New in the collection: Greensboro wooden nickels

Four wooden nickels with images of John Motley Morehead, O'Henry, General Nathaniel Greene, and Captain John Sloan.

Verso of wooden nickels with words Greensboro Sesquicentennial.

“Fifty years ago this month, the city’s 150th anniversary celebration featured a little bit of everything, including lots of trouble and a funny name.

“‘Even the kids know how to pronounce sesquicentennial,’ one editorial writer quipped. ‘(But) not one in a thousand can tell you what it means.’

“Over 10 days in May, sesquicentennial meant things like a nightly outdoor pageant complete with a cast of 1,250; simulated atomic bomb blasts; a dog that walked a 15-block parade on its hind legs; merchants handing out wooden nickels [with Nathanael Greene‘s name misspelled]; a marching band playing ‘Dixie;’ and pie-eating, beard-growing and husband-calling contests.

“Organizers even ‘prohibited’ women from wearing makeup and jewelry in public unless they bought certificates that allowed them to.

“‘It was like Mayberry,’ said Gayle Fripp, the Guilford County historian. ‘Andy Griffith could have been there.’

“But the headline turned out to be the weather. Because of heavy rains and sparse crowds, the celebration wound up mired in red ink and mud to match….”

— From “’58 festivity a washout” by Donald W. Patterson in the Greensboro News & Record (May 17, 2008)

By the time the city’s bicentennial celebration rolled around, the agenda reflected enormous civic and cultural upheaval. “Dixie” had disappeared from the playlist, for instance, and if wooden nickels had been issued they probably wouldn’t have been limited to dead white men.

New in the collection: Dixie Fire Insurance blotter

Dixie Fire Insurance, chartered in 1906, is long lost into a series of industry mergers, but its handsome headquarters — at five stories, once Guilford County’s tallest skyscraper — remains as the nominally truncated Dixie Building.

Now that Winston-Salem has renamed the Dixie Classic Fair the Carolina Classic Fair and Winn-Dixie has beaten a retreat from the state, the Dixie Building may be the Triad’s most prominent bearer of the increasingly-contentious name.

Also from Dixie Fire Insurance’s store of desk accessories: this eye-catching mirror/paperweight from World War I.

New in the collection: FCX pinback

Pinback with words "FCX Farm and Garden, 50th Anniversary, 1934-1984"

“FCX Inc., then known as Farmers Cooperative Exchange, opened its first outlet in Burlington in 1934. Seven more stores quickly followed… during the Great Depression.

“In the 50 years since then FCX has grown into an operation with 95 centers and gross sales of about $500 million a year. In 1984, it ranks as the No. 1 farm supplier in North and South Carolina.”

— From “FCX Marks 50 Years of Self-Help Success” by Eugene S. Knight in Carolina Country (March 1984)

Alas, by this time the declining farm economy had already pushed FCX to the brink of bankruptcy, and in 1986 it accepted a buyout offer from Richmond-based Southern States Cooperative.

New in the collection: Charlotte Speedway pinback

Blue pinback with words "World 600. I'll be there!"

A 600-mile stock-car race? How come? Because Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner, owners of the brand-new Charlotte Motor Speedway, wanted to one-up the famed Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day 1960.

Undercutting their ploy, construction problems delayed the track’s opening by three weeks –and even then the rough, uncured surface caused a memorable mess. Six drivers – Richard Petty, Lee Petty and Junior Johnson among them — were disqualified for cutting through the grass for pit stops to replace blown tires.

By 1981 Charlotte Motor Speedway had put its ragged debut behind it, and World 600 drivers could confidently promise, “I’ll Be There!”

New in the collection: campaign emery boards

Two emery boards. One has sentence "Keep Mizell Your Congressman." The other has wording that reads "W. Kerr Scott will work for you as your U.S. Senator" and includes a small icon for a union.

I had called these humble political giveaways fingernail files, but more specifically — according to an expert — they are emery boards.

That distinction likely made scant difference to candidates such as W. Kerr Scott and Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell.

Mizell’s emery board would be from one or more of his 1970, 1972 or 1974 reelection campaigns. Scott’s, from his successful 1954 campaign for U.S. Senate, is notable for its union bug, given the state’s often chilly attitudes toward organized labor.

New in the collection: socklet garter ad

Package for socklet garter featuring image of young girl holding doll.

I’ll admit it — I was startled to see that the Gem-Dandy Garter Co. advertised on this 2- by 4-inch card is still operating, though with a modernized name and product line.

Here’s how Gem-Dandy Accessories, headquartered in the Rockingham County town of Madison, traces its path into the 20th century:

“The Penn Family started Gem-Dandy in 1921 as a successor to the Penn Suspender Co.  Green Penn, the first company president, invented and patented the GEMCO Adjustable Garter — the world’s first fully adjustable garter for men, women and children….

“Gem-Dandy entered the belt business during World War II. The Danbury name was registered as a brand name in the 1970s and sales expanded across the country into thousands of men’s specialty shops.

