what happens to the human life and what human life can and no essential way to escape, under certain unfavorable circumstances. The circumstances that are out of wedge and into which the cotton tenants is born. And other steady rain at which he stands up the years into his distorted she. Meet the reach of which he declines into death. The fact that the circumstances are merely local specialization of huge and ancient at all but racial circumstances of poverty, of life so continuously and entirely consumed into the effort nearly and very to sustain itself. So profoundly deprived and harmed an attribute in the courses of that effort, that it can be called a life at all only by biological courtesy. This fact should not confuse and, indeed, can only sharpen our discernment. We would be dishonest for instance, to cheer ourselves with the thought that in a newly rating the status of the cotton tenants alone, any essential problem whatever would be solved, and we would be merely fools to comfort ourselves with reflection of the south is a weird country. Our story, however, is limited. We would tell you only of the three living families, children with all possible care and fully and fairly to represent the million and a quarter families, the eight and half to 9 million human beings, who are the tenant farmers of the cotton belt. The families are those of Floyd Burroughs, and the bud fields, his fatherinlaw, and have his half brother in law frank king coal to be live on the list of red clay called mills hill in hale county in west Central Alabama. Fields entangled work for the brothers and partners jay watson and j. Christopher did more to live in moundsville. Small town red clay and highway miles north of them. We should begin with an outline of those business arrangements between attendance and the land owners whereby burroughs and his wife and their four children live. Thats the end of the first introduction. You get a real flavor of his writing style there. I want to turn to you, if you would, you know as much about james agee as anyone around. Tell us who he was. Am i right that he himself had conflict about doing this and about exposing these people to sort of national, ma i dont know, criticism or national, you know, approval, whatever it would be . One of the things agee was trying to remedy, is the idea that rural poverty had become, if People Living in rural poverty become poster children for the depression, and evans worked for the Resettlement Administration did his job was to go out and take pictures, propaganda, take pictures of poor people and then go back and show them happy after the new deal had intervened in their life. And agee was writing against the tradition of representing people like Floyd Burroughs as poster children for the depression and thats one of things you would really working on. Working against. Now, when he went to the south in 1936, his first inclination was actually to do a piece on Union Organizing in the south. And, in fact, i have a quote from his note buds what he describes giving the assignment, any was pretty important immediately. He writes, i was intensely interested to learn all i could about the unions, especially a straight communist Sharecroppers Union and he was my chance on that, too. I knew i could get help and get all this stuff. I intended to write three pieces. Which led us quite sure i could beautifully hang themselves on their own will. And the third, a straight union peace starting with the inch by inch process of a couple of organizers opening up New Territory right on through the night writing, et cetera and mushroomed into a history of both unions. And so from the very beginning the first person he called after receiving this assignment was a mechanic who was a communist organizer who would work with the International Labor defense on a case in alabama and she put him in touch with sometimes organizers. And then let us now praise famous men he writes actually, he met with them several times, and in let us now praise famous men when he talks about meeting with people who were quote also spies and enemies of our enemies, thats who hes talking about. On his first night in alabama actually went to the county where the all black communist Sharecroppers Unions have been founded, to hear a speech by quote a negro comrade. And so we went to the south he was very much within the context of communist party organizers. Over the next five years, his attitudes towards communism and towards the communist party changed. But you can see that come you can see that conflict in the epigraphs to let us now praise famous men which begins with a quote from king lear, juxtaposed a quote from the communist manifesto. But the footnote to the Congress Manifesto reads these words are here to mislead those who will be misled by them. And so with agee you always get the pointcounterpoint and the conflict which is laying bare right there. Are you saying then the families are merely actors in some play he is trying to write for the purpose of advancing a cause . One thing well, the cause is maybe not the right word because agee would be hardpressed to say what caused it is exactly he is advancing. He thought that if he published this article in fortune, that he would be striking a blow against the establishment. Which, of course, fortune was part of the establishment and probably a big part of the reason why they didnt publish it. But he saw himself as a spy. He was recruited by the communist