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North Carolinian newspapers referenced Dr. and Mrs. Hunt over 450 times between 1880 and 1924. As Transylvania County’s Health Officer, Dr. Charles Washington Hunt implemented progressive public health reforms and led one of the state's more aggressive campaigns against the horrific 1918 Flu Pandemic. His promotional efforts helped to develop several beautiful mountain resorts, and he successfully advocated for many local civic improvements. His wife, Henrietta Anderson Hunt, was the proprietress of the Hunt Cottages of Brevard, and this narrative provides the most detailed history to date of that popular hotel. Mrs. Hunt also commissioned large construction projects in Hendersonville, NC, and St. Petersburg, FL. The Hunts were dedicated to their region - caring for its residents and welcoming many of its visitors for four decades. (Recipient of a 2018 Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

This booklet combines two biographical sketches introducing two extraordinary Civil War portraitists. Esley Hunt of Tennessee and Joshua P. Andrews of Massachusetts converged in Raleigh, North Carolina, to work in the same portrait studio in the late 1850’s. Esley, a photographer, was also a highly skilled colorist. Joshua, a painter, was also a highly skilled photographer. Both men established their reputations by individually winning multiple top awards at several North Carolina State Fairs. As the Civil War began in 1861, they were professionally prepared, and ideally located in a state capital, to produce many of the South’s best-quality Civil War portraits. Following the War, Esley sold the studio and, with his wife, soon returned to the mountains from whence he came, apparently having no interest in Raleigh’s post-war politics. Joshua, however, surprisingly began a political career in Raleigh during the Reconstruction. He became the Secretary Pro Tem of North Carolina’s 1868 Constitutional Convention, where he successfully co-sponsored a provision to allow the state’s African-American citizens to hold public office. In 1869, he served as Grand General of North Carolina's large Heroes of America “Red Strings” organization that was Pro-Union and Anti-Slavery. (State Governor W. W. Holden served as Grand Chancellor.) After Reconstruction, Joshua became a founding member of New York City’s Salmagundi Art Club, which remains influential today. Esley Hunt’s biographical sketch, first released in my 2018 book regarding his Lutterloh relatives-in-law, was the first published effort to chronicle his personal life. This 2025 edition now adds the first published biographical sketch of his artistic partner, Joshua P. Andrews. The Civil War portraits produced by these two men, working together, remain highly valued by collectors and museums, and are invaluable to historians, genealogists, and descendants.

For over 160 years, the Lutterloh family was prominent in North Carolina. Between 1776 and 1940, family members and their steamboat company were referenced in state newspapers over 14,000 times. The Lutterloh Steamboat Line, which primarily served Wilmington and Fayetteville, was one of the state's largest steamboat operations before the Civil War. The large family of Charles and Eliza Lutterloh of Chatham County survived that war and settled across North Carolina and elsewhere. Their family members included Thomas Lutterloh (First Municipal Mayor of Fayetteville; Owner of the Lutterloh Steamboat Line and Local Turpentine Pioneer) * Herbert Lutterloh (Poultry Industry Pioneer) * Charles Lutterloh II (Landscaping and Gardening Pioneer of Fayetteville) * Grandson Charles Buxton Rogers (Florida’s Largest Wholesale Grocer) * and Son-In-Law Esley Hunt (Accomplished Studio Photographer of Chapel Hill and Raleigh). Charles' uncle was Henry Emanuel Lutterloh, Deputy Quartermaster General of the Revolutionary War. Charles' parents, Henry Lewis Lutterloh and Elizabeth Grantham Lutterloh, became the grandparents of 19 medical doctors (1986 "Guinness Book of World Records"). (Recipient of a 2018 Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

The Alsatian Bieber/Beaver clan has contributed significantly to the creation and leadership of over sixty educational and Mainline Protestant institutions in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, the Midwest, and beyond - many of which continue to serve their communities, generation after generation. Past publications have mentioned individual Bieber/Beaver ministers and educators, but this is the first effort to compile their stories collectively, from the 1700’s to the present. This work recognizes such leaders’ roles in building and sustaining churches and schools, the community centers of early America. (Received a 2022 Award of Excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians. Archived by seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and recommended by the Concordia Historical Institute of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.)

T. R. Robertson was born and reared in Winnsboro, SC. The first decade of his professional career, begun during Reconstruction, was spent in Winnsboro; then, he and his wife, Cora Johnston Robertson, moved their family 70 miles north to Charlotte, NC. *** In North Carolina, a vigorous assault on the practice of racial lynching occurred during the 1905-1909 term of Governor Robert Glenn. Appointed by Gov. Glenn, T. R. Robertson served as Adjutant General of the North Carolina National Guard. During the 18-year period from 1891 to 1909, T. R. Robertson repeatedly used the military resources under his command to prevent lynchings and maintain the rule of law. As Adjutant General, he directed over 2000 men to protect the state's population. As Gov. Glenn’s primary military advisor, he helped to militarily lead the Governor’s successful campaign to permanently turn the state’s tide of racial lynching. *** Cora helped to establish two institutions that remain important to Charlotte today. In 1891, a local newspaper referred to her as “the prime mover” in transforming the disbanding Charlotte Female Institute into Long’s Seminary, which would evolve into Queen’s University. She also became an eight-year officer of North Carolina’s first general hospital, St. Peter’s Hospital, and served as its president from 1894 to 1897. (St. Peter's Hospital evolved into today's massive Carolinas Medical Center.) *** The children of Cora and T. R. provided leadership in the military and in local and state historical and literary associations. They were also co-developers of large-scale commercial projects in uptown Charlotte. *** This book also introduces several earlier Robertson generations of Fairfield County, SC, and related families. Two prominent members of Fairfield's Robertson clan are featured: Confederate leader Judge William Ross Robertson, and his presumed cousin, Union leader Thomas James Robertson. After becoming one of his state’s wealthiest planters, Thomas became an abolitionist, a two-term U.S. Senator, and a major rebuilder of South Carolina’s capital city, Columbia. (Recipient of a 2023 Award of Excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

