The Du Bois family and the related Gomer family identified as African Americans of mixed-race descent and were based in Massachusetts and Iowa. Collection consists of eleven albumen and early gelatin silver photographs dating from the early 1860s to the early 1910s, featuring portraits of Alfred Du Bois (circa 1833-?), father of African American author, educator, and activist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963); Nina Gomer Du Bois (circa 1870-1950), wife of W.E.B. Du Bois; and Nina Yolande Du Bois (1900 or 1901-1961), daughter of W.E.B. and Nina Du Bois. Other images are of unidentified women and children, some African American and some of indeterminate race. There are also two group photos: an elementary school class that includes W.E.B. Du Bois as a child; and one of the Carnegie Hall Conference "Committee of Twelve," all African American men, with Booker T. Washington and other men and women. Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American Culture and History at Duke University.
Collection comprises a 16-page 8 1/2 x 11 inch photograph album belonging to an unidentified member of the 45th Engineer General Service Regiment, a segregated unit of African American soldiers stationed in Ledo, India beginning in 1942. Their charge was to build a portion of the Stilwell Road, a major supply route from India to China. Mounted on loose pages, the 44 black-and-white snapshots include posed and candid images of individuals and groups of African American soldiers, at work and at rest. Soldiers identified in the captions include Charley Woodard, Clarence Benson, Charles J. Greene, and Cain Walker. There are also photographs of buildings on the base, including Battalion Chapel, headquarters (labeled "The Gateway to Hell"), Harmony Church, and a large Stilwell Road sign, along with various shots of military equipment, a "Coolie Camp," the "laundry man," and the Taj Mahal. Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.
Collection comprises 20 gelatin silver prints of images taken during the 1930s and 1940s by photographer Gjon Milin. Through new tecniques of strobe lighting and electronic flash which Mili developed at MIT, the black-and-white images, some of which were used by Life magazine, portray human locomotion and the movements of other physical phenomena such as cascading water, frozen in time. Human subjects include two African American children playing with paddleballs, a man in the shower, a man aiming a racket at a shuttlecock, and female nudes. One image is of the photographer Mili photographing a stream of water with his camera. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Peter Sekaer (1901-1950) was a Danish-born American photographer. Collection consists of fifteen black-and-white photographs taken by Sekaer from about 1937-1940, while working for the U.S. National Housing Authority to document living conditions and public housing projects in various places in the U.S. Known locations include Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; Williamsburg, N.Y.; Nashville, Tennessee; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Austin, Texas. Individuals in the photographs include African Americans and other people of color, and White Americans; there are quite a few photographs of children playing. The focus is typically on urban and rural dwellings and yards in areas of poverty; there are also a few images of public housing projects, small businesses, and warehouses. The gelatin silver print sizes range from 4 1/2 x 4 5/8 to 10 1/4 x 13 1/8 inches. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) was an American photographer and faculty member of the Chicago Institute of Design and Rhode Island School of Design. Collection consists of 28 black-and-white signed 11x14 inch prints, documenting life in New York City's Harlem neighborhoods from about 1932 to 1940. The images originate from two projects by Siskind: "Harlem Document" and "The Most Crowded Block in the World." Subjects include African American men, women, and children at home and in the streets; scenes from the Apollo and New Lafayette theaters, a nightclub, and a church; and the interiors and exteriors of tenement buildings. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Collection comprises over 500 black-and-white photographic prints, along with negatives, contact sheets, photographer's notes, journals, writings, speeches, correspondence related to photography, and printed material, totaling over 9000 items. Kwilecki's photographic work documents rural and small-town life in and around Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia, an undertaking he began as a self-taught photographer in 1960 and continued until his death in 2009. Subjects include local landscapes, tobacco workers, county fairs, hog slaughtering, cemeteries, churches, courthouses, recreation on the Flint River, local industry, shoppers, downtowns, and house porches and interiors. The themes of race relations and religious life predominate. Many of Kwilecki's subjects come from the African American community in Decatur County. Significant correspondents in the manuscripts series include photographers Alex Harris and David Vestal; the collection includes a small set of Vestal photographs. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Collection comprises 42 photographs taken by James Van Der Zee, known for his portraits and documentation of daily life in Harlem, N.Y., especially during the Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s). There are views of parades, athletic teams, a Baptist group, a first-grade Harlem classroom, and the interior of Van Der Zee's studio, as well as fictionalized settings and poses conveying hopes, dreams, and humorous situations. Subjects include an elegant couple in raccoon coats, a soldier, a female impersonator, a funerary portrait of a man in an open casket, Black Hebrews, Black Cross nurses, Marcus Garvey in regalia during a parade, entrepreneurs Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter A'Lelia, boxer Jack Johnson, and entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Included is a self-portrait of the photographer playing a violin, circa 1930. An early portrait of Van Der Zee's first wife and daughter was taken around 1908, in Lenox, Massachusetts, his birthplace. Average print size is roughly 10 3/4 x 12 inches. Almost all are exhibit prints created mostly in the 1980s from original negatives. Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at Duke University.