party, and even though he agreed with their goals, he declined to join because he felt like as a writer that he could either write or he could be a revolutionary. And he couldnt commit fully the bombing cut and he does in south when he books to write. So the cause is complicated. Chip, lets talk about walker evans. What tradition did he come out, emerge from as a photographer . And what do we know about him at the time that he and agee are connecting . Walker evans was then erudite, educated, sophisticated man who came out of the middle west. He went to harvard, and then from harvard he went to paris to the school of paris. And by the school of paris, all of the lessons that paris has a place as an experienced in teacher. He hung out there. He preferred the presence of poets. Ulite to read the western classic poets, but he was also exposed, he knew picasso. He knew the world was changing at that particular time, modernism had begun to happen there. And he was very susceptible to that. So he was exposed to a certain kind of new aesthetic, which ultimately was reflected in the way he used the camera because he saw the camera as one of the true modern art methodologies, a machine made picture would more readily eliminate his presence from the image, or at least people thought that. And that was part of the objective was to make a picture that was so pure in its descriptive power that you were not distracted by the presence, the ego presents of the artist that maybe. Now, of course, i think thats in and of itself deceptive, because his artistry was actually just there in plain sight. He knew how to keep his own shadow out of the picture, so to speak. He did not see himself as a documentary photographer, but he liked to work in the style of documentary photography. He felt that the camera couldnt possibly come and i think agee was in agreement with him, that the camera could not possibly be so indifferent, so objective, because the things that you point the camera at, which is really the skill of the photographer in this particular case, is what makes the picture but its not the process of photography and its the process of selection of the subject, and his pictures are so fully realized. Now, this wasnt always the case of course. He was a fairly young guy. He did his first photo essay work in havana a few years before this, but he had begun working throughout the south. By the time he got to hale county was already in the south for at least a year, and he photographed in tennessee and alabama and georgia. He made one of my favorite pictures was done about a mile from your. I wish there was a title to it, but its a wonderful picture with the movie poster of Carole Lombard with a black eyed on it but it was done nearby a photograph in new orleans had photographed in savannah. And i think by the time they got to hale county he had already developed a sense of what the self looked like. When i tried to glean from what else i read was how much time agee spent in the south, if any, besides his trip to alabama, where as evidence had been your. In total almost two years. So a lot of the work that you see from famous man is very similar to what you done in other parts of the state. So i think it already settled on a methodology and aesthetic for doing that. But he felt that the things that he chose carefully to include in the photographs had their own almost spiritual power to them. And that by choosing, by selecting the images carefully, they transcended the subject, elevated to a higher level of significance. Gave me a sense of the technology of the time. What did the camera look like in the early 30s . Was it a big box camera . At that point by the time he came here, essentially he used to cameras. A handheld camera. Not a small as if theyre familiar to camera. And give you a negative, maybe an individual role about so they. And the eight by 10inch camera which was a real machine. But not, well, this maybe not exactly right but it was wooden. He used a dierdorf which was chicago made camera. I used one myself for 10 years. So they are very warm and friendly actually. The mechanical device has people were drawn to it, not threatened by it. But its large, cumbersome and slow. So his pictures were very deliberate come and work that he did was very studied. Now, as it turns out as a child he collected postcards. So theres been some scuttlebutt in recent years as to how much influence he had from photographs of places that other people have taken that did study for all of his childhood, and we dont know how that adds or detracts from his reputation. But he was very selective, and he had an affinity for the graphical element, handmade object, which he felt was reflective of the culture that was present in any given environment. And he had no interest, and he stated so. He didnt want to know either the Economic Situation or the political situation. He felt that would really get in the way and obstruct the purity of his intention. One thing im curious about, and yall should also feel free to chime in on this, we heard sort of the point of view or the angle that james agee was coming from, and presenting the families. Walker evans also, was he merely trying to reflect what he saw . Or do you think he was serving as a blocker to her . I think he was trying to a noble what he saw, and as a provocateur. Its inherently formalizing. Its a deliberate process. It comes as sort of a soft object that you then set up and gotten down. And