“Today, Gem-Dandy distributes a wide variety of belts, wallets, suspenders and other accessories in dress, casual, work wear and western styles. We are the proud licensor of several popular brands such as Greg Norman®, Pebble Beach® , John Deere®, Berne Workwear®, Roper®, REALTREE® and Colours by Alexander Julian®. We also have our own proprietary brands including Danbury Golf, Danbury Workwear, Lady Danbury, G-Bar-D Western Outfitters and Cowgirls Rock. Our products can be found in major department stores as well as smaller venues.”

New in the collection: Little Rebel pickle label

Rectangle label with the words Little Rebel and an image of a soldier in a blue uniform.

Mount Olive Pickle Co. captions a Little Rebel label as “circa 1940,” which makes me wonder whether the concept sprang from the 1935 movie “The Littlest Rebel.”  (Quite a plot! “Shirley Temple’s father, a rebel officer, sneaks back to his rundown plantation to see his family and is arrested…. Shirley and ‘Bojangles’ Robinson beg President Lincoln to intercede.”)

Regardless, Mount Olive updated its labels in 1953 and again in 1967, gradually eliminating its distinctive brands such as Little Rebel, Carolina Beauty and Mopico.

And here’s a colorful label from Mount Olive’s onetime rival Chas. F. Cates & Sons of Faison.

New in the collection: Meck Dec medal

Gold-colored, heart-shaped metal with the words Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, Charlotte, N.C. and an image of a night cap

While Charlotteans were celebrating (in their nightcaps?) the 131st anniversary of the Meck Dec — and commemorating it with this brass badge — big trouble was on the way.

“Despite North Carolina’s efforts,” Ronnie W. Faulkner writes in NCpedia, “a number of scholars outside the state maintained that the Mecklenburg document was a fraud. The ultimate scholarly blow came in 1907 with the publication of William Henry Hoyt‘s The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence: A Study of Evidence Showing That the Alleged Declaration of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20th, 1775, Is Spurious.

“Using the latest methods of scientific history and internal criticism, Hoyt maintained that the evidence was overwhelming that the reconstructed declaration was a misconstruction of the Mecklenburg Resolves of 31 May 1775, which contemporary newspapers proved had been written. Most North Carolinians ignored Hoyt’s work, but not Samuel A. Ashe, editor, historian, and descendant of one of the state’s most prominent families. The first volume of Ashe’s History of North Carolina (1908) presented both sides of the issue but ultimately agreed with the naysayers.

“A bitter fight broke out in the North Carolina General Assembly over a bill authorizing the purchase of Ashe’s book for the public schools. House Speaker Augustus W. Graham, the son of a governor and descendant of a ‘signer’ of the Mecklenburg Declaration, took the floor and defeated the authorization bill. Opponents of the measure, appealing to patriotism, noted that the date of 20 May was enshrined on the state flag and seal….”

New in the collection: tonsillectomy solicitation

Card and letter about tonsillectomy

“Public health officials around a century ago decided that tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy surgery was a fine measure to improve the welfare of American children. The reasoning was that tonsils were a gateway to infection….

“The tonsil push in North Carolina started in earnest in 1917 when George Cooper was appointed director of the State Board of Health’s Bureau of Medical Inspection.

“The Sylva Herald [as turned up by local researcher Nancy Sherrill Wilson] included accounts of 84 children having their tonsils removed in 1944, 50 more in 1945 and a 1947 article recounting that ‘Children who attended the clinics were operated on in the morning and remained overnight, sleeping in the gymnasium of the school on cots, under the care of a night nurse.’

“Debates over the effectiveness of tonsillectomies, reason for conducting them and other approaches saw the practice decline going into the 1950s after peaking at around 1.5 million procedures a year [nationally]. Today tonsillectomies are often used to treat sleep apnea….”

— From “A public health strategy and a forgotten public panic” by Jim Buchanan in the Sylva Herald and Ruralite (Oct. 20, 2021)

Remarkable, isn’t it, that such a once-widespread procedure has virtually disappeared? One Red Springs physician estimated he had performed 17,000 tonsillectomies over his 35-year career.

This letter and card from the State Board of Health were sent to parents in Stokes County in the 1920s.

New in the collection: campaign thimble

Thimble with words Sew Right for North Carolina Governor Charles W. JohnsonAdvertising thimbles are almost always twentieth-century American in origin. Generally, they were made of plastic or aluminum and mass produced and inexpensive. Used to support products that appealed to homemakers, these promotional thimbles were stamped or embossed with a business name or logo. What better way to get your business in front of your target audience than have her wear it on her fingertip?

— From “Timeless Tools: Thimbles” by Dawn Cook Ronningen at PieceWork (Aug. 17, 2020)

“Sew right for North Carolina” wasn’t enough to put Charles M. Johnson over the top in his 1948 gubernatorial primary against Kerr Scott,  but Dan K. Moore gave it another shot in 1964 — and he won.