‘The Help’ author Kathryn Stockett’s new novel is inspired by this moving photograph
Kathryn Stockett's new novel "The Calamity Club" is inspired by a photograph of a young oyster shucker named Rosie taken by Lewis Hine during the Great Depression. The story follows 11-year-old Meg, an orphan in Mississippi who faces systemic neglect and the threat of forced sterilization. Stockett's research into Depression-era orphanages and eugenics laws informs the novel’s exploration of gender, class, and institutional cruelty.
- ▪Kathryn Stockett's new novel "The Calamity Club" is inspired by a Lewis Hine photograph of a 7-year-old oyster shucker named Rosie.
- ▪The novel centers on Meg, an 11-year-old orphan sent to a Mississippi orphanage where older girls are later shipped to work in Biloxi canneries.
- ▪Mississippi passed a forced sterilization law in 1928 targeting women labeled with conditions like 'feeblemindedness,' often used against those deemed socially undesirable.
- ▪In the novel, the orphanage chairlady Miss Garnett uses the sterilization law to have a woman named Charlie committed and sterilized for having a child out of wedlock and speaking to a Black man.
- ▪Meg begins to fear that the same fate could await her, as she learns the label of 'undesirable' may have been applied to her mother and could be applied to her as well.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Entertainment ‘The Help’ author Kathryn Stockett’s new novel is inspired by this moving photograph By Eric Spitznagel Published May 2, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET Bestselling author Kathryn Stockett’s new novel, “The Calamity Club,” was inspired by a photo of an oyster shucker girl. The novel centers on 11-year-old Meg, an orphan at a Mississippi orphanage where the older girls are shipped off to work in Biloxi canneries. Stockett’s book delves into Mississippi’s bleak history, including sterilization laws targeting women. Bestselling author Kathryn Stockett had been trying to answer a question. She was writing a novel set in Depression-era Mississippi, and she needed to know where the children went when their families fell apart in 1933.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at New York Post.
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