A novel approach to understanding the work of James Baldwin and its transformative potential The relationship of James Baldwin’s life and work to Black religion is in many ways complex and confounding. What is he doing through his literary deployment of religious language and symbols? Despite Baldwin’s disavowal of Christianity in his youth, he continued to engage the symbols and theology of Christianity in works such as The Amen Corner, Just Above My Head, and others. With Jimmy’s Faith, author Christopher W. Hunt shows how Baldwin’s usage of those religious symbols both shifted their meaning and served as a way for him to build his own religious and spiritual vision. Engaging José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of disidentification as a queer practice of imagination and survival, Hunt demonstrates the ways in which James Baldwin disidentifies with and queers Black Christian language and theology throughout his literary corpus. Baldwin’s vision is one in which queer sexuality signifies the depth of love’s transforming possibilities, the arts serve as the (religious) medium of knitting Black community together, an agnostic and affective mysticism undermines Christian theological discourse, “androgyny” troubles the gender binary, and the Black child signifies the hope for a world made new. In disidentifying with Christian symbols, Jimmy’s Faith reveals how Baldwin imagines both religion and the world “otherwise,” offering a model of how we might do the same for our own communities and ourselves.

By 1856, the Dunavants had begun building railroads and they would eventually be among the South's prominent railroad contractors. As they migrated from Virginia to North Carolina and Tennessee, they added to those regions new railroads, mills, hotels, golf clubs, dams and tunnels. For 73 years, from 1856 to 1929, their large-scale construction projects contributed substantially to the development of Southside Virginia, Western North Carolina (Morganton, Charlotte, Statesville, Asheville and Blowing Rock), Tennessee (Memphis), and other southern states. The naming of Dunavant Street in Charlotte paid homage to former resident and builder, Henry Jackson Dunavant. In downtown Morganton, Samuel David Dunavant organized Burke County’s first mill (the Dunavant Cotton Mnfg. Co., later known as the Alpine Cotton Mill); its building has been added to the National Historic Register. (2015 Recipient of a History Book Award and a Family History Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

This was the first publication to present the Rosenwald Schools of Burke County, NC. With five schools built, Burke County was a full participant in the historic Rosenwald Movement that improved so many lives, families and communities across the South. The historic Rosenwald (Canal) School still stands in Lake James’ Bridgewater community, west of Morganton. A legacy of the Corpening family of pioneer educators that served Burke for over 25 years, it is the last surviving complete structure to represent Burke's early African-American schools. The discovery of an extant Rosenwald school provides an opportunity to document, or preserve, a structure representing the educational achievements of early African-American citizens. (In 2015, this work received an Award of Excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians. In 2016, the Burke County Commissioners installed a permanent exhibit at the History Museum of Burke County to commemorate the county's five Rosenwald schools.)

Before the Civil War, William Johnston served as president of Charlotte's first railroad, the Charlotte & SC Railroad. After the war, he rebuilt that line and extended it to Augusta, GA, creating the fastest route between New York and the deep South. He was instrumental in connecting Charlotte by rail early to two seaports, Charleston and Wilmington, allowing the small village to grow rapidly. After retiring from railroad management, he served four terms as a transformative Mayor of Charlotte, built the popular Buford Hotel for the region's rail and mill leaders, and co-organized the Commercial National Bank which, through mergers, evolved into today's Bank of America. Beyond these economic contributions, William Johnston successfully proposed an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution to broaden the state's religious tolerance, and also oversaw the creation of Charlotte's first grade school for African-American children. (Recipient of a 2020 Award of Excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

Founded near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1880--and refounded in 1926--the Iroquois Hunt Club is a small club at the heart of the Bluegrass. Its history, however, is populated by vivid characters with strong links to some of America's most influential figures and most important movements of the last 120 years. Members participated in the Black Hills Gold Rush of the 1870s, the fight for women's right to vote in the early 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt's creation of national parks and the building of the Grand Coulee Dam. At home in the Bluegrass, they also contributed mightily to the development of modern Lexington and were key figures in founding the iconic Keeneland Racecourse and in a number of historic Thoroughbred nurseries, including Calumet and the Whitney farm. Authors Christopher and Glenye Oakford retrace the storied past of an influential group.