January 13, 1880

Folklorist Ruby Pickens Tartt was born in Livingston. A noted author and painter, Tartt is best known for preserving the culture of Sumter County through the Federal Writers’ Project and the Library of Congress during the Great Depression. Tartt collected the life stories and folktales of former slaves and recorded more than 800 folk songs, stories and photographs of singers with ethnomusicologist John Lomax for the Archive of American Folk Songs. Lomax later released many of the recordings through record sets, including those of local cook and washerwoman Vera Hall Ward, who is now considered one of the 20^th century’s finest singers of blues and spirituals. Tartt was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1980.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

The Pickens home in Livingston, Sumter County, c. 1900. Ruby Pickens was born and raised in Livingston, and worked to preserve the heritage of Sumter County. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Christopher Rose)

Ruby Pickens Tartt (1880-1974) chronicled the folk music and slave narratives of Sumter County, helping preserve the culture by recording folk performances and writing stories and articles on the subject. Her work with experts John A. Lomax and Harold Courlander brought African-American folklore to international prominence. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Christopher Rose)

Ruby Pickens Tartt at her home in Livingston, Oct. 1940. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photograph by Ruby (Terrill) Lomax, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Ruby Pickens Tartt at her home in Livingston, Oct. 1940. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photograph by Ruby (Terrill) Lomax, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.