Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Visitors
Series: PHOTOGRAPHY
Virginia Garner (1915-2007)
Ray Garner (1913-1989)
PMSS Visitors 1941-1942
Harmon Foundation

VIRGINIA and RAY GARNER Visiting Photographers 1941-1942

VIRGINIA GARNER, Pioneering Documentary Photographer, Writer, Teacher, and Administrator
RAY GARNER, Groundbreaking International Producer, Director, Cinematographer, and Writer

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TAGS: Virginia Garner, Ray Garner, Jinny Garner, Pine Mountain Settlement School documentary film, Harmon Foundation, consumer educational program, rural Appalachian education, progressive education, color films, Community Group, service learning, film stills, Appalshop, Tuskegee Institute, WWII, mountain-climbers, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts

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When the Harmon Foundation called on Virginia and Ray Garner of Brooklyn, New York, to film and photograph the progressive educational program at Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1941, the couple had already been honing their craft with similar projects in the United States and abroad. Their beginning skills at narrative film-making were well captured in the early Pine Mountain films and were the foundation of a collaboration that was to last for fifty years. During those many years, they became important contributors to the development of documentary film-making in this country and internationally.

VIRGINIA AND RAY GARNER: Before Pine Mountain

Ray Garner’s career in photography began in 1935 and by 1937 he was employed as a staff photographer for the New York University Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley expedition sponsored by the American Exploration Society

Soon after their marriage in 1938, Virginia and Ray traveled to central Africa where they made a series of ten short films for the Harmon Foundation, a philanthropic organization that sponsored many film projects and artists between the years of 1922 and 1967. Virginia, who served as “official photographer,” kept a diary of their experiences. The diary was published by the University Press of America in 2011 in a book titled, Images Out of Africa. 

VIRGINIA AND RAY GARNER: At Pine Mountain

The Garners came to Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1941 as recipients of funding from the Harmon Foundation’s Division of Visual Experiment. Their mission was to document life on the campus of Pine Mountain Settlement School and then-director Glyn Morris’s innovative school program. They lived at the School for most of the 1941-1942 school year, producing two films (and a possible third one) and a folio of still shots. 

Let’s Co-operate, was the Garners’ 10m color film about the consumer education program at PMSS. Begun in the summer of 1941, it depicted 10th grade students operating a cooperative food store. According to the March 1942 Pine Cone, the Garners temporarily left Pine Mountain before the film was completed, in order to set up camp in the Smoky Mountains and make a movie featuring the National Park titled Land of the Sky. The Pine Cone described the film as “something entirely new in making pictures…. They took a piece of music, cut into phrases, studied and listened to them, and then made pictures to fit the music.” They also visited the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, to record the crafts of the Southern Highlands. The Garners returned to PMSS in late November to finish the consumer cooperative film. 

Part of the Garners’ efforts was to help the students script a narrative to accompany the filming of the Community Groups and the consumer educational program. The narrative covered a variety of projects that took the students out into the community to work with families. Subjects included the Pack Horse Library Service, the Infirmary, community medical clinics and home visits, the Co-op Store, and much more. The narratives were first-hand accounts offered by students who participated in the unique program. The film was distributed broadly and even found its way to China where it was translated and shown in several venues. For a transcription of the narrative, go to “EDUCATION Community Group Assembly May 20 1942.”

The Garners’ second film at PMSS, titled From Every Mountainside: the Story of the Pine Mountain Settlement School, was silent and in color. It documented the various activities at the boarding school, such as a meeting of the students’ Citizenship Committee, folk dancing, industrial education classes, counseling, students at Jack’s Gap, etc.

On Our Way, a 1942 uncredited silent color film documenting life in the towns of Pine Mountain and Harlan, Kentucky, is also thought to be made by the Garners. 

In the end, the Garners’ project did much to record on film and in photographs the educational experiments of consumer education and service learning, along with student life at Pine Mountain Settlement School.

Garners’ Film Stills and Movies in the Archives

Black and white film stills from these endeavors were taken by Virginia Garner and copies were given to Pine Mountain. Many of them show up in the School’s various staff albums and documents. 

Currently, the collection of stills is stored in the PMSS Archives and are in the process of being digitized for the PMSS Collections website. 

Pine Mountain was also given copies of the Garners’ films. In early 2000 the PMSS director sent the films to Appalshop, a media, arts, and education center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, for safe storage. Sadly, Appalshop was a victim of the disastrous flooding in eastern Kentucky in July 2022. An attempt to restore Appalshop’s collections is underway and the fate of PMSS’s films is yet to be determined (as of January 2023).

