Born: 1950
Educated:
- Hopkins Grammar School
- Haverford College-- BA Honors in English and Writing
- American Studies Department, Art Department, University of Texas at Austin-- M.A. Photography and American Studies
- American Civilization Program, University of Texas at Austin-- Ph.D. American Civilization
Employed:
Musician, 1962-present
- Jealous Mourning Singers
- Bim Easton Band
- John Kromer Blues Band
- Tammany
- Bite Me the Band
- Ancient Mojo Peoples
Photographer, 1973-Present
- UPI New York Wire Desk
- Austin Sun
- Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist's Fellowship
- photographer, Changing Chicago
- photographer, editor, consultant City2000
- photographs exhibited in various art and historical museums in US and abroad
- photographs published in various books, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, both as "art" and as documentation
Writer, 1973-Present
- music and architectural criticism, Austin Sun
- editor and principal contributor, Darkroom Photography Magazine
- writing in various newspapers, magazines and journals
- collaboration with photographers: Mark Klett, for One City/Two Visions: San Francisco Muybridge/Klett Bob Thall, for The Perfect City
- writing in various academic journals, including Artjournal, The Art Bulletin, Reviews in American History, The Journal of Urban History, American Studies, Bulletin of the Allen Art Museum
- Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839-1915 (1984)
- William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape (1988)
- Constructing the Fair: Charles Dudley Arnold and the Photography of the World's Columbian Exposition (1993)
- Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project (19997)
- Silver Cities: American Photographs of the Urban Experience, 1839-1939 (2005)
- Outside the Gates: Episodes in the Changing American Cultural Landscape, 1946-2001 (2005)
- Freeways, Now (2006)
Teacher, 1980-Present
- Assistant Professor,Department of American Studies, California State University Fullerton (1980)
- Assistant, Associate Professor, History of Architecture and Art Department, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle(1980-1988)
- Professor, Art History Department, The University of Illinois, Chicago (1988-Present)
- Visiting Professor, Art History Department, Northwestern University (1994)
- Visiting Artist, Photography Department, Columbia College, Chicago (1999-Present)