This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Size | 3.0 linear feet of shelf space (61 items) |
Abstract | Collection consists of the 60 photographic prints used to produce Sodom Laurel Album (2002). Sodom Laurel Album, chronicles Dellie Norton and her family 1975-1994, who lived in the small mountain community of Sodom Laurel, located in Madison County, N.C. The collection also contains a copy of Sodom Laurel Album (2002). |
Creator | Amberg, Rob. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives. |
Language | English |
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
Rob Amberg was born in Washington, D.C., in 1947. Educated in Catholic schools, he graduated from the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, in 1969. While there, he produced a slide-tape presentation that introduced him to the potential of photography as a tool for social change. After college, he was granted Conscientious Objector status to the draft and spent two and a half years in Tucson, Ariz., teaching nursery school as his alternative service. In Tucson, Ariz., he produced his first published photographs and had his first one-person exhibit at Spectrum Gallery.
He moved to Madison County, N.C., in 1973 and began what has become his lifetime project; writing and photographing about the evolving culture and environment of his adopted county. His first book, Sodom Laurel Album, was published in 2002 by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke and the University of North Carolina Press. His second book from Madison County, The New Road: I-26 and the Footprints of Progress in Appalachia, was published in 2009 by the Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago. Throughout his career Amberg has been on staff or done assignment work for non-profit organizations and philanthropic foundations. His work has largely focused on rural communities, family farms, and the environment. His work is regularly published and exhibited nationally. He is the recipient of awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Humanities Council, the Center for Documentary Studies, and others. In 2004, he had the honor of presenting Sodom Laurel Album at the Library of Congress.
Since moving to the mountains, Amberg has sought to participate in mountain life as much as he’s documented it. He lives with his wife, Leslie Stilwell, on a small farm where they raise gardens and shitake mushrooms, tend an assortment of animals, burn firewood, and drink water from a mountain spring.
Biographical information taken from Rob Amberg's biography on RobAmberg.com, March 2016.
Back to TopCollection consists of the 60 photographic prints used to produce Sodom Laurel Album (2002). Sodom Laurel Album, chronicles Dellie Norton and her family 1975-1994, who lived in the small mountain community of Sodom Laurel, located in Madison County, N.C. When Amberg first met Dellie Norton and her adopted son, Junior, in 1975, Norton was seventy-six years old and had lived most of her life in the small mountain community of Sodom Laurel, N.C., surrounded by close kin, tobacco fields, and the rugged wilderness of the southern Appalachians. Images chronicle the relationship between Norton and Amberg across the next two decades, years marked by the seasons of raising and harvesting food and tobacco and by the gatherings of family and friends for conversation, storytelling, and music. The collection also contains a copy of Sodom Laurel Album (2002).
Back to TopTitles, captions, and notes have all been transcribed from verso of prints.
Processed by: Amelia W Holmes, June 2016
Encoded by: Amelia W Holmes, June 2016
Back to Top