Durham, North Carolina: A Postcard History

With more than two hundred vintage postcard images,

Durham, North Carolina, captures much of what life

was like in the rapidly growing city during the first half of the twentieth century. This rare collection of postcards represents many aspects of Durham, especially the bustling downtown district. In the early 1900s, Durham was a small but budding town with a population of less than seven thousand. However, a tremendous number of people began to pour into the city, and by 1930 the population had increased to more than fifty thousand. That explosion of growth was attributable in large

measure to the rapid expansion of the tobacco and textile industries, as well as to the endowment of nearby Trinity College (1924) by tobacco magnate James B. Duke, which lead to the institution’s renaming as the now-renowned Duke University. In only a few years, the town’s skyline began to be transformed with the construction of modern office buildings and grand mansions.