Summertime Activities?

The NCC has a fabulous “staff picks” display up in our reading room, which everyone should come by and check out, if you have some free time. The staff of the NCC is asked to place different themed items in this exhibit, which is changed about every 3-4 months.

The current staff pick theme is “Summertime”!! Earlier this year, I cataloged an item which I thought would be perfect to add to the summertime themed staff picks display. Its content screamed summer and it even had important North Carolina content about where to enjoy these summer time activities! After taking another look at my chosen piece, I reconsidered publicly displaying it and decided that a blog post would be a better way to present this particular summer time activity: Skinny Dipping!

The nudist magazine, Free Beaches, published a 36-page article entitled “Guide to nude beaches of the United States” in June, 1978, which listed twelve spots in North Carolina that were nude friendly. Most places listed were secluded swimming holes where skinny dipping was known to happen. Although one nudist subdivision was also mentioned; a little online searching found that this subdivision does still exist and is described as a “clothing optional community”. The article states that “North Carolina has an active clothes-free population “ and that further information could be found by contacting an organization based in Chapel Hill!?

Gettin’ Kitschy in the Kitchen with Cheerwine Cake

If you’ve ever wondered what your trusted staff is up to when they aren’t on the reference desk, it looks a little like this:

Jason drinks a can of Cheerwine to supplement his “piece” of Cheerwine cake.

Andy Griffith looks on with jealousy as Harry samples the cake.

Not too long ago I had my first can of Cheerwine, and I was curious to find out more about this North Carolina soft drink.  It turns out that the Cheerwine website lists several recipes using their soda, including punch, cherry pie, barbecue sauce, and my personal favorite, the CheerDevil Cake, which Harry and Jason can be seen eating above.  I think I’ll have to make a batch of Cheerwine ice cream next.  To get to the recipes section of their website, first click on product, then recipes.

I won’t post the recipe here, but I will leave you with a great tip, suggested to me by none other than our very own Jason Tomberlin:  after the cake cools, poke holes in it using a spatula so that the icing can drip down into the cake.  Delicious!

When I’m not baking, I’m at the NCC working on the North Carolina Postcards project.  Below is a postcard from ca. 1916, showing the interior of the bottling facility at the Chero-Cola Company in Winston-Salem, NC.  Click on the image to view its record in the NCPC digital collection, where you can zoom-in.

Revisiting A Guide To The Old North State

For those of you that still read the newspaper, you may have noticed a story in this morning’s Raleigh News and Observer called “By the book: Introducing our summer series.” This summer the paper is going to examine North Carolina, a guide to the old north State…, which “was one of a series of WPA travel guides that sought to introduce Americans to their own country, recounting the history, geography, culture, economy and folklore of each state.” The summer feature is going to retrace “many of the routes in the book, exploring the state in search of good stories in the tradition of those Depression-era writers.”

Follow along with the series this summer; it may make you want to take a road trip.

Check out ‘Field Trip South’

The Southern Folklife Collection recently started a new blog called “Field Trip South: Exploring the Southern Folklife Collection.”  You can check it out here, and be sure to visit often!   They’ll be posting information about their events and concerts as well as sharing samples of their vast AV collection on old-time, country-western, hillbilly, bluegrass, blues, gospel, Cajun and zydeco musics and musicians.  In addition to recordings, they have lots of other related ephemera, including photographs, fliers, posters, etc.

Many other special collections located here in Wilson Library also maintain blogs, including the one you’re reading right now!  We’ve got links to all these on our blogroll at the right, but I thought I’d list them here as well.

Southern Sources: Exploring the Southern Historical Collection

A View to Hugh: Processing the Hugh Morton Photographs and Films

Read North Carolina Novels

Those Other Schools

One thing that you have probably guessed by now is that NC Miscellany is headquartered in the North Carolina Collection, which is at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our job is to collect things about????…..you guessed it, North Carolina. We do that, and I think we do it well. We collect a lot of material on the state’s institutions of higher learning. Since we are on UNC’s campus and a department of the University Library, we have tons and tons of material related to UNC. However, we also have lots of “stuff” (that’s a very technical term, isn’t it?) on colleges and universities in North Carolina. I can think of no better way to illustrate this than to show a few examples of material we have on d-d-d-d, do-do-do…oh well, my Tar Heel bias won’t even let me say or type the word. Let’s just call it that school in Durham that used to be known as Trinity College. The images below are from our [That school down 15-501 from the Southern Part of Heaven] ephemera collection: [Announcements, bulletins, programs, etc.]

Invitation to the Commencement Exercises for the Class of 1891, Trinity College

Football program from the Duke vs. UNC game, November 21, 1931

Football program from the Duke vs. Oregon State Rose Bowl game, January 1, 1942

A Pause That Failed To Refresh

The expression “It’s a long time between drinks,” coined during a meeting between the governors of North Carolina and South Carolina, became so widely known it was quoted by both Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson.

During Reconstruction, Gen. Dan Sickles refused to allow an adjournment that would have delayed the states’ formal acceptance of new voter registration laws. James Orr then remarked to Jonathan Worth, “The governor of South Carolina feels constrained to say to the governor of North Carolina that in these military cabinet counsels there is a mighty long time between drinks.”

Game Wardens Weren’t Welcomed

In 1903 the General Assembly  empowered the Audubon Society to enforce the state’s game laws. By 1909 the society’s administration of the laws  — as well as the laws themselves  — had led more than half the counties to opt out. Resistance to hunting and fishing restrictions of any kind remained strong, and it  was 1926 before the legislature established the State Game Commission.

North Carolina Architects & Builders

We’d like to point out a wonderful new resource developed by our colleagues at North Carolina State University: North Carolina Architects & Builders. The site is a biographical dictionary that highlights architects and builders who have produced North Carolina’s architecture over the last 300 years.

Take a look at it—you may notice some of the NC Collection’s postcards used as illustrations, like this one of the Oneida Mills in Graham, NC. Clicking on the image below will link you out to the item’s record in the NC Architects & Builders digital collection, so be sure to check it out.