Where We Find Ourselves - (Documentary Arts and Culture, Published in Association with) by Margaret Sartor & Alex Harris (Hardcover)

About the Book

"... Approximately 100 images, some single and some multiple portraits, edited from the almost 800 large-format glass-plate negatives and thousands of individual portraits made by Durham-born and self-taught photographer Hugh Mangum and currently housed at Duke University's Rubenstein Special Collections library"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"A curated collection and exploration of of Hugh Mangum. . . . [I]deal for libraries collecting titles about North Carolina history."--North Carolina History

"Interesting on so many levels, this is Americana at its most compelling, real buried treasure brought to life."--Library Journal

"Looking through Hugh Mangum's lens, we are transported to another time. History comes to life in these diverse portraits of southern lives."--Barbara Krauthamer, coauthor of Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery

"Studying these faces arrayed together is . . . deeply moving and expands the historical imagination. At a time in the South when racial inequality was the law in hotels, restaurants, schools and churches, Mangum's photography studios may have been charmed places where, for a nominal fee, you could manifest your value as a fellow human being."--Wall Street Journal

"These faces, at times smiling, at times stern, sometimes hatted, sometimes bare, are as ghostly as they are concrete. Often formal, even with chickens, they make the twenty-first century seem dull with all its bright colors. Where We Find Ourselves is a gift. Hugh Mangum saw things we need to keep looking for."--Randall Kenan, author of The Fire This Time

"This book offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of a talented and artistic southern photographer born and raised in Durham. . . . Careful selections include more than ninety pages of photographs that highlight Mangum's ability and sensibility as a photographer, his playfulness and humor, and the ease and comfort his clients felt in his company. . . . A significant contribution to the study of photography in North Carolina."--North Carolina Historical Review

About the Author

Margaret Sartor is a writer, photographer, and instructor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Alex Harris is a writer, photographer, and a founder of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where he has taught for many years.