ALABAMA HERITAGE
  • Magazine
    • Current and Back Issues >
      • Back Issues 141-150 >
        • Issue 147, Winter 2023
        • Issue 146, Fall 2022
        • Issue 145, Summer 2022
        • Issue 144, Spring 2022
        • Issue 143, Winter 2022
        • Issue 142, Fall 2021
        • Issue 141, Summer 2021
      • Back Issues 131-140 >
        • Issue 140, Spring 2021
        • Issue 139, Winter 2021
        • Issue 138, Fall 2020
        • Issue 137, Summer 2020
        • Issue 136, Spring 2020
        • Issue 135, Winter 2020
        • Issue 134, Fall 2019
        • Issue 133, Summer 2019
        • Issue 132 Spring 2019
        • Issue 131, Winter 2019
      • Back Issues 121-130 >
        • Issue 130, Fall 2018
        • Issue 129, Summer 2018
        • Issue 128, Spring 2018
        • Issue 127, Winter 2018
        • Issue 126, Fall 2017
        • Issue 125 Summer 2017
        • Issue 124, Spring 2017
        • Issue 123, Winter 2017
        • Issue 122, Fall 2016
        • Issue 121, Summer 2016
      • Back Issues 111-120 >
        • Issue 120, Spring 2016
        • Issue 119, Winter 2016
        • Issue 118, Fall 2015
        • Issue 117, Summer 2015
        • Issue 116, Spring 2015
        • Issue 115, Winter 2015
        • Issue 114, Fall 2014
        • Issue 113, Summer 2014
        • Issue 112, Spring 2014
        • Issue 111, Winter 2014
      • Back Issues 101-110 >
        • Issue 110, Fall 2013
        • Issue 109, Summer 2013
        • Issue 108, Spring 2013
        • Issue 107, Winter 2013
        • Issue 106, Fall 2012
        • Issue 105, Summer 2012
        • Issue 104, Spring 2012
        • Issue 103, Winter 2012
        • Issue 102, Fall 2011
        • Issue 101, Summer 2011
      • Back Issues 91-100 >
        • Issue 100, Spring 2011
        • Issue 99, Winter 2011
        • Issue 98, Fall 2010
        • Issue 97, Summer 2010
        • Issue 96, Spring 2010
        • Issue 95, Winter 2010
        • Issue 94, Fall 2009
        • Issue 93, Summer 2009
        • Issue 92, Spring 2009
        • Issue 91, Winter 2009
      • Back Issues 81-90 >
        • Issue 90, Fall 2008
        • Issue 89, Summer 2008
        • Issue 88, Spring 2008
        • Issue 87, Winter 2008
        • Issue 86, Fall 2007
        • Issue 85, Summer 2007
        • Issue 84, Spring 2007
        • Issue 83, Winter 2007
        • Issue 82, Fall 2006
        • Issue 81, Summer 2006
      • Back Issues 71-80 >
        • Issue 80, Spring 2006
        • Issue 79, Winter 2006
        • Issue 78, Fall 2005
        • Issue 77, Summer 2005
        • Issue 76, Spring 2005
        • Issue 75, Winter 2005
        • Issue 74, Fall 2004
        • Issue 73, Summer 2004
        • Issue 72, Spring 2004
        • Issue 71, Winter 2004
      • Back Issues 61-70 >
        • Issue 70, Fall 2003
        • Issue 69, Summer 2003
        • Issue 68, Spring 2003
        • Issue 67, Winter 2003
        • Issue 66, Fall 2002
        • Issue 65, Summer 2002
        • Issue 64, Spring 2002
        • Issue 63, Winter 2002
        • Issue 62, Fall 2001
        • Issue 61, Summer 2001
      • Back Issues 51-60 >
        • Issue 60, Spring 2001
        • Issue 59, Winter 2001
        • Issue 58, Fall 2000
        • Issue 57, Summer 2000
        • Issue 56, Spring 2000
        • Issue 55, Winter 2000
        • Issue 54, Fall 1999
        • Issue 53, Summer 1999
        • Issue 52, Spring 1999
        • Issue 51, Winter 1999
      • Back Issues 41-50 >
        • Issue 50, Fall 1998
        • Issue 49, Summer 1998
        • Issue 48, Spring 1998
        • Issue 47, Winter 1998
        • Issue 46, Fall 1997
        • Issue 45, Summer 1997
        • Issue 44, Spring 1997
        • Issue 43, Winter 1997
        • Issue 42, Fall 1996
        • Issue 41, Summer 1996
      • Back Issues 31-40 >
        • Issue 40, Spring 1996
        • Issue 39, Winter 1996
        • Issue 38, Fall 1995
        • Issue 37, Summer 1995
        • Issue 36, Spring 1995
        • Issue 35, Winter 1995
        • Issue 34, Fall 1994
        • Issue 33, Summer 1994
        • Issue 32, Spring 1994
        • Issue 31, Winter 1994
      • Back Issues 21-30 >
        • Issue 30, Fall 1993
        • Issue 29, Summer 1993
        • Issue 28, Spring 1993
        • Issue 27, Winter 1993
        • Issue 26, Fall 1992
        • Issue 25, Summer 1992
        • Issue 24, Spring 1992
        • Issue 23, Winter 1992
        • Issue 22, Fall 1991
        • Issue 21, Summer 1991
      • Back Issues 11-20 >
        • Issue 20, Spring 1991
        • Issue 19, Winter 1991
        • Issue 18, Fall 1990
        • Issue 17, Summer 1990
        • Issue 16, Spring 1990
        • Issue 15, Winter 1990
        • Issue 14, Fall 1989
        • Issue 13, Summer 1989
        • Issue 12, Spring 1989
        • Issue 11, Winter 1989
      • Back Issues 1-10 >
        • Issue 10, Fall 1988
        • Issue 9, Summer 1988
        • Issue 8, Spring 1988
        • Issue 7, Winter 1988
        • Issue 6, Fall 1987
        • Issue 5, Summer 1987
        • Issue 4, Spring 1987
        • Issue 3, Winter 1987
        • Issue 2, Fall 1986
        • Issue 1, Summer 1986
    • Digital Features
    • Links of Interest
    • Bonus Materials >
      • Adventures in Genealogy
      • Alabama Heritage Blog
      • Alabama Territory
      • Becoming Alabama >
        • Creek War Era
        • Civil War Era
        • Civil Rights Movement
      • From the Vault
      • History in Ruins
      • Places in Peril
      • Recipes
  • Online Store
    • Customer Service
  • About Us
    • Awards
    • Meet Our Team
    • News
    • Writer's Guidelines and Submissions
  • Search
  • Donate
Published by The University of Alabama,
The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
and the Alabama Department of Archives and History

