Pictured fifth from the left on the front row is a young Jasper Staples, then a “fieldhand” for the May Brothers Planting Company. The faces of these thirty-six men represent the labor forces responsible for changing the economy, ecology, and landscape of the Mississippi Delta. Their axes and their physical strength were the tools employed to clear the wild lands of dense patches of river cane, cottonwood, sweetgum, hackberry, and persimmon trees, giving rise to a planter class of wealth and means.

Judge May and his brother Lee were the proprietors of the 10,000 acres that comprised May Brothers Planting Company—later known as Mayfair Plantation. May served as Chancellor of the Seventh Judicial District and was an accomplished photo hobbyist. May’s surviving photographs made their way into the artist’s family’s photo albums and provided her with reference points for documenting the lifeways of the Mississippi Delta.