Alvin T. Parnell was a commercial photographer based in Durham, N.C. Collection chiefly consists of 167 black-and-white photographs of the city and people of Durham, North Carolina. The majority, chiefly taken by Parnell from 1920 through the 1950s, are views of downtown streets, commercial and industrial buildings, churches, and infrastructure, especially transportation. Many sites are related to the tobacco manufacturing businesses based in Durham. A few are of African American tobacco workers posed in the field and female factory workers ending their shift. Other images range widely and include a Trinity College (later Duke University) reunion, war veterans at gatherings, a minstrel band, a cart advertising Bull Durham tobacco, and tobacco fields with posed workers, white and African American. In addition, there are portraits of prominent Durham individuals and families. Formats include 85 vintage and modern gelatin silver prints, chiefly 8x10 inches, 82 contact prints, and 12 safety negatives. Includes an information folder with 1986 obituary and collection information.
Hugh Mangum was a commercial portrait photographer from Durham, North Carolina. Collection comprises 937 glass plate negatives and printed black-and-white photographs taken by Hugh Mangum from about 1890 to 1922 as he traveled a rail circuit through North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia and in photography studios he and partners established in Durham, N.C., and Roanoke, Pulaski, and East Radford, Virginia. Localities known to have been visited by Mangum in N.C. include Winston-Salem, High Point, Raleigh, Reidsville, Lexington, Durham, and Greensboro; in Virginia, Christiansburg, Martinsville, East Radford, and Pulaski. The images are chiefly individual and group portraits of mostly unidentified women, children, and men, either in unidentified studio settings or outdoors. Most are white men and women, but there are also many African Americans and others who may be multi-racial. Hugh Mangum and his wife are present in several images. There are several street scenes identified as Radford, Virginia, as well as Warrenton (probably N.C.), and Christiansburg, Virginia. Some images feature houses, barns, mills, outdoor social gatherings, and animals. The last dated photograph in the collection is a mounted print of Mangum's body in an open casket, 1922. Of the photographic prints, there are 55 prints made from selected negatives, and 50 inkjet digital prints from a 2012 exhibit. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Indian-born professional photographer active in the last half of the 19th century; died in 1905. Collection of 51 large albumen and gelatin silver photographs mounted on mat board, taken by professional photographer Raja Deen Dayal, which offer insights into the culture, history, and environment of India in the last decades of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The prints range in size from 5x8" to 9x11", and document the 1903 visit of Duke and Duchess of Connaught, which includes marshalling of troops and parades, various archaeological sites, monuments, and natural vistas. Images are arranged by print number, some of which are original and some assigned by the dealer (in brackets). Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans (1920-2012) was the only daughter of Mary Duke and Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr. This collection documents her childhood in New York, NY, enrollment at Duke University, and marriages to Josiah C. Trent and James H. Semans. She continued her family's legacy of philanthropy, with a focus on the arts, education, and rehabilitation, and became civically and politically active beginning in the 1950s, espeically in Durham and NC.
Lisa Unger Baskin, who assembled this collection of photographs centered on women's history and culture, is a bibliophile, collector, and activist. Collection consists of 514 photographs and other graphic items in a variety of formats typical for the time, chiefly albumen, but also including gelatin silver, cased images, and mechanical prints; there are also small groups of true photographic postcards. Along with titles, dates, and content, data points may include biographies of photographers and subjects, studio addresses, and other notes. Roughly three-quarters of the images were produced by commercial women photographers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The great majority date from about 1860 to 1920, and the most common format is studio portraits of white men, women, children, and families. There are also many photographs of well-known women artists, entertainers, intellectuals, and activists of the time, as well as images of women in educational and a variety of work settings, on sports teams, posing with uniforms, guns, and tools, and enjoying leisure activities. Roughly 40 images are portraits of African Americans and other people of color or mixed race. Color images are chiefly limited to hand-tinted images and mechanical prints. Acquired as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection at Duke University.
