By Sarah Stacke with texts by Maurice Wallace and Martha Sumler. Published by Red Hook Editions, 2018. Designed by Bonnie Briant.

Select Press
Washington Post, A new book of photographs offers a penetrating look at the segregated South during Redemption and Jim Crow
NPR, Photos Day or Night: How One Photographer Documented the Segregated South

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Photos Day or Night: The Archive of Hugh Mangum is a close-up look at the life and work of American photographer Hugh Mangum. Made in collaboration with Mangum’s granddaughter Martha Sumler, the book features never-before-seen photographs and ephemera from their family archive. Mangum worked in North Carolina and the Virginias at the turn of the 20th century. A businessman and artist who supported his family, he welcomed clients from across racial and economic divides. The archive he left behind allows a penetrating gaze into the segregated South during Redemption and Jim Crow, the turbulent and far-reaching eras that bolstered white supremacy after the Civil War's Reconstruction period. Mangum’s archive also encompasses World War I, women’s suffrage and debilitating legislation aimed at immigrants and Native Americans.

Notably, Mangum often used a camera designed to allow multiple and distinct exposures on a single glass-plate negative. The resulting sequences mirror the order in which Mangum's diverse clientele appeared before his lens on a particular day. After entering Mangum’s studio, people sat resolutely, curiously, gracefully, dreamily and politely while anticipating the click of the camera's shutter. Many played — Mangum encouraged it. And there were those who sought a portrait because, despite living in a time full of restrictions, many of which were enforced with violence, they believed in a life without limits. A photograph was one way to divine a fragment of that life, whether it was social mobility, unrestricted love, equality or whatever “limitless” personally meant to someone. In Mangum’s archive, boundaries — in life and in photographic space — are blurred, subverted, defied and overthrown. After all, being seen is what begins a revolution.