in the process of doing that you to make certain aesthetic decisions as to where to place it and how to compose images. And its inherently formal, and particularly and architectural use. So the churches, the buildings that he photographed as the leopard as they may have been frequently had structural integrity, at least there was gravitas to the object as described in the photographs. And i think he treated people, primarily the same way. Not with exactly the same kind of treatment, if you go back historically, well, one of his heroes was the french, the parisian photographer and evans talks to his indebtedness to that, and also another american photographer who worked the largeformat very direct, friendly work, unpretentious kind of work making the place of the emphasis on the artistry, on the strength of the subject as well. Im curious. Did you feel like that was sort of this perfect harmony between the writing and the photography . Or did it work in contrast together . Well, the other model we had was, the only model we had, we had was let us now praise famous men, which is where the photos are arranged differently here than here. Didnt try in this addition to achieve the same kind of harmony. Perhaps we should have but we didnt. This book, when not sure what wouldve happened if it wouldve been published in a Magazine Article what wouldve become of the photos, how they wouldve been arranged, whether they wouldve had captions and so on. So we working slightly in the dark in terms of producing this book. So i understand they do and i appreciate come its not something we give too much of the story in this book. Talk about if you would, agees writing styles, both out of the period that he was writing, why it didnt resonate for americans when it came out in 1941, that it did 20 years later. Well, the writing, yes, you know, looking at the type scripts at first it was apparent that it was recognizably james agee because, i mean, if you read any of agee yet maybe a sense of the beauty of his prose and that sort of grabs you and make you feel grateful, and even a sense of love for the author. Thats been my experience and i think its fairly widespread experience with agee. Once you find the right the thing about agees writing that if i most remarkable in light of his reputation is his versatility. He was really able to write in a very different formal structures and proves himself a master, whether it was simply poetry or in this case, whether its magazine journalism. Its slightly, well, its very important, perhaps if you dont remember this, cotton tenants is a Magazine Article. But it was intended as a Magazine Article. When i first read it, the first thing i thought, or the second thing i thought after dashing boy, this is really good, its fully realized journalism. So i dont think agee particularly thought of himself as a journalist. Eighth circuit wasnt among the most important of his the book shows that he was the master of magazine journalism. He was able before realized a 30,000 word essay. Would you say that let us now praise famous men is nearly an extended adaptation of cotton tenants or much, much more . I would say its much, much more. Pretty much everything in cotton tenants made its way into let us now praise famous men in one way or another, but whats missing are the long meditations on everything under the sun. Agee said that he was not trying, he said that cotton tenants is only a nominal subject of let us now praise famous men. The real subject is certain normal predicaments of human divinity, is what he is trying to capture. And yet, it goes through all sorts of, you know, permutations. I do want to come back to chips statement that is trying to a noble sharecroppers, it is certain to. You can certainly see the pain in their face. You can tell that she knows how she is being represented. You can tell that she has bad teeth even though her mouth is not open. And it hurts. It hurts for her to become this sort of poster child for poverty. But one thing thats interesting is agee, for all of his adaptations on half of the sharecroppers never really lets them speak for themselves. There are only a very few moments whether even given their own voice. Similarly, evans has the photographs were, the first day they were there, evans was snapping pictures of the sharecroppers to the burroughs heard about it and went on, based, but on the best clothes and came over to have their portrait taken. Theres a very nice portrait of the burroughs family that hears all come, they are clean, they are smiling and they are standing there. This is a nice standard family portrait. Thats portrait is not in let us now praise famous men. The burroughs wanted to be represented as clean, happy family. And you know, agee writes about her attempts to make the house going, to sort of have this sort of middleclass decency. But that was tonight. That was denied them in let us now praise famous men. So one of the tensions in the book is between the representation which agee knows is flawed, and the human beings that are behind it. It may not have been that, however. At that period of time most americans were unaccustomed to being photographed. Today, people rehearse their poses. You know that, if you have a facebook page. All of your friends look like this, right . [laughter] they all do. Every picture they all look the same. In those days being photographed with somewhat of an uncommon explained. Is wonderful to photographer in