Roll, Jordan, Roll

New York: Robert O. Ballou, 1933. First Trade Edition. First Printing, preceded by a limited edition of 350 copies. Octavo (22cm); blue cloth with titles stamped in gilt on spine; black topstain; dustjacket; 251pp; illustrated with 70 full-page photographs by Doris Ulmann. Hint of sunning to spine ends, some trivial wear to corner tips, with a tiny splash mark to topstain; contents clean; Near Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $3.50), gently spine-sunned, modest wear to joints and extremities, with shallow loss to crown, several tiny nicks and tears to extremities, and a 2" split at lower front flap fold; Very Good+. One of the great documentary photobooks of the 1930's, examining the lives of black plantation workers in the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina. The idea for the book was originally conceived by American photographer Doris Ullman (1882-1934), who met Julia Peterkin at a literary gathering in 1929 – the same year Ullman had undertaken a project to create a volume of photographic studies of African Americans throughout the South. Ulmann's portraits of the Gullah people were taken on the Lang Syne plantation, owned by the family of Peterkin's husband; paired with text and stories written by Peterkin, Ullman's portraits of the former slaves and their descendants have long been praised for both their quality, and the sense of dignity they convey. Many times scarcer in an attractive jacket than the signed, limited issue, published the same year. BLOCKSON 3932; ROTH 101. PARR-BADGER, Vol.1, p.135.