A World Made By God and By Hand
A World Made By God and By Hand
A Review of “Ogg Land: The Rediscovered Photographs of C.I. Ogg” by Kathryn Freeman
Review written by Eli Smith. This article will appear in print form in the forthcoming issue of “The Quiet American.”
To view selected Ogg photos in high resolution CLICK HERE, and visit The Photography of Coley Ogg facebook page. To purchase “Ogg Land” CLICK HERE.
C.I. “Pa” Ogg (1855-1950) was the main photographer in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but he is only today starting to receive his due. “Ogg Land: The Rediscovered Photographs of C.I. Ogg,” lovingly compiled by his great granddaughter Kathryn Freeman, offers an amazing look into the old ways of the mountain frontier.
In her introduction, Kathryn Freeman writes, “In the summer of 1992 I made a promise to my mother that I would try to create a book of my great grandfather’s old photos, I set out to learn all that I could about the man that was our beloved “Pa Ogg.” After two decades of searching, my knowledge and archive have grown considerably… Pa Ogg’s work tells the story of Appalachia’s dramatic transformation from a farming economy to an industrial one. His photographs were widely published, from the late 19th century, right up to the present, but nearly always unattributed. He was an early photographer lost to history, a documentarian who made ‘art.’ The work is old, but it depicts a way of living that is far older than the photos themselves.”
As the fertile lands of Virginia and other states to the East became settled and accounted for, poor homesteaders, in search of their own stake, were forced to make the dangerous passage through the Cumberland Gap and other mountain passes to claim rugged land deep in the Appalachian interior. Many were soldiers in the revolutionary war that received homestead land grants in return for their service in Washington’s army. This book of photographs records the original mountaineer way of life in its final era.
This first volume of Pa Ogg’s work focuses on his beautiful documentation of the natural world and truly rural way of life in E. Kentucky from when he started making photographs around 1880 through the early 20th century. Ogg’s photographic record preserves the reality of subsistence farming and hunting that had existed for 100 or even 200 years in the mountains, but was soon to be obliterated as people were convinced or coerced into a turn towards a coal mining economy, which now forms the basis of the region’s identity.
C.I. Ogg was unable to read or write, and was known to be modest man who did not like to “sign” his