"Miss Ruby": The Life and Career of Ruby Pickens Tartt

9/18/2019

 
Picture
This photograph by Ruby Terrill Lomax, taken on the Lomax’s visit to Sumter County in 1940, shows Ruby Pickens Tartt in her garden in Livingston. (Photo Courtesy of Library of Congress)
Although currently Ruby Pickens Tartt is remembered mostly as a local legend or by only a small number of academics, in the mid-1940s celebrated folklorist John Lomax heralded her as a “rising celebrity” and a “bright refulgent star” after she broke into a national circle of writers and folklorists by publishing in The Southwest Review and several popular anthologies. Indeed, over the course of many years Tartt opened doors in the world of Alabama’s folk culture that had long remained closed to men such as Lomax.
Born in 1880 to a prominent cotton farming family, Ruby Pickens was descended from some of the earliest white settlers of Sumter County and grew up with devoted parents Fannie West Short and William King Pickens. William often took young Ruby on rides in the countryside to collect rent from black tenant farmers. She became enamored with the stories and songs she heard along the way, and from an early age she began writing them down and committing them to memory. Indeed, the editors of a collection of Sumter County slave narratives that Tartt recorded later in life conclude that Tartt was years ahead of her time in recognizing the rich cultural heritage of African Americans in Alabama.

During Pickens’s student years, her curiosity about the world beyond her parents’ parlor fl ourished under the tutelage of Julia Strudwick Tutwiler. A progressive educator intent on broadening the horizons of young women, Tutwiler exposed students at the Alabama Normal College, where she served as president, to a life fi lled with “causes” that included prison reform, co-education for women, and temperance. After receiving a degree from Tutwiler’s school, Pickens continued her education at Sophie Newcomb College, where she studied art and English. She then traveled in 1901 to New York, where she enrolled at the Chase School (later known as the New York School of Art) and studied under William Merritt Chase, the leading exponent of American Impressionism.

In 1904 Pickens returned to Alabama, married her childhood sweetheart, Pratt Tartt, and gave birth two years later to the couple’s only child, Fannie Pickens Tartt. But despite the hopes of her parents and in-laws that Tartt might settle down and conform to a conventional life, she had no intention of doing so. Conventional life for an elite white woman in the Black Belt would have meant staying at home, allowing one’s husband to handle public affairs, and accepting the prevailing segregated social order. But Tartt’s confidence in her painting, her delight in storytelling, her disregard for domestic duties, and her frequent visits with members of the local black community quickly proved that she had no intention of being a “proper” southern lady. As a ninety-year-old Tartt would tell fellow folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham:
​“Come to think of it, I was nearly always alone in the enjoyment of my various interests. Therefore I was ‘nuts’ according to public opinion.”
In contrast to that local public opinion, Tartt’s work would in time gain national attention. In 1936 John Lomax was visiting Birmingham and asked Myrtle Miles, director of the Alabama Federal Writers Project, about a stack of spirituals he noticed. Told by Miles that a “Mrs. Tartt collected them,” Lomax was stunned. Acknowledging that he had not even heard half the songs Tartt had recorded and remembering how little material he had managed to record on one of his first collection trips to Alabama several years earlier, Lomax said, “There are twenty-five spirituals here. One woman couldn’t have done that, not in one place. Just not possible.” The next year, Lomax and his wife set forth for Livingston to meet Tartt for himself and see first hand the folk material she had collected in her notebooks.

