Mary Morgan Keipp was a noted figure in the art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 movement of the early 20th century, exhibiting her photographs of rural Dallas County

Dallas County, Alabama

Dallas County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas. The county seat is Selma.- History :...

 African-Americans in major exhibitions at the New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 Camera Club

The Camera Club of New York

Since 1884, The Camera Club of New York has been a forum to explore photography. Though the Club was created by well-to-do 'gentlemen' photography enthusiasts seeking a refuge from the mass popularization of the medium in the 1880s, it accepted its first woman as a member, Miss Elizabeth A...

 (December 1899), the Annual Photographic Salon (November 1900), Dudley Galleries in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 (October 1901), and the National Arts Club of New York Photo-Secession

Photo-Secession

The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F...

 Exhibition (1902) organized by Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...

.

Born in Selma to a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 immigrant father, Keipp began taking photographs as a hobby when she was 16. When she went to nursing school

Nursing school

A nursing school is a type of educational institution, or part thereof, providing education and training to become a fully qualified nurse. The nature of nursing education and nursing qualifications varies considerably across the world.-United Kingdom:...

 in the Northeast

Northeastern United States

The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...

 she began exhibiting the photographs she took during her summers at home in Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

's Black Belt

Black Belt (region of Alabama)

The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, and part of the larger Black Belt Region of the Southern United States, which stretches from Texas to Maryland. The term originally referred to the region underlain by a thin layer of rich, black topsoil developed atop the chalk of the Selma...

. After graduating, she returned to Selma in 1904 and began her career as an Nurse anesthetist

Nurse anesthetist

A nurse anesthetist is a nurse who specializes in the administration of anesthesia.In the United States, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist is an advanced practice registered nurse who has acquired graduate-level education and board certification in anesthesia...

 at King Memorial and Selma Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 Hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s. With no outlet to exhibit her work locally, the photographs were kept among her private belongings and not seen again until they were donated after her death to the Selma Depot Museum by her nephew's family.

Keipp's photographs depict rural African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s going about their normal routines in the Reconstruction South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

. Typical subjects include laundresses, nannies, field hands, and children at play. No evident moralism

Morality

Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 or artistic propositions color her work, which occupies a place between documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 realism

Social realism

Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...

 and impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

.

External links

• Selma Depot Museum - housing the principal collection of 43 of Kniepp's images.
• Mary Morgan Keipp article, Encyclopedia of Alabama