iowa, had a studio in iowa, some of the most stunningly beautiful ordinary photographs of Farm Community people who didnt seem to have a sense of what was really happening. They just stood there and present themselves to the camera. And i think that people like evans probably would have preferred that interaction to one where they were trying to gussy themselves up and become something other than they were. So i have one question that baffles me, in let us now praise famous men when walker evans writes the foreword, or the introduction come and he writes it about james agee. And the one thing he says is that in 1938, a new york publisher agreed to publish the expanded version of the manuscript quote on condition that certain words be deleted which are illegal in massachusetts, closed quote. [laughter] and im thinking what the possible words could have been illegal in massachusetts were not illegal everywhere else . Do we know anything about that . Everything is legal in massachusetts. Thats what i would have thought. [laughter] another version of the passage is will be in my edition. They are the words you would think. Okay. So let me ask, just go back to you. How do you explain that let us now praise famous men just didnt catch on the first time and it did to second on . For one thing it was published in august 1941. People that depression fatigue at that time. The form security of administration, the photographs had been published. Books like youve seen their faces, and people were sick of it. And couldnt see anymore and thats part of why let us now praise famous men is intent. The other problem of course is that world war ii, american entered world war ii in december 1941. Once america was in world war ii, nobody cared about sharecroppers. But in 1960 those are very different in 1960, as you said in your introduction, agee died in 1955. Let us now praise famous men with falluja 9057, won the pulitzer in 1950. Then agee had this resurgence of interest. His Movie Reviews were published. His screenplays were published. In 1960, let us now praise famous men was reissued. And in 1962 his letters were published. Ansa suddenly he became, you know, he was a lot of attention. Was interesting about agee ability was just the same as for what he didnt write because he was seen as an artist who had failed to produce the work that was expected of him. But people took that signed the field and said the reason it failed to produce what was expected of him because he wouldnt compromise his principles, that he had too much integrity to sort of bow to the system and the system then had destroyed them. So people saw him as a sort of romantic, noble failure. But as one critic at the time put it, he was someone who was willing to live without armor. And so i think especially young people who read let us now praise famous men in the early 60s were very drawn to that idea of integrity and living without compromise, and living without armor. I have a quote here from casey hagan, who was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was part of freedom summer 1963. This is what she wrote about, this is a menu addition, when she wrote about let us now praise famous men. She says i carried my poke around. We passed it around like cigarettes, like bread and wine. Let us now praise famous men was a type of bible for the freedom riders became south to register black voters. And part of it was that it offered them a window in to the mind of the south. It was about the same people who are trying to lynch them in mississippi. And i think part of it was that these young idealistic College Students wanted to understand these people, not as abstractions, not as enemies, not as human beings and thats exactly why what agee accomplishes but the other thing they were drawn to was that it showed them how to live without armor. It showed them how to live according to the principles without compromise. I teach let us now praise famous men, or try to do my freshman and they hate it. I dont care. [laughter] because there are a couple of every semester t who did it and its worth it but its worth it. And let us now praise famous men, as many of yo you know, is a book that you cant get past the first few pages or it changes your life. And i think in the early 60s there were people who wanted to change, who were eager for the change. And let us now praise famous men really spoke to that. Is it true, agees reputation as you say, the book itself is a commercial and more or less political flaw but he did live in new york and he had friends, and some of them talked to them. Irving howe, paul goodman, these are new york intellectual figures in the 40s, the 50s that were very much aware of what agee had accomplished in let us now praise famous men and kept in some small way his reputation for life. In fact, in 194 macdonald published or made available back stock from let us now praise famous men to his magazine called politics for subscribers. So there was a small flame in the created that connects the sort of struggle in the late 30s and early 40s to the 60s. I want to go to the audience. So if you would, raise your hand and will have the microphone come to you. Dont be shy. I know you all have questions. [laughter] and while were waiting for someone to raise the hand, i just want to mention that if you have an interest in this, and you clearly do or you wouldnt be here, its worth knowing that we are about to see sort of a major resurgence, or at least the