From the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America newspaper site, we selected an issue of the The Watauga Democrat that was published 99 years ago to see what was on the minds of North Carolinians in 1915. In addition to debates familiar to us now about “pistol-toters” and the best ways to avoid the common cold, there was also a debate concerning child labor laws.
From front page of The Watauga Democrat, January 28, 1915.
Millennial is currently a buzz word in the media. In an age where children are “born digital,” it is understandable that people are concerned about the social and psychological development of the next generation. But what were our thoughts on the rising generation a century ago? During this time, child labor was heavily debated. Laborers served a vital function in the newly forming companies and trades. Because of the need of workers, arguments such as “children are better fitted for some trades than adults” and “children are much better off employed in the factories than idle and out of school” were considered valid points for a growing economy. Take a closer look at the article here and discover more about the history of child labor laws in North Carolina.
It’s unclear whether Governor David S. Reid’s offer of a $300 reward resulted in the arrest of the three members of Johnson & Co’s People’s Circus charged with killing Milton Mathis. But perhaps the answer lies in a subsequent edition of William Woods Holden’s Semi-Weekly North-Carolina Standard. Consider this your invitation to search.
I’m happy to report that your search may have just gotten easier. The Standard and a host of other North Carolina newspaper titles are now available online and searchable via Chronicling America, a joint project by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities to make available online historic U.S. newspapers published from 1836 through 1922. The North Carolina Collection and its partner, the N.C. Office of Archives and History, received funding in 2012 to scan microfilm of titles from the Old North State and prepare them for publication on Chronicling America. It’s a slow process. But in the coming months you should gain online access to 100,000 pages from 21 North Carolina newspapers.
In the coming months you’ll find issues of The Independent of Elizabeth City; the New Bern Weekly Progress; the Rockingham Post-Dispatch; the Fisherman & Farmer of Edenton and Elizabeth City; The Review of High Point; The French Broad Hustler from Hendersonville; The Durham Daily Globe; The Semi-Weekly Messenger from Wilmington; The Sun from Fayetteville; the Journal of Freedom from Raleigh; The Gold Leaf from Henderson; The Weekly Caucasian from Clinton, Goldsboro and Raleigh; the Wilmington Journal; and the Cherokee Scout of Murphy.
The titles were chosen by an advisory board that included historians, librarians and even a representative from the N.C. Press Association. I know that you probably have your favorite newspaper that you’d like to see online. We have ours, too. And we hope to add more in the coming years. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, get reading and searching. You’ve got to solve the Mathis murder.
Like their Scot and sassenach ancestors almost 100 years ago, McCords, McGraws and McClellans will gather in the Port City in the coming week to mark the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns and celebrate all things Scots.
The Ploughman Poet, as Burns was known, was born in the Scottish lowland town of Alloway on January 25, 1759. Although the son of tenant farmers, Burns gained an education and, by all accounts, was an avid reader. He found the pen more enticing than the plough and, at 27, published his first collection of poems. Such works as To a Louse, To a Mouse and The Cotter’s Saturday Night garnered Burns fame and he moved to Edinburgh where he was celebrated in literary and social circles. Burns continued to write poetry while also enjoying plenty of drink and female companionship. He fathered several children out of wedlock.
From The works of Robert Burns: with an account of his life, and a criticism on his writing….Published in Philadelphia in 1804. A copy of the three-volume set is available in the North Carolina Collection’s Hayes Library.
Burns’s time as solely a poet was brief. He spent much of his earnings from published poetry over an 18-month period and, consequently, he was forced to take a job as a tax officer in the town of Dumfries. Though working, he continued to write poetry as well as songs. He also resumed his relationship with Jean Armour, a women with whom he had twins. Over time, however, Burns’s health declined and he died on July 21, 1796. He was 37. Burns was buried with military and civilian honors.
The tradition of Burns Night or the Burns Supper is believed to have started several years after the poet’s death. A group of his friends gathered on July 21 to celebrate his life. Over time fans of Burns’s poetry formed clubs and began holding celebratory meals on the date of his birth. These days the Burns supper often follows a prescribed order with “The Selkirk Grace,” penned by Burns, preceding the parade of the haggis, during which a bagpiper leads someone bearing the haggis to the table. The host of the supper then recites Burns’s “To a Haggis.”
Along with haggis, celebrants dine on neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). Wine or ale accompanies the meal. Whisky (to use the Scottish spelling) has often been used during the cooking of the haggis. After the meal participants listen to the “Immortal Memory,” a recitation of Burns’s biography and a toast to the poet. Then there is a toast to the lassies. More poems and songs may follow before the evening concludes with guests rising to join in singing Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne.”