By that point, Tartt had already been working for a number of months collecting the life stories and folk tales of former slaves, under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. As Tartt later recalled about her family’s circumstances during the Depression, “I found over night in 1936, we not only had no jobs and no money, but we were in debt. …I went all over town and asked if anyone knew of jobs for the most inefficient person on earth. Finally someone suggested I inquire at the Welfare Department, perhaps there was a WPA job I could get.” Ultimately, the WPA provided more than money. Thanks to her position with the agency and Lomax’s repeated visits to Sumter County, Tartt obtained validation for her longstanding interest in folk culture. In 1937 Tartt recorded 305 songs from an area of less than fifteen square miles. In 1939 she and Lomax filled more than twenty disc records (each holding five or six items) for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. 
On Lomax’s final trip to Sumter County in 1940, Tartt helped him produce 145 records with more than 750 items for the archive, along with eighty-four photographic negatives of the folksingers. ​
​Tartt’s reputation lasted long past her years working for the WPA. In the ensuing decades, she collaborated on projects not only with John Lomax, but also with his son Alan Lomax, with musicologist Byron Arnold, and with folklorist and anthropologist Harold Courlander, among others. Her work gathering recordings, transcribing lyrics, and writing fieldnotes brought the voices of Sumter County into the homes of people throughout the United States and Great Britain, gained recognition and royalties for singers such as Dock Reed and Vera Hall, and provided hit material for artists such as Harry Belafonte and The Kingston Trio. In 1960 Tartt was invited to be a charter member of the American Folk Music Council. Her recordings appeared on dozens of records beginning in the 1940s, and in more recent years her work has appeared on collections such as Cornbread Crumbled in Gravy: Historical Field Recordings from the Byron Arnold Collection of Traditional Tunes; Honey in the Rock: The Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection of Religious Folk Songs from Sumter County, Alabama; and Deep River of Song: Alabama. Perhaps most famously of late, one of Tartt’s recordings of Vera Hall singing “Trouble So Hard” is sampled on the musician Moby’s 1999 megahit “Natural Blues.” 

​By the time Ruby Pickens Tartt passed away in 1974 at the age of ninety-four, she had seen civil rights and women’s rights movements capture headlines and transform racial and gender norms in American society. As a white woman who worked among African Americans in the Jim Crow South, Tartt navigated unchartered and sensitive territory long before these revolutions came to pass, and her search for a world where she could assert herself led to art schools in New Orleans and New York, and to museums, libraries, and black churches. From each encounter, she took away words and experiences that helped her articulate an alternative perspective on society. As she once claimed, “Folksongs [and stories] are more than music. They tell us more about the heart of a nation than a hundred history books.”

This feature was previously published in Issue 113, Summer 2014. 
​
About the Author
Tina Naremore Jones is an English professor and dean of educational outreach at the University of West Alabama. Joshua D. Rothman, standing editor of the “Alabama Women” department of Alabama Heritage, is professor of history at the University of Alabama and director of the university’s Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, which sponsors this department.
Subscribe to Alabama Heritage

Comments are closed.

    From the Vault

    Read complete classic articles and departments featured in Alabama Heritage magazine in the past 35 years of publishing. You'll find in-depth features along with quirky and fun departments that cover the people, places, and events that make our state great!

    Read More From the Vault

    Archives

    January 2023
    August 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    June 2021
    May 2021
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    April 2015
    July 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    October 2009

    Categories

    All
    African Americans
    Agriculture
    Alabama
    Archeaology
    Architecture
    Avondale
    Avondale Zoo
    Birmingham
    Business
    Cathedral Caverns
    Civil War
    Constitution
    Cuba
    Episcopal Church
    Food
    Guntersville
    Hollywood
    Hunting
    Murder
    Mystery
    National Guard
    Native American
    Nursing
    Photography
    Poarch Creek Indians
    Politics
    Preservation
    Quilts
    Religion
    Revolutionary War
    Sand Mountain
    Whiskey
    Women
    WWI
    WWII

    RSS Feed

Online Store
​Customer Service
Meet Our Team
Board of Directors
Corporate Sponsors
News
Join Our Email List

Employment
UA Disclaimer
UA Privacy Policy ​
​Website comments or questions?  

Email ah.online@ua.edu
Published by The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History
​Alabama Heritage
Box 870342
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Local: (205) 348-7467
Toll-Free: (877) 925-2323
Fax: (205) 348-7473

alabama.heritage@ua.edu