Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Bus in front of gas station

  • wcu_picturing-1913.jpg
  • Reinfried Armstrong Romanes (April 4, 1896-1978), more often known as R. A. Romanes or simply as Romanes, was born and raised in Europe. In 1919, he emigrated to America and, through family and political connections, settled in Alto, Georgia, where he remained for the rest of his life. It wasn’t until 1925 that Romanes became interested in photography, but after that time, photography became his passion. He made pictures of farming families in and around his adopted hometown in northeast Georgia and took landscape shots in Georgia, South Carolina, and western North Carolina. Most of the photographs in this collection were made in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and many are labeled as to where they were taken.