1909: Jacob Prentice Polk dies of black lung disease and Christine must support the Polk family through her job as a seamstress. She started Polk's formal education in the public Hard School in Bessemer shortly after his father's death.

1911: Sent to the Tuggle Institute, a subsidized boarding school in Birmingham, Alabama, to further his education.

1913-1914: Returned home to help Christine financially by working in the tailoring shop of William A. Freeman.

1916-1920: Enrolled first as a night student, and then as a full-time day student at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute where he studied photography under C.M.Battey (1873-1927) and became principal musician in the Institute Band. Upon enrollment, Polk took his father's middle name Prentice and was usually referred to by friends and colleagues simply as "P.H."

1920: Moved to Mobile and then Chickasaw, Alabama to work in the shipyards to raise money to move to Chicago to reunite with his mother and sisters.

1921: Began correspondence course in photography.

1922: Moved to Chicago where he worked as a painter for the Pullman Company (1922-1926).

1926: Started a twenty-month apprenticeship with Fred Jensen, a prominent white photographer in Chicago at the time. Learned re-touching techniques.

12 January 1926: Polk marries Margaret Blanche Thompson.

1927: Moved in October with his wife and his son, Prentice, back to Tuskegee, Alabama to open a private portrait studio (Polk's Studio). Polk would father nine children in all.The Spinning Wheel was commissioned by Prince's Magazine. Began photographing the "Old Characters."

1928: Became a faculty member in the Photography
Division of Tuskegee Institute as well as the
assistant to the Division Head and Official University Photographer, Leonard G. Hyman (born 1895).

1933: Named the third head of the Photography Division at Tuskegee Institute.

1938: Left Tuskegee Institute to open a portrait studio in Atlanta, Georgia. His work is selected for the Southeastern Photographers Convention (Atlanta) and won three awards.

1939-1984: He accepted and retained the position as Official Photographer of Tuskegee Institute (now University).

1930s-1950s: Completed the George Washington Carver series. Polk's interest in rural Alabama and its inhabitants can be seen through his work during this time. Polk photographed all dignitaries visiting Tuskegee Institute, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Eleanor Roosevelt, W. C. Handy, Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others.

1941-1945: Polk photographed the progress of the Tuskegee Airmen, a famous group of young African-American pilots who trained at the Tuskegee campus and formed the 99th and 100th Pursuit Squadrons during World War II.

1945: Purchased his home on Washington Avenue and set up his private studio at that address.

1947: Completed a seven-week course at the Professional Photographer's School in Winona, Indiana.

1960s: Polk documented life at Tuskegee including 1965 student protests, visiting civil rights leaders, and the March from Selma to Montgomery.

1974: Exhibited at the Museum of Natural History, New York City.

1975: Received the Alpha XI Chapter, Zeta Phi Beta Award. Exhibited at the George Washington Carver Museum, Tuskegee, Alabama.

1976: Exhibited at the Washington Gallery of Photography, Washington, D.C., and the Studio Museum of Harlem, New York City.

1977: Exhibited in group showing of black American photographers at the House of Friendship, Soviet Union and for FESTAC '77 in Lagos, Nigeria.

1978: Exhibited at the Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.

1979: Honored with the National Conference of Artists' Award.

1980: Won the Black Photographers' Annual Testimonial Award. Nexus Press in Atlanta published the portfolio edition, P.H. Polk Photographs , to wide acclaim. Exhibited at the Pyramid Gallery of Art, Detroit, Michigan. Received Tuskegee Institute's Alumni Merit Award and Black Photographers' Association Award.

1981: Received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in photography. Major exhibition of his work shown at the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C. And Douglas Elliot Gallery in San Francisco. Presented lecture on his work at the International Center of Photography, New York City.

1982: Exhibited at the California Museum of Afro-American History, Los Angeles, and the Ledel Gallery, New York City.

1983: Honored guest at the launching of the Space Shuttle Challenger with first African-American astronaut, Guion (Guy) Bluford on board. Polk's photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt and Chief Anderson was displayed at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL during thelaunch. Exhibited at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama.

29 December 1984: Prentice Herman Polk died in Tallahassee,Alabama and was buried in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery.

Written by Kathryn Shoemaker and Meredith K.Soles