Documentary
THIS IS HOME NOW: KENTUCKY’S HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SPEAK
Photographs by Rebecca Gayle Howell. Interviews by Arwen Donahue. Foreword by Joan Ringelheim. University Press of Kentucky, 2009, 2022.
This book expands the exhibit by the same name, shown at the Lexington History Museum from 2005-2006, created with the support of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, the Kentucky Historical Society, the Zantker Foundation, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“The stories and images reproduced in this book are both moving and arresting. We owe Donahue and Howell a great debt for rescuing them before they disappeared down the trapdoor of historical memory.” = Lawrence N. Powell, author of Troubled Memory.
PLAIN
Rebecca Gayle Howell’s “Plain” is a two-year photographic documentation of industrial cotton farming communities in West Texas. This work became influential research for Howell’s novel-in-verse, American Purgatory.
Sight Line is a limited edition catalog from the exhibit by the same name, shown and archived at the Southwest Collections/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University. Ed. John Poch. Landmark Arts, 2014.
OVERBURDENED
Rebecca Gayle Howell’s “Overburdened” was a three-year photography and interview documentation of East Kentucky communities living with and against mountaintop removal coal mining, a land-leveling form of extraction that takes the top seams of coal. Sold to these mountain people as the means toward “useful flat land,” it has caused extreme climatological shifts, toxic land and water, industrial disasters, and a cultural crisis. “Overburdened” was a 2009 solo exhibit by the same name, commissioned by Northern Michigan University. It is collected in part in Plundering Appalachia. Created with support from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, “Overburdened” became influential research for Howell’s first novel-in-verse Render / An Apocalypse.
Plundering Appalachia is an anthology of writing about mountaintop removal coal mining, in which “Overburdened” is excerpted. Edited by Tom Butler. Earth Aware Editions, 2009. Published with support of the Foundation for Deep Ecology.
BURDEN OF PROOF
Howell’s “Burden of Proof” is a brief document of one woman’s life and motherhood as she survives genetic DES poisoning. According to the American Cancer Society, “DES (diethylstilbestrol) is a synthetic form of estrogen, a female hormone. Doctors prescribed it from 1938 until 1971 to help some pregnant women who had had miscarriages or premature deliveries. DES-exposed daughters are about 40 times more likely to develop CCA [clear cell adenocarcinoma] than women not exposed to DES in the womb.” Howell’s subject sacrificed much to keep her children safe from other per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, including moving house, pulling up all her carpets, and buying natural cleaning agents, cosmetics, foods, and glassware that were outside their limited budget. All the while she had to confront what she might have unknowingly passed to her daughter through their genes. These photographs were commissioned by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation and were shown in a group exhibit that traveled among rural communities in 2012. “Burden of Proof” became influential research for Howell’s novel-in-verse, American Purgatory.