Sayre, Maggie Lee

Born deaf near Padukah, Kentucky; her sister Myrtle, one year older, was also deaf. Attended Kentucky School for the Deaf, leaving in 1930. Grew up as part of the now-vanished Tennessee River "shantyboat" culture (life literally on the river); although she was untrained in photography, her many excellent photos of this culture are a valuable historical documentation and anthropological resource. A book of her photographs, with autobiographical notes, is 'Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre': Photographs of a River Life (1995).