Louis Toomer Moore (1885-1961) was an intensely focused local historian and an impassioned champion of his hometown, Wilmington, North Carolina. While serving as director of the Chamber of Commerce, he took roughly 1000 panoramic photographs. Though the primary target of his camera was New Hanover County, the images also form a summary of life in a southern coastal town during the 1920s and '30s: the hilarity of the Roaring 20s, stealth of Prohibition, tragedies of the Great Depression and the creativity of rebuilding lives and livings. The timeless beauty of subjects like little girls in white dresses, cherubic babies on the beach and rippled water dappled in sunlight are merely red-eye gravy.

Using facts and identifications gleaned from interviews, publications both well-known and rare, and extensive newspaper research, Susan has provided text that brings the old photographs to life. Wilmington Through the Lens of Louis T. Moore is a vehicle to the past, a time machine that invites the passenger back, again and again.