It is said that Mangum was accepted at Trinity College, later Duke, but it is uncertain whether he ever attended there. Instead, he went to Winston-Salem to study art at Salem College.
It is said that Mangum was accepted at Trinity College, later Duke, but it is uncertain whether he ever attended there. Instead, he went to Winston-Salem to study art at Salem College.
Hugh Mangum was a self-taught commercial portrait photographer from Durham, North Carolina, whose collection of works contains 937 glass plate negatives and printed black-and-white photographs taken by Mangum from about 1890 to 1922 as he travelled a rail circuit through North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia and in photography studios he and partners established in Roanoke, Pulaski, and East Radford, Virginia.
Background
Hugh Leonard Mangum was born on June 3, 1877, on Main Street in Durham, to Presley J. Mangum, an early Durham postmaster, who was a skilled craftsman and furniture maker and owned a sash, blind, and door factory in downtown Durham, and his wife, Sally Mangum, who was a remarkable cook and gardener. Hugh was the oldest child of a talented and creative family.
As the city of Durham grew, the family turned toward the country, cherishing country ways, quiet, and space. In 1891, they bought the McCown House and used it as their summer home for two years. The family moved out to the Eno permanently in 1893, when Hugh was sixteen years old.
Education
It is said that Mangum was accepted at Trinity College, later Duke, but it is uncertain whether he ever attended there. Instead, he went to Winston-Salem to study art at Salem College.
From 1893, Mangum led a rambling life through the cities and countryside of the Southeast, photographing blacks and whites, children at play, workers in the field, and scenes around home by the Eno. He travelled by train on these picture-taking trips, returning often to Durham, perhaps when his money ran out. Along the way, he set up many temporary studios, as well as three permanent ones in the Virginia towns of Roanoke, Pulaski, and East Radford.
Thus, at the age of 16, Hugh Mangum was already a self-taught photographer. He had also achieved some mastery with oils and water-colours. He was musical, like others in the family, and could play the mandolin, accordion, and piano.
During his career, Mangum worked mainly in Virginia and North Carolina, making portraits of anyone who wanted one and could afford his sitting fee. He was equally welcome and popular in both white and black communities, which made him a bit of a rare bird. And for that reason, his work was especially valuable. That part of the country was still very segregated but it didn’t seem to matter to him. Many African-Americans were anxious to expose themselves (so to speak) to the greater community as well as have photos for their family albums. They, however, found their man in Mangum.
Mangum continued his successful career until 1922 when he was struck down by the great influenza epidemic that swept the country. The only treatment available at the time was whisky, which he turned down on principle.
Remarkable for his time, Hugh L. Mangum attracted and cultivated a clientele that drew heavily from both black and white communities. Though this era was marked by disenfranchisement, segregation, and inequality –– between black and white, men and women, rich and poor –– Hugh Mangum portrayed all of his sitters with candour, humour, and spirit.
Mangum's works currently exhibited in Hugh Mangum Museum of Photography in Durham. The Museum consists of permanent displays of cameras and equipment from Mangum’s darkroom, and other materials showing the man himself. Rotating exhibits of Mangum’s photographs and short-term exhibits of contemporary and historical photographs are featured throughout the museum.
Hugh Mangum used a variety of equipment during his career. At the time of his death, he owned several cameras ranging from the “Penny Picture” camera which produced images the size of a penny to a Cirkut panorama camera capable of producing images 8″X 40″ without enlargement.
Hugh Mangum printed many of his negatives in the Packhouse darkroom. The negatives were exposed elsewhere, usually on location in a tent or in some “storefront” temporary studio. Mangum used a nearby stream, Black Meadow Branch, as a water source for chemical mixing and for washing his prints.
Personality
Mangum was a singular and talented person with a sense of humour and design, and a fascination for the eccentric and bizarre, for gipsies and the burlesque, for photographic props and extraordinary hats. He took a degree in hypnotism and made a point of following vaudeville troops to photograph their extravagances. Above all, as his camera records, he had an eye for pretty women. Although his nude pictures are gone, hundreds of photographs are left to us displaying handsome women dressed in the lavish costumes of the time.
Physical Characteristics:
Mangum died of pneumonia on March 12, 1922, at the age of 44.
Quotes from others about the person
"Hugh Mangum created an environment that was respectful and very often playful in which people could genuinely reveal themselves - men and women, rich and poor, black and white." - Sarah Stacke
Connections
In 1906, Mangum married Annie Carden. The couple had one daughter, and as a family man, Hugh delighted in photographing their daughter in pinafore and ribbons. When the entire family fell prey to influenza in the epidemic of 1922, he ordered the doctor to administer whiskey, the only remedy available, to his wife and child. He himself refused the remedy on principle.
