The Columbus-Lowndes Public Library’s Local History Department (LHD) has processed and digitized the Wylie Coleman Banks Scrapbook covering life in and around Lowndes County from 1911 to 1913.
Wylie Coleman Banks was born on Dec. 29, 1896, to Willis Alston Banks (1857-1934) and Jennie Dunlap Banks (1867-1950) in Eutaw, Alabama. However, the family relocated to Columbus sometime during Wylie’s childhood.
It is during this time that he took over 100 photographs capturing his family, friends, school (Franklin Academy), African Americans, the local community, family farm and his pets. He compiled these images into an album where he labeled and dated many of the photos.
Locations include Bent Oak Plantation (Mississippi), Eutaw (Alabama), Franklin Academy (Mississippi), Black Warrior River (Alabama), St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Mississippi), and Tuscaloosa (Alabama).
Banks went on to serve as a second lieutenant with the U.S. Marine Corps in Norfolk, Virginia. He also practiced law for much of his professional career. On March 23, 1963, he died in DeLand, Florida, and is buried in Friendship Cemetery in Columbus.
The collection was processed and digitized by LHD intern Carrie Pennington Mastley, who worked with the library this past semester from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Archivist Mona Vance-Ali said, “The Banks Scrapbook shows history through a child’s perspective. He captured images of the people and things that mattered most to him.”
The LHD at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library (CLPL) works with the Mississippi Digital Library (MDL) out of the University of Southern Mississippi to make collections housed at the CLPL archives available online to researchers worldwide.
The MDL provides an online portal for discovery and access of digital collections throughout the state. To visit the MDL go to msdiglib.org.
To view the Wylie Coleman Banks Scrapbook, 1911-1913, visit collections.msdiglib.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/columbus/id/1277/rec/1.
To view other CLPL collections online visit msdiglib.org/about/partners/columbus.
For more information, contact Vance-Ali at 662-329-5304.
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