This exhibit
documents the Jim and Mancy Massingill family, an Almond, Arkansas
family, that traveled the state taking photographs and with a camera
the family "made" and selling them three for a dime between
the years of 1937 - 1941.
"We didn't have much money at all and times were
hard, but we were young and it didn't seem to bother us much.
I guess it just seemed like a big adventure." - Evelyn
Massengill
Lawrence & Thelma (Bullard) Massengill
Involved in the family business
were father and mother James and Mancy; older son Lance and
his wife, Evelyn; and younger son Lawrence and his wife, Thelma.
"My mother (Mancy) was pretty resourceful; she
raised chickens and would take them in to town (Batesville) on
weekends to sell. One Saturday she was in the dime store and saw
people having their pictures made off the camera, then wrote to the
company and order the lens. She got the money for that by taking
about two-dozen pullets in for sale.
Dad built the box for the camera. They put it in the end of a little
trailer Dad had built, and they would pull it around to towns around
the area of weekends." - Lance Warren Massengill
Maxine Payne, Associate Professor of Art at Hendrix
College, has put together this wonderful exhibit which is on display
at the Arkansas Studies Institute for the month of September 2010.
She has a smaller, limited version on her website at
www.maxinepayne.com.