The Burns supper had made its way to the United States by the mid-19th century. A New York City celebration of the 100th anniversary of Burns’s birth, in 1859. reportedly drew large numbers. It was held at the Astor House hotel and featured an oration by Henry Ward Beecher.
It is unclear when the first Burns supper took place in North Carolina. As Celeste Ray points out in Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South, celebrations of Burns’s birthday began as a lowland Scots tradition. Consequently they were likely, at least initially, an uncommon occurrence among the Scots-Irish (many originally from the Scottish highlands) who settled in North Carolina in the 18th and early 19th centuries. But, as the clipping from the Wilmington Morning Star suggests, by the early 20th century North Carolinians of Scottish descent had latched on to Burns’s birthday as a way to celebrate their heritage. The state was home to St. Andrews societies and, eventually, Burns societies. Donald F. MacDonald, a one-time Charlotte News reporter who played a crucial role in the founding of the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, helped form a Robert Burns Society in Charlotte in 1955. In fact the publicity surrounding that group and its Burns supper is said to have played a part in connecting MacDonald with Agnes MacRae Morton, the mother of Hugh Morton and another key figure in the founding of the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games.
These days Burns suppers take a variety of forms on this continent and back in Scotland. Ray writes of a Burns supper she attended at Old Salem that featured homemade haggis in a deer stomach. And the 2014 Big Burns Supper in Dumfries will feature three days of music and performances as well as the release of Hamish the Haggis
The U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC was about a year old when Cadet Ted Williams arrived in Chapel Hill in May 1943. The campus was the second stop in his year long effort to earn the wings of a Marine aviator. As Williams biographer Leigh Montville writes, Williams and his Boston Red Sox teammate Johnny Pesky had already spent several months at Amherst College in western Massachusetts in a civilian pilot training program, logging time in the classroom learning about navigation, radio code and aerology and in the cockpit mastering flight in Piper Cubs. Pesky described the duo’s time on the UNC campus as “like basic training.”
Up by the light of the moon, double-time all day, to bed with the owls….Drill till your tongue bulged. Sports, hikes, inspections. We played all games to test us for versatility—boxing, wrestling, swimming, soccer, and baseball. The object was to find if we had a nerve-cracking point. Some did.
Williams and Pesky also found time to crack the bat. They were among the members of the UNC Naval Pre-Flight program’s baseball team. In addition to Williams and Pesky, the 1943 lineup for the Cloudbusters, as they were known, included several other cadets with Major League experience. John Sain and Louis Gremp played for the Boston Braves and Joe Coleman pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics. The team also included officers who were Major League veterans. Lt. John “Buddy” Hassett had played first base for the New York Yankees. Ensign Joe Cusick was a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. And Lt. Pete Appleton had spent time on the mound for the St. Louis Browns.
The Cloudbusters competed against university teams, service teams and all-star teams from the minor leagues. In the “Ration League,” which included UNC, Duke and N.C. State, the team finished the 1943 season with a record of 3 wins and 6 losses. UNC took first place and Duke, second. But many of those games were played prior to the major leaguers’ arrival.
With Williams, Pesky and the other big league veterans, the Cloudbusters took on service teams at Camp Butner and at Norfolk. The team at the Norfolk Naval Training Station (there was also a team at the Norfolk Naval Air Station) included one-time Yankee shortstop Phil Rizutto, former Red Sox outfielder Dominic DiMaggio, and former Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Don Padgett. The Cloudbusters played the Naval Training Station team several times during spring and summer 1943. When the teams met at Emerson Field in Chapel Hill in July, the major league veterans posed for photographs for Cloudbuster, the UNC Naval Pre-Flight program’s weekly newspaper (back issues are now available online through the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center). Former Red Sox teammates Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams together in Chapel Hill in July 1943. Buddy Hassett (l) and Phil Rizzuto at Emerson Field.
Williams and Pesky took a break from Chapel Hill and the Cloudbusters on July 12 to join an all star team of former major league and college baseball players in a game against the Boston Braves at Fenway Park. The service all-star team was managed by Babe Ruth. Prior to the game, which the service all-stars won 9-8, Ruth, 48, took on Williams in a batting contest. Facing pitches from Braves bullpen thrower Red Barrett, Williams, dressed in a 1942 Red Sox traveling uniform, belted three balls into the right field stands. Ruth, however, showed his age and that his playing days were long behind. Newspaper accounts report that the Babe was unable to drive the ball off the playing field. Upon meeting Williams in the clubhouse, Ruth is reported to have said, “Hiya, kid. You remind me a lot of myself. I love to hit. You’re one of the most natural ballplayers I’ve ever seen. And if ever my record is broken, I hope you’re the one to do it.”
