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Hear the voices of White Furniture Factory employees, interviewed
by the Southern Oral History Program. The following are a
wide selection of audio excerpts drawn from the interviews
and originally featured at a museum exhibition of Bamberger's
"Closing" photography: 1 | 2 | 3
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For further information about Bill Bamberger's project, visit
the award-winning website
dedicated to Closing. |
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SOHP
Home > Scholarship > About Closing
Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory
Bill Bamberger
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Photographer Bill Bamberger's award-winning Closing: The Life and Death
of an American Factory (DoubleTake Books/Norton, 1998) portrays the
final months of operation of the White Furniture Co. plant in his hometown
of Mebane, North Carolina. Heralded for making documentary art meaningful
in a community's daily life, Closing was the culmination of "Memory
and Community: The White Furniture Co. of Mebane 1881-1993," an oral
history and photography project co-sponsored by the SOHP and the Mebane
Arts Council with funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council.
Winner of the Mayflower Prize in non-fiction and a semifinalist for the
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Closing
Closing: Quitting
Time, Sanding Room
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features color and black and white photographs taken by Bamberger over
five months of intensive work at the factory, along with text by Cathy
Davidson. Images from the book were exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution's
Museum of American History, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the North
Carolina Museum of Art, as well as in the old Jones Department Store in
downtown Mebane.
Closing: Jane
in the Rub-and-Pack Department
One Month Before Closing
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Media coverage of the book and exhibit included CBS Sunday Morning,
C-SPAN2's About Books, the New York Times, and NPR's All
Things Considered. Archived in the Southern Historical Collection
at UNC-CH are 31 interviews collected in Mebane by the SOHP in conjunction
with the "Memory and Community" project.
Want to hear more?
- Hear the voices of White Furniture Factory employees, interviewed
by the Southern Oral History Program. The following are a wide selection
of audio excerpts drawn from the interviews and originally featured
at a museum exhibition of Bamberger's "Closing" photography: 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
| 8
| 9
| 10
| 11
| 12
| 13
| 14
| 15
| 16
| 17
|
For further information about Bill Bamberger's project, visit the award-winning
website dedicated to Closing.
|
 |
 |