VIRGINIA AND RAY GARNER: After Pine Mountain

After leaving Pine Mountain, the Garners went on to Tuskegee Institute to make a training film, How to Fly a Light Airplane, which featured the African-American combat unit, later known as the Tuskegee Airmen. In order to better understand an airplane’s technology, the couple learned to fly. To pay tribute to Virginia, the Institute appointed her Honorary Tuskegee Airman. Ray’s flying experience led to his service as an Army pilot in the Air Transport Command during WWII. Both were also accomplished mountain-climbers and guided climbs on mountains in the US and abroad.

In the 1950s and again in the 1970s Ray Garner used his films and slides to illustrate lectures he gave around the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s he made films for NBC News and directed various parts of a series for ABC News. 

By 1966 the couple had moved to the southern California mountain art community of Idyllwild, California, and built a house they called “Zanadu.” They continued their careers at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts and, for many years, contributed their talents and expertise to many of the school’s operations.

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Virginia (“Jinny”) Garner was born on March 18, 1915, in Brooklyn, New York. She had one sister, Doris. After Virginia and Ray married in 1938, the couple had two children, Gay and Chip. Virginia died in Hemet, California, on October 5, 2007, at the age of 93. Brooklyn, New York, was also the birthplace of Ray L. Garner, born in 1913. He died in 1989.

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Title	Virginia Garner Ray Garner
Alt. Title	Jinnie Garner : Mrs. Ray Garner : Ray L. Garner :
Identifier	https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=101099
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Alt. Creator	Ann Angel Eberhardt ; Helen Hayes Wykle ;
Subject Keyword	Virginia Garner, Ray Garner, Jinny Garner, Pine Mountain Settlement School documentary film, Harmon Foundation, consumer educational program, rural Appalachian education, progressive education, color films, Community Group, service learning, film stills, Appalshop, Tuskegee Institute, WWII, mountain-climbers, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts
Subject LCSH	Garner, Virginia, – 1915-2007. Garner, Ray, – 1913-1989. Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History. Harlan County (Ky.) — History. Education — Kentucky — Harlan County. Rural schools — Kentucky — History. Schools — Appalachian Region, Southern. Motion pictures.
Date	2023-01-22 aae
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Contributor	n/a
Type	Collections ; text ; image ;
Format	Original and copies of documents and correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet.
Source	Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Visitors
Language	English
Relation	Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 09: BIOGRAPHY.
Coverage Temporal	1913 – 2007
Coverage Spatial	Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Brooklyn, NY ; Africa ; Brasstown, NC ; China ; Whitesburg, KY ; Idyllwild, CA ; Hemet, CA ;
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Donor	n/a
Description	Core documents, correspondence, writings, and administrative papers of Virginia Garner and Ray Garner ; clippings, photographs, books by or about Ray Garner and Virginia Garner ;
Acquisition	n/d
Citation	“[Identification of Item],” [Collection Name] [Series Number, if applicable]. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Processed By	Helen Hayes Wykle ; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;
Last Updated
Sources	“Filmmaker: Ray L. Garner.” Amateur Cinema Project. https://www.amateurcinema.org/index.php/filmmaker/ray-garner Internet resource. Accessed 2023-01-20.“Virginia Garner” and “Ray Garner.” Series 09: BIOGRAPHY. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Internet resource.“Obituary: Virginia Garner.” Idyllwild Town Crier, October 10, 2007. https://idyllwildtowncrier.com/2007/10/10/obituary-virginia-garner/ Internet resource. Accessed 2023-01-20.“Ray Garner – Producer/Director/Cinematographer/Writer.” Academic Film Archive of North America. http://www.afana.org/garner.htm. Internet resource. Accessed 2023-01-20. BIBLIOGRAPHY Garner Virginia et al. Images Out of Africa : The Virginia Garner Diaries of the Africa Motion Picture Project. University Press of America 2011.

See Also:
VIRGINIA and RAY GARNER 110 Photograph Stills for PMSS 1941 Set 1
VIRGINIA and RAY GARNER 110 Photograph Stills for PMSS 1941 Set 2
VIRGINIA and RAY GARNER 110 Photograph Stills for PMSS 1941 Set 3
VIRGINIA and RAY GARNER 110 Photograph Stills for PMSS 1941 Set 4

VIRGINIA AND RAY GARNER (Featured in “The Unwritten Record” National Archives Blog)

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