Peter Bacon Hales facts for kids

Peter Bacon Hales (born November 13, 1950 – died August 26, 2014) was an American historian, photographer, author, and musician. He was known for his work on American places and landscapes, the history of photography, and contemporary art.

Peter B. Hales: A Life in Pictures and History

Early Life and Education

Peter Hales finished college at Haverford College in 1972. He earned a degree in English and American Literature. After college, he worked in New York as a photographer and musician.

In the mid-1970s, he moved to Texas. There, he continued his studies with famous photographers Russell Lee and Garry Winogrand. He earned his master's degree in 1976 and his PhD in 1980 from the University of Texas. He focused on American Civilization.

In 1980, Peter Hales became a professor. He taught in the Art History department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He later became the director of the American Studies Institute there.

Exploring American Landscapes

Peter Hales' first important book was Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839–1915, published in 1984. This book looked at how America changed as cities grew. It showed this through the many photographs made and shared during that time. It was one of the first studies to explore urban photography from a cultural history point of view.

Later, Hales started to study bigger changes in America's physical and cultural landscape. He focused on the westward expansion of the country. He also looked at how this led to the growth of industries across America. His second book, William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape, used the photos of Jackson to show how Americans' views of the land changed.

Over the next few decades, Hales' work grew. He studied not just the history of photography, but also technology, modernization, and how land was used. He wrote about many topics, including the World's Columbian Exposition and images of atomic tests during the Cold War.

His book Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project (1997) was about the places connected to the Manhattan Project. This project was where the first atomic bombs were developed. The book was highly praised and won the Herbert Hoover Prize.

Hales also worked with other photographers like Mark Klett and Bob Thall. He helped with two big projects that documented Chicago. He photographed social events for the Changing Chicago Project. For City2000, he was a historian and took large photos of homes.

In 2006, he released an updated version of his first book. It was called Silver Cities: Photographing American Urbanization, 1839–1939. This new version included more detailed studies of different groups of people. It also covered urban photography up to 1939, including photos from the Farm Security Administration.

Digital Worlds and Later Work

In the early 2000s, Peter Hales became interested in the digital world. He saw it as a way to find and share historical information. He worked with a colleague to create the Chicago Architecture Imagebase website. This site collected pictures of Chicago's buildings. He also started a project about Levittown, a famous post-war suburb.

In April 2014, Hales' book Outside the Gates of Eden: The Dream of America From Hiroshima to Now was released. This book continued ideas from his Silver Cities project. When he passed away in 2014, he was working on projects about America's cultural and virtual landscapes. These included studies on freeways, contrails, and airports. He was also exploring virtual environments like early computer games such as MUDs and Zork, and newer ones like the Sims and Second Life.

Peter Hales retired from teaching in 2012. He was given the title of professor emeritus at UIC.

His Final Years

On August 26, 2014, Peter Hales died in an accident. He was a big fan of bicycling. The accident involved a motor vehicle near his home in Stone Ridge, New York.

Photography Exhibitions

Peter Hales showed his photographs in many places across the United States. His pictures also appeared in his own books and in books by other historians.

Where His Photos Were Shown

• Fourth Street Photo Gallery, New York, 1976 (solo show)
• Just Imagine Gallery, Austin, Texas, 1977
• Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1977
• California Institute for the Arts, 1979
• San Francisco Camerawork, 1981 (solo show)
• "Grant Park," Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1984
• Society for Contemporary Photography, 1985
• Edwynn Houk Gallery, Chicago, 1985
• "Descriptions," Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1985
• "Road and Roadside," Museum of Illinois, Springfield, 1987
• "Road and Roadside," Art Institute of Chicago, 1987
• "Road and Roadside," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1988
• "The Illinois Photographers' Project," Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1987
• "Gates of Eden: Americans and the Land," Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, June and July 1988 (one-person show)
• "Chicago: Inside and Out," Art Institute of Chicago, 1989
• "Changing Chicago," Chicago Historical Society, 1989
• "New Photography," The Museum of Contemporary Photography, 1998