A new book, "Photographers in North Carolina: The First Century, 1842-1941," published by the state Department of Cultural Affairs and compiled by Stephen Massengill, explains that the state's earliest photographers were mostly vagabonds. They traveled in wagons and pitched photo tents close to where most people congregated, the town square.
You have to wonder who Lewis Andrews bribed in 1872 to reserve a room inside the courthouse to photograph local folks for a fee while his cronies worked out of tents nearby. The courthouse occupied Greensboro's most prominent real estate, at Market and Elm streets.
Itinerant photographers ranked several cuts above others, especially the medicine men who went from town to town selling wares and bamboozling the locals.
Massengill provides an essay about photographers in North Carolina. He then follows it with an index of 2,500 people he identifies as having been photographed in the state from 1841 to 1941.
You can read more about this great look at North Carolina's history on the News & Record web site.
