Snapshot Nation, NFP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Publication of

This book by noted photographer Barbara Karant commemorates and reflects on the essence of the Johnson Publishing Company, publisher of the iconic Ebony and Jet magazines and the most influential Black-owned media corporation of its day. Karant spent several years documenting the company’s historic building at 820 S. Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, capturing the last vestiges of the original workspace after the company sold the building in 2010 and relocated in 2012. These lively interiors, which remained largely unchanged from 1972 to 2012, fostered the creativity of a staff working in a variety of media. When Karant photographed the vacant building, its residual textures, patterns, colors, and structures maintained the spirit of JPC. Stripped of its furnishings, the interiors of the former JPC headquarters simultaneously represent the spirit of this landmark company and the sense of its loss, of a seminal moment in Black American history and the history of this nation. Karant’s photography, along with essays by distinguished scholars of American art and cultural history, honor the achievements of this remarkable company.

This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Publication of

The Uptown: Chicago’s Endangered Movie Palace gathers the work of a dozen contemporary photographers along with vintage blueprints, renderings, programs, and classic photographs to tell the story of one of America’s jewels - a theater built “for all time.” Opened a century ago, Chicago’s Uptown Theatre is one of America’s largest and most lavish movie palaces, but for decades, few people have been let inside to experience its grand six-story lobby, its sweeping staircase, or its massive theater of over four thousand seats. The theater currently sits in limbo with its beauty hidden behind a plywood barricade - too costly to tear down and too expensive to restore. This book documents what remains and calls for the protection and preservation of one of America’s sacred places. Having studied the Uptown for decades, journalists Robert Loerzel and James A. Pierce have assembled a detailed documentation, relying on original records and first-hand accounts to tell the story of dreamers, a changing neighborhood and a nation stepping into a new world.

This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Publication of

The Salt Shed chronicles the compelling work of reimagining and transforming Chicago’s impressive Morton Salt Warehouse while honoring its history and its working-class roots. Originally constructed in 1929, the Morton Salt Company Warehouse Complex has been a familiar and beloved Chicago landmark along Elston Avenue between Division Street and North Avenue. For decades, the enormous hand-painted sign has captivated people traveling along busy Interstate I-90 and on Elston Avenue. As times changed, the property was no longer used for salt storage and processing, and eventually lay dormant. The building was initially acquired by R2 Companies and has been repurposed and transformed into a stunning music venue: conceived, designed and built by Blue Star Properties, with 16 On Center, and Aric Lasher of HBRA Architects.

This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Additional funding was provided by Morton Salt, Inc.

Publication of

Based on the remarkable photo archive of the Historic American Buildings Survey, Lost in America tells powerful stories of places that should still be here, from adobe huts to New York skyscrapers. Some - like New York’s Penn Station and Chicago’s Stock Exchange - were majestic. Others - like a tiny bridge in rural Montana and a small farmstead torn down for Denver’s International Airport - were modest. But they all reflected America’s story before they were razed. Using haunting black-and-white images by the nation’s top architectural photographers, the book presents a timely look at what we’ve lost.

This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Additional funding was provided by Pine Needles Charitable Trust.

Publication and Second Printing of

In the late 1930s, the federal government embarked on an unusual project. As a part of the Works Progress Administration’s efforts to give jobs to unemployed Americans, government workers tracked down 3,000 men and women who had been enslaved before and during the Civil War. The workers asked them probing questions about slave life. The result was a remarkable compilation of interviews known as the Slave Narratives. This book highlights those narratives - condensing tens of thousands of pages into short excerpts from about 100 former slaves. It pairs their accounts with their portraits, taken by the workers sent to record their stories.

Funding provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation – empowering world-changing work.

Paul Kitagaki, Jr. tracked down the subjects of more than sixty photographs taken by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and other photographers. He photographed and interviewed the subjects or their children to discover who was in the picture. Each adds their unique personal history.Using black-and-white film and a large-format camera similar to the equipment of photographers in the 1940s, Kitagaki sought to mirror and complement photographs taken during World War II - while revealing the strength and perseverance of the subjects.

Funding provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation – empowering world-changing work.

The authors travel across the metropolitan region to present an eye-opening look at the city’s 200-year history through different home styles. They inspect houses built before the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, walk through the mansions that rose during the Gilded Age, check out the apartments finished before the Depression, and scrutinize mid-century and new-century homes. An intimate view of signficant residences includes Frank Lloyd Wright’s sleek Robie House, Mies van der Rohe’s groundbreaking 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Jeanne Gang’s sublime Aqua Tower.

This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Chicago has produced some of the most important photographers of our time — Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Art Shay — but has never before possessed a book packed with their most timeless work. This is the finest collection of its kind — 225 stunning images by the city’s most revered photographers that show the enduring and endearing aspects of Chicago and its landscape from the Loop to the city’s vast array of neighborhoods.

This publication is made possible through support from the W M Foundation.

“It was a living self-contained theater.” That’s how Michael Abramson described his years photographing Peppers Hideout, Perv’s House, the High Chaparral, the Patio Lounge, and the Showcase Lounge on Chicago’s South Side in the 1970s.

Patricia Smith, a poet who grew up not far from these South Side clubs, took a look at Abramson’s photos nearly four decades later and brought his night world back to life. “These fiercely breathing visuals are a last link,” she says, “to the unpredictable, blade-edged and relentlessly funky city I once knew.”

Funding provided by The Reva and David Logan Foundation.