Center for Documentary Studies student projects collection, 1980-2011 and undated

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Access note. Collection contains fragile audiovisual/photographic formats that may need to be reformatted before use. Contact Research Services for access.
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Summary

Creator:
Duke University. Center for Documentary Studies
Abstract:
The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University teaches, engages in, and presents documentary work grounded in collaborative partnerships and extended fieldwork that uses photography, film/video, audio, and narrative writing to capture and convey contemporary memory, life, and culture. The collection includes work created by students enrolled in documentary studies courses at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Extent:
40 Linear Feet
Language:
Material in English
Collection ID:
RL.01266

Background

Scope and content:

Collection includes photographs, interviews, essays, and other documentary works created by students enrolled in courses or thesis projects on documentary studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), from 1980 to 2011. Most of the student projects focus on the social life and customs of persons living in and around Durham, Chatham, and Orange counties, North Carolina. Themes include life in cities and towns, particularly in Durham; rural life; schools and other institutions such as churches and retirement homes, and charitable organizations such as soup kitchens and orphanages; community centers such as stores, daycares, and laundromats; African American communities and neighborhoods, particularly in Durham; beauty pageants; local music; farmers and their families; immigrant life; migrant workers; midwives; the 9/11 attacks in New York City; and Duke University students and campus life. One series of images portrays the Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble in Durham. Oral histories of N.C. civil rights and labor activists, American war veterans, and other individuals are associated with certain courses.

The majority of projects focus on Durham area locales, but other cities and towns in N.C. documented include Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, Raleigh, Seagrove, Wanchese, Cane Creek, Oxford, Carrboro, Orange Factory, Rougemont, Saxapahaw, Salisbury, Northside, Corinth, and Cedar Grove. There are a few projects based in Virginia, and summer projects located in Massachusetts, Tennessee, Tel-Aviv, and France.

The collection also includes a few grant-supported projects by professional documentarians Eric Green, Kate Rhodenbaugh, Carolina Wang, and Donna Lennard, and photographic work by Bill Bamberger, a faculty member at Duke.

Black-and-white prints make up the majority of formats, but there are also many slides. The more recent additions increasingly include oral histories on audio cassettes and CD-ROMS and other project-related digital media. These are marked in the folder descriptions. Original audiovisual and electronic media are closed to use and may require the production of use copies before they can be accessed.

The courses were all sponsored by the Center for Documentary Photography, which in 1989 changed its name to the Center for Documentary Studies. Among the faculty teaching courses for the Center for Documentary Studies are noted documentarians Bill Bamberger, John Biewen, David Cecelski, Alex Harris, and Margaret Sartor, some of whom have contributed their own documentary work to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.

Acquisition information:
The Center for Documentary Studies student projects were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as gifts in 1998-2022.
Processing information:

Processed by Levi Crews, Marlyse Hickman-MacDonald, Edward Holt, Paula Jeannet, Maria Perales, T. Walker Robinson, and Matthew Warren, 1997-2014

Encoded by Levi Crews, Marlyse Hickman-MacDonald, Edward Holt, Robin LaPasha, Paula Jeannet, Maria Perales, and Matthew Warren, 1997-2014

Updated by Leah Tams, March 2023

Accessions represented in this finding aid: 1998-0049, 2002-0231, 2002-0257, 2004-0125, 2006-0116, 2006-0117, 2012-0071, 2013-0115, 2014-0061, 2014-0080, 2014-0082, and 2022-0149.

Arrangement:

Project folders are arranged chronologically by year, then by course number and title; within course groupings, student projects are listed in alphabetical order by last name. Some earlier listings do not have an identified course title. Individual projects such as senior year work (sometimes called a "capstone" project) have separate entries within the appropriate year. Titles and captions were created by the documentary authors; bracketed titles have been supplied by library staff.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Subjects

Click on terms below to find related finding aids on this site. For other related materials in the Duke University Libraries, search for these terms in the Catalog.

Subjects:
Schools -- Durham, N.C. -- Pictorial works
African Americans -- North Carolina -- Durham
Agriculture -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
Migrant workers -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
Labor unions -- Durham (N.C.)
Civil rights workers -- North Carolina -- Interviews
Country life -- North Carolina -- Photographs
Documentary Photography -- North Carolina
Education -- North Carolina
Beauty pageants -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
Children -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
City and town life -- Durham, N.C. -- Pictorial works
City and town life -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
Farmers -- North Carolina -- Pictorial works
Labor movement -- North Carolina
Format:
Slides (photographs)
Oral histories
Black-and-white photographs
CD-ROMs
DVDs
Color photographs
Audiocassettes
Inkjet prints
Gelatin silver prints
Videocassettes
Names:
Duke University -- Pictorial works
Duke University. Center for Documentary Studies
Duke University -- Students
Archive of Documentary Arts (Duke University)
Places:
Chatham County, N.C. -- Pictorial works
Durham (N.C.) -- Social life and customs
North Carolina -- Social conditions
North Carolina -- Photographs
Durham (N.C.) -- History -- 20th century
Durham (N.C.) -- Buildings, structures, etc. -- Pictorial works
Durham (N.C.) -- Religious life
Durham (N.C.) -- Photographs
Orange County (N.C.) -- Photographs

Contents

Using These Materials

Using These Materials Links:

Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Access note. Collection contains fragile audiovisual/photographic formats that may need to be reformatted before use. Contact Research Services for access.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the Rubenstein Library's Citations, Permissions, and Copyright guide.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Center for Documentary Studies student projects, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Permalink:
https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1436t