The Architecture of William Nichols: Building the Antebellum South in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi

The Architecture of William Nichols: Building the South in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi is the first comprehensive biography and monograph of a significant, yet overlooked, architect in the American South. William Nichols designed three major university campuses: the University of North Carolina, the University of Alabama, and the University of Mississippi. He also designed the first state capitols of North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi. Nichols’s architecture profoundly influenced the built of landscape of the South but due fire, neglect, and demolition, most of his work was lost and his legacy was forgotten. Paul Hardin Kapp copiously researched through archives in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi and produced a narrative of the life and times of William Nichols. This latest book on Nichols’s life and career as an architect is over eighty-six thousand words in length and is richly illustrated with over two hundred archival photographs, drawings from the Historic American Building Survey, current photographs and sketches of architectural details by the author. It is an important and timely contribution to the architecture history of the American South.