Special Project: William R. "Pictureman" Mullins Photo Collection, 1935-55

William Richardson "Pictureman" Mullins was a commercial photographer who worked in eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and Baltimore, MD. Though he did not set out to record the everyday life, heritage, and culture of southern Appalachia, Pictureman Mullins did just that. Alex Harris, former Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has said of the collection, "There were tens of thousands of these small town photographers at that time, and a small percentage of them were artists as well as photographers - and Mullins was one of them." The Appalshop Archive is in the midst of a project to digitize the 3600 negatives in this collection and make them digitally available.