The Hillbilly photo

The photo in question had been a deliberately forgotten part of family ephemera. Clearly, this was proof I am descended from a long line of hillbillies. The origin of the word hillbillly is quite interesting in itself, leading all the way back to William of Orange and the confused, sad eighteenth century Scottish history. We’ll save that for another day. Today we are going to look at this photo with our brains, not our eyes. Big difference. Our eyes see a hillbilly couple armed like Bonnie and Clyde ready for a squirrel hunt. Or bank robbery. Now here is what our brains see.

Start with what you know

What I knew about the photo:

1. Measures 3” X 4”

2. Matches other photos associated with the Welshans family of Blair, Randolph County, Illinois.

3. Provenance confirmed it was part of the photo collection of my paternal grandmother (Welshans).

4. The photo itself was well worn indicating a lot of people looking at it and passing it around.

A. I. analysis was little help at first

I uploaded the photo into Grok A.I. for analysis. The result was underwhelming.

1. 1.General information about rural life in 1930s Randolph County.

2. Hallucinations about a horse in the background.

3. Seemingly incorrect identification of the firearms.

Clues

But there was one word Grok used that resonated, “staged.” With enlargement I magnified the photo and searched for small clues. Here are the clues.

1. There is an extra hat laying in the wagon.

2. There is a man’s left shoe in the wagon.

3. The woman is holding a bolt action rife, the man a double barrel shotgun.

4. The woman is wearing what appear to be fashionable shoes of the day. The man’s shoe is an ordinary leather shoe, not a work boot.

5. The wagon does not seem to be attached to a horse.

6. The wagon is decrepit, of the kind that sits around long after it’s useful life.

7. There is a corn cob in the wagon.

8. The angle of the sun suggests mid day or early afternoon.

Analysis:

The scene was clearly staged for humorous effect with the couple deliberately poking fun of their rural life. They are not dressed for a workday on the farm but more likely a casual Sunday afternoon. The third hat is that of the photographer who may have been using a Kodak Brownie #2, the view finder on top necessitating the user to look down and a hat would get in the way. The wagon was selected for it’s poor broken down status and used as a prop. And what hillbilly in his right mind would go hunting small game with a shotgun in mid day with his wife armed with a moderately large rifle? Clearly, the weapons are also “stage props.”

Grok Confirms

I then queried Grok again about the likelihood that this was a staged photo. Here is the reply:

Early Period (1890-1910):

• Photography in the 1890s was still a formal and expensive process, often requiring long exposure times (several seconds to minutes). This meant most photos were staged, but they were typically serious portraits or documentation of events, as people had to hold still for the camera. Studios were common, and photographers often posed subjects in dignified or symbolic ways.

1910s-1920s: Growing Accessibility:

• The introduction of more affordable cameras, like the Kodak Brownie (1900), democratized photography. By the 1910s and 1920s, middle-class and some working-class families began taking their own photos. This led to an increase in candid and staged photography, including humorous setups.

1930s-1940: Peak of Playful Photography:

• By the 1930s, photography was more widespread, and cameras like the Kodak Brownie and folding cameras were common even in rural areas. The Great Depression influenced photography, with many using it as a form of escapism or entertainment.

• Overall, staged or deliberately humorous photos were moderately common by the 1930s, especially among those with access to cameras. Estimates from photographic archives suggest that:

  10-20% of personal photos from the 1920s-1930s might include some element of playful staging, though this varied by region and class.

• Humor in photography often reflected the era’s social norms. For example, rural communities might stage scenes that poked fun at their daily life (e.g., pretending to be overwhelmed by farm work), while urban dwellers might lean toward more theatrical or slapstick humor.

• Gender roles also played a part—men might pose in mock "tough" or exaggeratedly masculine ways (e.g., with guns or tools), while women were often depicted in more whimsical or domestic humorous setups.

• The rise of Hollywood and early cinema in the 1920s and 1930s also influenced amateur photography, with people mimicking the dramatic or comedic poses they saw in movies or magazines.

Conclusion:

This was a staged photo intended to poke fun of rural life taken in 1920s or very early 1930s. Although the mocking of rural life by Hollywood did not reach full momentum until the 1940s there were precedents in the movies that may have served as inspiration. The two people in the photo could not be positively identified but both bear a strong resemblance to siblings of my grandmother.

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