opportunity for there to be a major resurgence of interest, both in agee and in evans. Theres a whole slew of other books coming out, am i right about that . The university of Tennessee Press is producing an 11 volume scholarly edition of agees complete works. And a definite family, the restored revision has just, came out in 2007. The complete journalism will be published this fall. My edition of let us now praise famous men is coming out in the spring and it will include about, it will include a directive version of the 1941 photographs in the 1960 photographs and about 600 pages of manuscript material, including unpublished chapters, drafts, outlines but it will have the fully annotated version of cotton tenants, and correspondence, including two letters from Floyd Burroughs and two of the original sharecroppers. You find will have their voice. That will be out and in other volumes will include three volume of screenplays, including the original script, Movie Reviews, short fiction, poetry and letters. And so yes, the next few years there will be ample opportunity to immerse yourself. Any questions . Over here. If you dont mind. And while hes walking, tell us, the current field, tingle ambrose family are awar aware ts is, amber rudd, that the manuscript is out of . I think it was a quotation from bud fields grandson i think it was, yes, about the book spent pleased that it is out and thought that brought honor to the family, even while describing the very difficult circumstances in which they lived . Yeah, thats right. Over here. Id like to make a brief statement before a question. I lived from 19361941 on a 125acre farm three miles east of avondale estates, not residential. We had a black tenant farmer, and all summer long my brother, one year younger than i, worked with his black tenant farmer. And on weekends and sometimes after school, we race horses, two horses, a mule, towels, pigs, goats, the whole animal farm, chickens, and sold produce the enemy hospital. The made work in the big house, and the tenant farmer farmed. We didnt farm cotton. My question is, was there any research at all of the black tenant farmer . Well, agee was sent explicitly life fortune to find a representative family of white sharecroppers. And in let us now praise famous men you notice the first couple of chapters in the book starts, the first two are about encounters with some black sharecroppers were brought in to sing for him and evans come and theres another what he goes to evans and agee have stopped to photograph a church and a black couple stop by. They could ask and who can let them in the church. And went agee approaches at them from behind, they run. And so in the first couple of chapters, let us now praise famous men, agee is very aware of the fact that there are 6 million black sharecroppers in the south and hes not supposed to knows. And so thats in there. Thats part of it. Then, of course, in cotton tenants theres an appendix on black sharecroppers. Theres also to appendix. One is on negroes and the other is on landowners. So theres a few paragraphs, not much but what he calls notes and random. So thats here. But that wasnt the intent of the assignment originally. And in this passage he says, i think about these destitute sharecroppers who dont have anything, the white sharecroppers take away the mule, take away the cow, take away the pig, you know, take away the need, and take with issues and then well Start Talking about the black sharecroppers. There was another question. Back here. You said that agee specifically asked for evans to go in the assignment with him, even though he didnt really know him very well. Can you speak to why he might have wanted evans . Can you also speak to what the relationship became once they did Work Together . Evans was on an assignment at that time. So he was, agee asked to get him in on the project, and he was barred from the ssa. So evans was not working for fortune at that time. Apparently, evans had a dislike for people like white we thought was too pretentious in the work that they did and evans had already developed a reputation as being a forthright straight shooter, literally. I mean, his work at a certain level was almost like snap shooting. There was no attempt to manipulate the viewer through sentiment or other things like that. And that is apparently a quality that agee really describes. Another point, a regular photographer at fortune. Probably the dominant photographer. For timelife, she may have had the first photograph, she made had the photograph on the first issue of life magazine as i recall. But thats what i came across is that he didnt like that kind photography, and he was aware that evans didnt do it that way. Now, evans later wrote that he didnt really think of what they did as a collaboration, that they both went there and had their own thing to do. And when famous men came around, they reached an accord as to how it would be joined. And as such, the First Edition of famous men had 50 pages of photographs, one picture per page, and captioned. So that the viewer had to experience, had to work a little harder because there was no caption. But after going through the sticky images in a very specific sequence, because it was very important for evans how this work was laid out, how the story unfolded so to speak, and then when you got through the end of the cd images using came to the introduction of famous men. So the sauce separate roles that related roles. You were