This book provides a unique and charming look at the history of Durham city through an eclectic collection of over 200 photographs.

A unique and charming look at the history Durham Cathedral through a fascinating collection of beautiful photographs.

From the home of the City of Oaks in Raleigh and the state's capitol, to the Bull City in Durham, Historic Photos of Raleigh-Durham is a photographic history collected from the area's top archives. With around 200 photographs, many of which have never been published, this beautiful coffee table book shows the historical growth from the mid 1800's to the late 1900's of this scenic area in stunning black and white photography. The book follows life, government, events and people important to Raleigh-Durham history and the building of this unique city. Spanning over two centuries and two hundred photographs, this is a must have for any long-time resident or history lover of Raleigh-Durham!

During the 1970s, the National Endowment for the Arts Photography Surveys granted money to photograph American cities at the bicentennial and years that followed. In Through the Lens of the City: NEA Photography Surveys of the 1970s, Mark Rice brings to light this long-neglected photographic endeavor. From 1976 to 1981, the NEA supported more than seventy projects that examined a wide range of people and places in America. Artists involved included such well known photographers as Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, and Joel Meyerowitz and many photographers who became widely known after their work with the surveys, such as Robert Adams, Joe Deal, Terry Evans, and Wendy Ewald. Rice argues that the NEA Photographic Surveys drew from two wells: a widespread sense of nostalgia and an intense public interest in photography. Looking at the works from eight key cities-Atlanta, Buffalo, Durham, East Baltimore, Galveston, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Venice-the book uncovers marked differences as well as startling similarities in the concerns manifested by different photographers in far-flung places. Although the surveys are interesting both for their artistic merits and for their place in the history of American photography, they are equally important as a documentation of bicentennial-era America and a close examination of American cities. A major shift in the ideals of civil engineering and urban planning was underway in the 1970s. At the same time, ideas and theories about photography were changing along with our notions of what the city could and should be. These surveys, capturing American cities in a fascinating period of flux, show us American photographers matching artistry to subject matter in new and exciting ways. Mark Rice is chair of the American studies department at St. John Fisher College. His work has been published in such periodicals as Exposure, Explore, and Reviews in American History.

Explore the rich history of the city of Durham in this guided tour through its most fascinating historic and modern buildings.

Self-taught photographer Hugh Mangum was born in 1877 in Durham, North Carolina, as its burgeoning tobacco economy put the frontier-like boomtown on the map. As an itinerant portraitist working primarily in North Carolina and Virginia during the rise of Jim Crow, Mangum welcomed into his temporary studios a clientele that was both racially and economically diverse. After his death in 1922, his glass plate negatives remained stored in his darkroom, a tobacco barn, for fifty years. Slated for demolition in the 1970s, the barn was saved at the last moment--and with it, this surprising and unparalleled document of life at the turn of the twentieth century, a turbulent time in the history of the American South. Hugh Mangum's multiple-image, glass plate negatives reveal the open-door policy of his studio to show us lives marked both by notable affluence and hard work, all imbued with a strong sense of individuality, self-creation, and often joy. Seen and experienced in the present, the portraits hint at unexpected relationships and histories and also confirm how historical photographs have the power to subvert familiar narratives. Mangum's photographs are not only images; they are objects that have survived a history of their own and exist within the larger political and cultural history of the American South, demonstrating the unpredictable alchemy that often characterizes the best art--its ability over time to evolve with and absorb life and meaning beyond the intentions or expectations of the artist.