Williams and Ruth met again two weeks later at Yankee Stadium when the Cloudbusters were part of a charity event to benefit the War and Service Relief Fund of the Red Cross. A double-header on July 28 featured a match-up between all stars from the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. In the second game, the Cloudbusters took on a combined team of Indians and Yankees.
With strong pitching from Cadet Johnny Sain, the Cloudbusters prevailed over the combined Yankees-Indians team, or “Yanklands,” as the Cloudbuster named the team.
Back in Chapel Hill, Williams continued his academic studies. Courses included “Essentials of Naval Service,” “Nomenclature and Recognition,” “Celestial Navigation,” and advanced Aerology. When Williams wasn’t in the classroom or on the ball field, he showed promise as a boxer. As Pesky recalled (and as related in Montville’s biography of Williams), the pre-flight program’s boxing instructor, a former professional fighter, called Williams into the ring on one occasion and told the ball player to hit him.
Ted was just swinging at first….Then Ted started to get the hang of it. He fakes! And then he unloads. Pow! He hits the guy. Then he fakes again. Pow. He hits the guy again. When the thing was over, the instructor says, ‘Hey, how would you like to have me help you make a fast million bucks?’ Ted says,’How would you do that?’ ‘I’ll train you as a boxer.’ Ted says,’Oh no, not me.’ [The instructor] didn’t even know who Ted was.
Williams, Pesky and other members of the Cloudbusters shipped out to Naval Air Station Bunker Hill, near Peru, Indiana in September 1943. There the cadets were taught how to take off and land airplanes. From Bunker Hill, Williams headed off to Pensacola, Florida. And there, on May 2, 1944, Williams received his wings as a second lieutenant in the Marine air corp.
“….Students and townspeople, returning to work or classes after a late lunch, heard the news and flocked to radios, television sets and wire service tickers in town and on the campus. Preparations for the Beat Dook parade ground to a halt as the parade was canceled…. As the news spread over the campus and the town, traffic gradually slowed and shocked people didn’t want to comment on their feelings.”
“Campus Reacts in Shock as Tragic News Spreads,” The Daily Tar Heel, November 23, 1963.
“Three minutes after news of the President’s death was received, the bell in South Building began tolling, followed by knells from the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower. An ROTC Band ready for the Beat Dook parade walked at slow-time through the University campus, with horns muted in a funeral dirge. Then a combined Air Force and Naval ROTC unit held a retreat ceremony at the campus flagpole. Some 200 yards from where the President had spoken in Kenan Stadium on Oct. 12, 1861, a lone bugler blew ‘Taps,’ and from a hilltop overlooking the stadium another bugler echoed the mournful notes.”
“A Funeral Dirge & Mournful Taps,” The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 22, 1963.
“Full comprehension of President John F. Kennedy’s death came slowly in Chapel Hill. Hours after official confirmation of his death an air of disbelief hung about most of the Town, almost as if people were trying deliberately to avoid the full impact of the news. There were few public displays of open grief, none of anything like hysteria. But the affairs of the Town slowed perceptibly almost everywhere, in places halted totally. Activity that continued did so with numb roteness.
All along Franklin Street knots of people bunched around radios and television sets in stores. It was possible to pace completely through the business block and never be out of earshot of news of the President’s assassination. The Post Office flag was lowered to half-mast immediately on confirmation of the President’s death. Many of the crowd along the street had come to watch the Beat Dook parade, but news of the parade’s cancellation did not circulate completely right away. About a hundred expectant spectators sat on the wall along the south side of Franklin Street.
….In front of Electric Construction Company a crowd bulged along the sidewalk, watching a television set placed in the door. Trade, at times pretty desultory, continued at most stores. The banks opened their doors for regular Friday afternoon business, but customers had no trouble finding a vacant teller’s window.
At the corner of Graham and West Franklin Street Patrolman Parrish Womble waited for rush hour traffic that never did rush. The Graham Street area, usually a merry one on Friday afternoons, was noticeably slow.
….Graham Memorial was hushed except for television sets. Student government offices closes, all student functions were cancelled. A few students shed quiet tears, but remained watching television for hours after the news first came. The Bell Tower pealed ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ over the campus….
When the news came, many University classes were immediately dismissed.”
“Chapel Hill Mourns the Loss,” The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 24, 1963.
“When President Kennedy was assassinated, the report of his death was met with cheers by students in a Durham County schoolroom. A Chapel Hill grade school student’s reaction was, ‘I’m glad.’ Members of a fraternity at the University here frolicked at an out-of-doors beer bust which might not have been promoted in observance of the President’s death, but certainly was not at all sobered by the news. One coed, asked if she had heard, replied, ‘So what?’ A UNC instructor and his companion dining in Lenoir Hall were openly pleased. A formerly respected businessman said, ‘He … had it coming.’ This is what Chief Justice Earl Warren meant when he spoke of the hate and bitterness that has infected the blood of America… the outspoken hatred of supposedly mature and intelligent people is a festering sore on the face of America and it makes you wonder what in the name of God we are coming to….”