prepared kind of at an emotional visceral level by the photographs, and then come and, of course, youd come back because they were alluded to in the right. It was the people you are reading about, it was all that stuff, but first and foremost they want in the purest sense for you to look at the photographs. We have another question over here. Here we go. Considering we just passed through an almost equal economic time as the great depression, and how brilliantly it was depicted later on, and how Migrant Worker situations with all sorts of issues that relate to very similar situations, is there, ill be brief, is there a agee working today . Well, lets hope so. I think one of the things, its reasonable to hope for from this book, and from their work is that in keeping these two men and their work before the publ public, someone will remember the imports of doing this. Theres certainly not the business part of it anymore. There doesnt seem to be many magazines less. The baffler that will publish long essays. So this is the ambivalence one feels, to go back to henry luce, hired poets to write journalism. And paid them and gave them offices and gave them officers, you know. Agee had an office in the chrysler building. And there was an audience, or a presumed audience for the work. Their offices are gone. The audience is disorganized. I dont think its gone, and the resources, the media magnets are chasing clicks on line. They are not much interested in this. So its a very good question. I might amplify somewhat on the. I think i failed to induce myself. Im Hank Klibanoff and i spent 36 years in the newspaper business and i now teach journalism at emory and wrote a book on the history of News Coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in the south. Thats just my way of giving you some bona fide to say i think we are in a state currently we are news organizations are not, by and large, allowing reporters to do what we might call immersion journalism. But im not despairing, because i have seen where there has been a real uptick in the number of online news organizations, some of them that were once newspaper based, some of them that were not, that are increasingly interested in long form journalism, increasingly in immersion journalism. But if you say, so how are recovering the state of the immigrants in america today, i would say that we are covering the politics of it very well. We sort of know whats going on in the Senate Subcommittee of the judiciary committee, but do we know whats going on in their lives . Are we living with them and telling their stories . And the answer is no. And i think that sort of a National Problem and its not just down here. Who but we dont see reporters in the field. Without a proper drivers license. And we dont see them, somebody texting their parents can be careful, i got caught on a traffic violation. They may be coming after you. We dont see that. I think we will. Im hopeful well get back to that, that i think online has multiple opportunities for deep reporting. And i look forward to it, kissing more that. One of the problems, whos interested in reading about poor people . I mean, its one thing to read about poor people as they report in 1936, but i know of a project in washington that is trying to cultivate reporters for reporting the social crisis right now thats enveloping the entire country, and trying to take their stories and get them placed in major media. And reports that come back from the editor of the major media are almost universally, can you take the poverty out . Its a little bit uncomfortable. This is very much a book about poor people. We have another question over here. Full disclosure, my four grandparents were sharecroppers in alabama and mississippi in the 30s and 40s, and my parents were sharecroppers in mississippi in the 40s and 50s. Im interested in the finding of the article amongst his papers. Was it a compost article, or was it pros and photographys speakers just the article. Then my other question is, was agee and agee alone given the assignment, and then he hired or selected the photographer and instructed him . And once they were on the job in alabama, did they collaborate specifically about what they wanted photographed when . I think chip has addressed the address of collaboration. You want to elaborate . I think they worked separately. Agee shows to live with the families, evans stayed in a motel. Which was very telling. But he also was more interested in keeping a distance. He thought it was important to do the kind of work on and he was somewhat of a reserved to god as i understand it, less likely to be in the trenches. And his career as an artist, which was foremost in his mind i think, because two years after the photographs were made in alabama, 1936, evans was the first photographer ever to have a one person show at the museum of modern art in new york, and that was in 1938, which include some of the hale county photographs. So those works, photography, were elevated almost immediately into the hyde park realm at the pinnacle of our temples in our country. If i might, i want to give john the last word and i think were down to the last word, a minute or so. Encountering the manuscript itself. Its a tight script, right speak was yes. With his hand, you know its his handwriting. Distinctive, awful handwriting if im not mistaken. It was, but what was remarkable about this project from our perspective was that it was recognizably, agee was