Yōko Hioki was born about 1938 and was a resident of Ōmiya-shi, Saitama, Japan, near Tokyō. Collection comprises a photograph album maintained by Yōko Hioki primarily featuring her family and school. She was a 9th grader in 1953. There are 128 albumen and gelatin silver photographs ranging in size from 0.875 x 1.375-inches to 7.75 x 5.5-inches. The majority of the photographs are captioned. The first photograph in the album is a group family photograph taken sometime during the war, before the deployment of one of her family members. In addition, besides several pictures of Yōko, there are group and individual photographs of her school teachers and classmates, including reunion photographs, and many images of class field trips, including one trip to Nikko. There are also casual and formal individual and group images of Yōko's family, including those taken at a birthday party for her sister.
Shawn Pridgen is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, New York whose photographic career began with the Black Lives Matter protests, which followed the violent deaths of African American citizens at the hands of law enforcement. In 2020 he received the Collection Award from the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University for this portfolio. Collection consists of fifteen photographic prints of images taken in 2020 at Black Lives Matter protests and rallies in New York City and Washington, D.C. by documentarian Shawn Michael Pridgen. Subjects include portraits of protesters, in some cases with Washington, D.C. monuments in the background; and images of police, crowds, marches, protest signs, city streets and other urban features. The black-and-white prints measure 11x14 inches (9) and 16x20 inches (6). Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
The Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Art degree program at Duke University has been awarded since 2013. Collection houses MFA/EDA theses submitted by graduates of the program, in the form of typescripts; handmade books; digital video and audio, three-dimensional artwork; photobooks; photographic prints; digital still images; and film of multi-media performances. Subjects range widely and include: U.S. and Southern cultures; world cultures; street photography; childhood; environmental narratives and documentaries; city and rural communities; themes of social justice, memory, and identity; women and spirituality; and abstract constructs. Other places documented include China, Poland, Vietnam, and the Middle East. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Collection comprises three bodies of color and black-and-white work by photographer Jess T. Dugan: To Survive on this Shore: Photographs of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Older Adults (2013-2017); A Moment Collected: Photographs at the Harvard Art Museum (2006-2008); and Look At Me Like You Love Me (2020-2021). Nearly all the images are portraits ranging from staff at the Harvard Art Museum, one of Dugan's earliest projects, to gender non-conforming people, gay men and women, and transgender people. The 120 prints are signed, dated, and titled by the artist. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke Unviversity.
Collection consists of 421 black-and-white prints in darkroom and inkjet formats, 726 associated digital image and project files, and two digital videos by photographer Petra Barth. Arranged by project, Barth's images document cultures, politics, environments, and crises in countries all over the world, through landscape and portraiture. Series include images from Central and South American countries to the Caribbean countries of Haiti and the Bahamas; portraits of migrants and images of migrant services at Arizona/Mexico border stations; images from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and residents in nearby areas in the Ukraine; scenes in Jerusalem and the West Bank; images of Syrian refugees and others in Jordan camps; and portraits of military veterans of the Bosnia-Herzegovina War. Acquired as part of the Human Rights Archive at Duke University.
Collection comprises twenty-five black and white gelatin silver 16x20 inch exhibit prints, representing a larger body of work on contemporary Iowa rural culture. The images portray a changing Midwest of vanishing towns and transformed landscapes. Scenes include cemeteries, slaughterhouses, farms, abandoned grain elevators, and fields. Individuals inhabiting the scenes include young people at leisure, fishermen on the Mississippi, hunters in fields, veterans on Memorial Day, Amish families, as well as more recent arrivals to Iowa, Lubavitcher Hasidic Jews at prayer and migrant workers in the fields and at home. The prints are housed in exhibit mats. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Documentary photographer based in Helena, Montana. Collection contains one photograph: "Bedroom, January 2003," an 8x10 selenium-toned black-and-white gelatin silver print on fiber based paper.
The Center for Documentary Studies opened in January 1990 and is an outgrowth of and replacement for the Center for Documentary Photography (1980-1990). The Center combines traditions of documentary photography and film, writing, oral history, and scholarly analysis in seeking to capture life experiences. The 25 Under 25 project showcases twenty-five of America's most promising photographers, all twenty-five years old or younger. This collection contains 21 prints from an exhibit celebrating the project's initial publication, 25 Under 25: Up-And-Coming American Photographers, a Lyndhurst Book published by powerHouse and the Center for Documentary Studies in 2003.