A Century of Natchez History in Pictures

This is, in our estimation, one in a list of thirty marvelous places, flavors, events, and experiences that anyone who lives in—or loves—our part of the world should experience at least once in his or her lifetime.

Dr. Thomas Gandy, an avid historian, knew nothing about photographs when he was offered a collection of historic photos. What Tom Gandy found when he opened the boxes that contained this collection was an uninterrupted photographic record of Natchez’ progress through a century of change.

The pictures were the work of three generations of photographers. In the early 1850s two brothers named Marsh and Henry D. Gurney were among several artists offering the popular new daguerreotypes to the citizens of a Natchez, then experiencing its heyday. It is these negatives, many of which record Natchez scenes during the Civil War years, that comprise the beginnings of The Norman Collection. Around 1870 a young man named Henry C. Norman apprenticed to Henry Gurney and learned the skills that would make him Natchez’ best-known photographer.

Until his death in 1913 there was little in the life of the river city that escaped Norman’s camera. Weddings, parades, street scenes, a visit by President Taft, portraiture, disastrous fires, and the forever-shifting tableau of river life are among the thousands of images that filled his lens. He photographed the rich and the poor, white and black, town life and country scenes, extraordinary happenings and ordinary life, leaving a legacy for his son to carry on.

Norman’s youngest son, Earl, made a career in photography that made the most of his artist’s eye, after Henry’s death until his own death in 1951.

Today the Norman Collection survives thanks to decades of work by Thomas and Joan Gandy. Natchez in Historic Photographs is a permanent exhibit of five hundred images, available for viewing at Stratton Chapel at Natchez’ First Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Pearl and State streets. (601) 445-2581.