Putting archive and contemporary photographs of the same landmark side-by-side, Charlotte Then and Now®? provides a visual chronicle of the fascinating changes in the fastest growing in the SoutheastCharlotte began as one of several small courthouse villages in the Carolina Piedmont but grew after the discovery of gold nearby. In the years following the Civil War the town became a symbol of the New South transitioning from agriculture to industrialism at the heart of the pidemont's textile industry. By the turn of the century, skyscrapers, department stores, and congested streets testified to the expansion of the little crossroads village of the early 1800s. This easily accessible history of Charlotte is told using vintage photos, some taken just after the Civil War, right up until the 1960s. Readers can see how much or how little has changed in the intervening years. Sites include Trade Street, South Tryon Street, First Ward, Belk Brothers, Ivey's, City Hall, First National Bank Building, Masonic Temple, Hotel Charlotte, U.S. Mint Building, South Brevard Street, United House of Prayer, Elizabeth College, Ovens Auditorium, Dilworth, Myers Park, Queens College, Biddle University, and Davidson.

While most American cities boomed decades, even centuries ago, the city of Charlotte does so now. However it is the Charlotte of old that is worth revisiting. It is this community that Charlotte natives remember fondly, but newcomers have never seen.

The rapid evolution of Charlotte, North Carolina, from “regional backwater” to globally ascendant city provides stark contrasts of then and now. Once a regional manufacturing and textile center, Charlotte stands today as one of the nation's premier banking and financial cores with interests reaching broadly into global markets. Once defined by its biracial and bicultural character, Charlotte is now an emerging immigrant gateway drawing newcomers from Latin America and across the globe. Once derided for its sleepy, nine-to-five “uptown,” Charlotte's center city has been wholly transformed by residential gentrification, corporate headquarters construction, and amenity-based redevelopment. And yet, despite its rapid transformation, Charlotte remains distinctively southern—globalizing, not yet global. This book brings together an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars and local experts to examine Charlotte from multiple angles. Their topics include the banking industry, gentrification, boosterism, architecture, city planning, transit, public schools, NASCAR, and the African American and Latino communities. United in the conviction that the experience of this Sunbelt city—center of the nation's fifth-largest metropolitan area—offers new insight into today's most pressing urban and suburban issues, the contributors to Charlotte, NC: The Global Evolution of a New South City ask what happens when the external forces of globalization combine with a city's internal dynamics to reshape the local structures, landscapes, and identities of a southern place.

Historic Photos of Charlotte captures the historical growth of the Queen City"" in still photography from the top archives in the area. Stunning black and white photography with most of the photographs never been published before in this beautiful coffee table book. The book follows life, government, events and people important to Charlotte history and the building of this unique late blooming city. Spanning over two centuries and two hundred photographs, this is a must have for any long-time resident or history lover of Charlotte. ""

A provocative novel about the fallout from a search for truth by the author of the national bestseller The Lifeboat. For Maggie Rayburn -- wife, mother, and secretary at a munitions plant -- life is pleasant, predictable, and, she assumes, secure. When she finds proof of a high-level cover-up on her boss's desk, she impulsively takes it, an act that turns her world, and her worldview, upside down. Propelled by a desire to do good -- and also by a newfound taste for excitement -- Maggie starts to see injustice everywhere. Soon her bottom drawer is filled with what she calls "evidence," her small town has turned against her, and she must decide how far she will go for the truth. For Penn Sinclair -- Army Captain, Ivy League graduate, and reluctant heir to his family's fortune -- a hasty decision has disastrous results. Home from Iraq and eager to atone, he reunites with three survivors to expose the truth about the war. They launch a website that soon has people talking, but the more they expose, the cloudier their mission becomes. Now and Again is a blazingly original novel about the interconnectedness of lives, the limits of knowledge, and the consequences of doing the right thing.