Events Calendar

Stop in at Prairie Lights between 2 and 4 p.m. on Saturday Dec. 7! Iowa City photographer Marybeth Slonneger will be here to sign copies of her latest two volumes of Iowa City photographs, What Was – What Remains: A Celebration of Iowa City’s Domestic Architecture (Parts One and Two). These compact paperback volumes are fascinating to look at and read through and will be a popular holiday gift for anyone with an appreciation for Iowa City!

What Was – What Remains (Parts One and Two) contain historic and contemporary photos of Iowa City architecture. The books include photos of over 500 homes, as well as some local history that give a glimpse of early Iowa City characters who inhabited those spaces. The books reflect Slonneger’s efforts to capture the original scale and appearance of the city, and show the expansion of residential areas since the 1840s.  

Marybeth Slonneger is longtime resident of Iowa City and author of numerous books focusing on Johnson County history, including Remembrance Park (2022), Finials: A View of Downtown Iowa City (2015), Wetherby’s Gallery: Paintings, Daguerreotypes and Ambrotypes of an Artist (2012), The Burg: A Writers’ Diner (2011), and Small But Ours: Images and Stories from a Nineteenth Century Bohemian Neighborhood (1999).

This will be a signing only (no presentation involved), so please stop in any time between 2 and 4 p.m.!