Inventory of the Alex Harris Photographs and Papers, 1970-2012 and undated

Contains six 16x20 (box 3) and 50 11x14 black and white prints (boxes 1-2). The images were made over the course of multiple trips over a five-year period to villages along the Kobuk River, located above the Arctic Circle, and fishing villages along the southern coast of the Bering Sea in Alaska. The images depict the day-to-day lives of indigenous peoples in various small Alaskan communities.

Fifty-six black and white 17x22 digital prints (boxes 6-7) of people and places throughout North Carolina, photographed from 1971-1972. The project was an initiative of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs at Duke University and started as a photographic study of substandard housing and living conditions in the state. The images feature scenes and portraits of North Carolinians from counties in the eastern, central and western regions. These photographs are from very early in Harris' professional career. Additionally, the series contains 38 24x30 color prints (boxes 4-5) of the American South, photographed from 1984-1985. This project was funded by an award from the Lyndhurst Foundation; the images feature scenes from a variety of Southern towns.

Contains 21 24x30 pigmented inkjet color prints of Cuban landscapes and city scenes taken from within the interiors of classic American cars dating from 1948-1958. Also includes one 24x30 "type C lambda print" digital laser print on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper. Use copies for these large prints are available in Box 10. There is also a single 24x30 color print, in a 30x40" mat. No use copy is available for this print.

Consists of 21 20x24 color prints, featuring the artist's son, Will, and deals with the subject of children and technology. Smaller use copies for these large prints are available in box 13. The project was provoked by the artist's observation that children, including his own, were becoming increasingly attached to handheld, portable electronic gaming devices. The series captures the artist's son in a variety of settings, both public and private, playing his Game Boy and means to explore the implications of how pre-adolescent interaction with electronics might bear out on post-adolescent human interaction and relationships. Use copies for these large prints are available in Box 10.

Alex Harris' earliest work in the collection consists of 12 black and white 16x20 digital prints of student demonstrations at Yale University. The demonstrations came in response to the arrest of Black Panther Party leader, Bobby Seale, who was accused of ordering the murder of a supposed police informant in New Haven, CT. The series documents the demonstrations from a variety of angles and includes images of National Guard soldiers, students and university officials. These images remained unprinted for almost thirty-seven years until they were edited and printed as part of an exhibition of Alex Harris' early work at Duke University.

Black and white digital prints and color prints taken by Harris in New Mexico and Arizona, printed in 1999 and 2000. There are also some images shot in Arizona at a Rainbow Gathering, a counter-culture festival (1979, printed in 1999).

Contains 11x14 black and white prints shot by Harris on assignment to document the Experience Corps, a United States civic engagement program akin to the Peace Corps. Images feature school children and tutors interacting in various school settings in six Philadelphia city schools.

Contains black and white matted portraits of older individuals from Durham, North Carolina in their seventies, eighties and nineties. The images include biographical information and the place each portrait was taken. Also includes publicity poster for exhibit.

Contains 68 archival pigmented color photographs taken by Alex Harris in Mobile, Alabama for a documentary book project co-authored with naturalist Edward O. Wilson, entitled “Why We Are Here: Mobile and the Spirit of a Southern City” (2012). The prints were part of an exhibit in the Mobile Museum of Art from October-January 2013.

Images include portraits of Mobile citizens from various backgrounds; a football team's activities; Civil War re-enactors; street scenes; Mardi Gras events; and landscapes, including images of the Gulf of Mexico.

The prints were made on an Epson 7900 stylus pro, using Epson ultrachrome hdr inks. The paper is Innova Fibraprint ultrasmooth gloss, an acid-free and lignin-free paper on a fiber base.

Contains various publicity, exhibition material, and publications featuring Harris' work in documentary photography. This series also includes audio recordings of interviews with Harris, as well as recordings of lectures given by Harris at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and in various other conferences. One notable set of audiocassettes contain interviews conducted by Harris that feature reminiscences and comments by Gertrude Duby Blom (1901-1993), well-known journalist, anthropologist, activist, and documentary photographer who studied indigenous peoples in Mexico. Titles on recordings taken from original carriers.

Correspondence, drafts, grant applications, research notes, photographs, printed materials, proofs, publicity, and other materials produced during Harris's work on a variety of books, conferences, exhibitions, and academic activities from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s. Some projects are covered in considerable depth, including the following: early history of the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies; Wendy Ewald and the project that eventually became the Literacy Through Photography Program; photographer Paul Kwilecki's first book, Understandings; Harris's work with Robert Coles and Helen Levitt on her In the Street: Chalk Drawings and Messages New York City, 1938-1948; and various projects involving South African photographers (see scope notes for specific boxes). Other books and exhibitions represented in this series include: I Shall Save One Land Unvisited: Eleven Southern Photographers (1978); The Last and First Eskimos (1982); The Old Ones of New Mexico (various editions); Red White Blue and God Bless You: a Portrait of Northern New Mexico (1992); and River of Traps: a Village Life (1990). Arranged alphabetically by correspondent or topic.

Mainly correspondence with several hundred authors, photographers, and staff members during the first few years of publication of the magazine DoubleTake. These records differ significantly from the materials in the Correspondence Series. They derive from a later time--mainly the mid-1990s instead of the 1970s and 1980s--and are generally less in-depth for each entry, containing fewer manuscripts, photographs, and research materials for the projects under discussion. Possibly related materials can be found in Rubenstein Library in the Preliminary Inventory of the DoubleTake Records, 1908-1999 (bulk 1993-1999). Materials about early discussions and preparations for founding the new magazine are filed under a variety of topics, including: Editorial prospectus; Whitney Ellsworth (a publishing consultant); Publication--early correspondence; and Quail Roost conference. Arranged alphabetically.

Articles, correspondence, grant applications, manuscripts, notes, photographic materials, printed materials, research notes, and other documents derived from various books and related exhibitions and symposia on which Harris has worked as curator, editor, organizer, or photographer. The bulk of the materials derive from the following three books and related projects: Gertrude Blom: Bearing Witness (1984); A New Life: Stories and Photographs from the Suburban South (1997); and A World Unsuspected: Portraits of Southern Childhood (1987).

Syllabi, printed materials, student writings, and other classroom materials for Harris's classes at University of North Carolina and Duke University. Arranged chronologically.