This sweeping history of Durham County, North Carolina, extends from the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth.

The premier monument is Durham Cathedral, greatest of English Norman churches. Lovers of the Middle Ages will also seek out the county's exceptional Anglo-Saxon churches, while many of its great castles - Brancepeth, Raby, Auckland, Lambton - conceal palatial Georgian and Victorian interiors. The landscape varies dramatically, from the wilds of Teesdale and Weardale, in the west, to the pioneering industrial ports of Sunderland and Hartlepool on the coast, including fine gentry houses and stone-built market towns. South Tyneside and northern Cleveland, historically part of County Durham, are also covered.

In this broad, sweeping history of Durham County, Jean Bradley Anderson begins with a discussion of the geography, climate, and geology of the region from the seventeenth century to 1981, its centennial year. This remarkably comprehensive work moves beyond traditional local histories that focus on powerful families. Rather, Anderson integrates the stories of well-known figures with those of ordinary men and women, blacks and whites, to create a complex but fascinating portrait of Durham's economic, political, social, and labor history.Drawing on extensive primary research, Durham County examines the origins of the town of Durham and recounts the growth of communities around mills, stores, taverns, and churches in the century preceding the rise of tobacco manufacturing. It examines all phases of life in the county: agriculture, architecture, the arts, education, industry, politics, and religion. Anderson pays particular attention to such turning points as the coming of the railroad; the Confederate surrender at the Bennett Place; the war's connection to the rise and flourishing of the tobacco industry; the move to Durham of Trinity College; the development of the Research Triangle Park and the subsequent rise of the health service and high-tech industries.

Possessing a landscape as diverse as its population, Durham County represents the changing face of North Carolina, a place and personality steeped in Southern traditions, yet redefined each passing year by new strides in technology and industry. Created in 1881, the county evolved over the decades from its humble roots as a rural Carolina railroad stop into an affluent, dynamic, and cosmopolitan community spurred on by the alternate successes of tobacco, textiles, and now, medical research. This volume, with 195 black-and-white photographs, celebrates, in word and image, the fascinating story of Durham County, tracing its history from before the county's creation through the remarkable years of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From times characterized by a slower way of life to the accelerating modern day, Durham County allows readers a rare opportunity to step back into the past and explore the county anew, viewing its early farms, its budding downtown, the influential Hayti district (a center for black commerce), the many tobacco factories, and a selection of the numerous mills yielding a variety of products. However, this book is much more than just a portrait of Durham's commercial interests, but touches upon many elements of everyday life in the county: its personal side, covering families such as the Dukes and Bennehans; its educational opportunities, such as Duke University and North Carolina Central University; and its citizens at play, including the resurgence of Durham's famed minor-league baseball team.