Editorial, The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 27, 1963.
Thanks to North Carolina Miscellany friend Lynn Roundtree for sharing these excerpts.
One day, I’ll look back fondly and tell my grandkids about the week I spent flooding the planet.
It began as a lark. For the past few months, I’ve been writing installments of a serialized science fiction novel about a world in which the oceans have risen nearly 80 meters and most of the human race now lives at sea. As the characters in my story ventured closer to shore, I realized I needed a simple way to visualize what that world would look like. I took to Google Earth and Inkscape—both free, readily available software packages—and simulated 80 meters of sea level rise. The results were stark, post-apocalyptic images of city skylines, submerged. Los Angeles was completely inundated south of the financial district. In D.C, only the Washington Monument rose above the encroaching Potomac. Telegraph Hill was an island in the expanded San Francisco Bay. North Carolina was a warm, shallow sea stretching from the Outer Banks to Rocky Mount. Florida was gone.
Raleigh with 105 meters of sea level riseRaleigh with 108 meters of sea level riseDuke University at 120 meters of sea level riseKenan Stadium with 135 meters of sea level riseThe Old Well with 150 meters of sea level riseCharlotte with 220 meters of sea level rise
The awarding of a Nobel Prize to Peter Higgs yesterday marked the recognition of a lifetime’s effort to understand how particles acquire mass. The English theoretical physicist is the namesake for the Higgs boson, known commonly as the “God particle,” the sub-atomic particle that gives mass to other particles. Higgs did some of his early work on proving the existence of the boson during time at the Bahnson Institute of Field Physics at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1965 to 1966. He was invited for the academic year to study gravitation. But, his former UNC colleagues say, Higgs used his time in Chapel Hill to perform some of the complex mathematical equations that suggested the existence of the boson that eventually bore his name. He compiled that research into a paper (a typed copy of which exists in the North Carolina Collection) published in Physical Review in May 1966.
Seen this one before? Probably not. I suspect this photo never made its way to print. The image of FDR on Roanoke Island is among prints and negatives in the Albertype Company Collection of the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive (NCCPA). We recently added a host of scans from the collection to our Digital NCCPA.
Albertype was a Brooklyn-based postcard and viewbook publishing company that operated from 1892 to 1950. During its six decades of operation, the company produced more than 25,000 prints. Albertype sent photographers throughout the country to capture people and places on film. In the early days the company relied on a relatively new technological innovation, the collotype or albertype, to photomechanically reproduce images.
Our Albertype Collection includes another image that was likely shot the same day.
The motorcade appears to include Roosevelt, Governor Clyde R. Hoey (backseat, middle) and, perhaps, Paul Green (backseat, right). Roosevelt’s visit to Roanoke Island included a viewing of The Lost Colony. Green’s outdoor drama included actors from the Federal Actors Project performing in a theater built by the Civilian Conservation Corps—two agencies created as a part of FDR’s New Deal. Roosevelt visited Roanoke Island on August 18, 1937— the 350th anniversary of Virginia Dare’s birth and a little more than a month after the July 4 premiere of Green’s drama. In addition to catching a performance of The Lost Colony, the President delivered an address.
The photographer of these images is unidentified. The quality of the photographs suggest that his/her work with the Albertype Company may have been short-lived.
Of course, Albertype didn’t have the only photographer on the scene. This lensman (or lenswoman) was better positioned (FYI: we’re doing some web cleanup and this link may eventually die).
With the much-hyped Jadeveon Clowney expected to doom UNC’s chances of beginning its football season with a win, we thought it important to remind readers that the overall record in the intrastate match-up puts UNC ahead with twice the number of wins as the other Carolina to the South. The series record is 34-17 with four ties.
Photographer Hugh Morton was on hand to record one of the occasions when the Tar Heels claimed a W. On November 18, 1950 UNC walked away from Carolina Stadium in Columbia with 14 points. The hometown team scored only 7. Morton’s photo features four Tar Heels taking down a Gamecock. Number 25 for the Tar Heels is Irv Holdash, who was a first team All-Southern Conference center in 1949 and 1950.
Despite the Tar Heel’s win in Columbia, the team finished with a 4-6 record for the season. Holdash, a senior in 1950, was drafted in the seventh round of the NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns.
Here’s hoping Mr. Morton’s photo works some good mojo on the Heels tonight.
And, lest you think we’re being too hard on the Palmetto State. One of their wags thinks we Tar Heels need a little educating.
This morning’s cool weather may have sparked some to wonder whether fall has arrived. Autumn is more than a month away, but fall sports—think football—is a mere two weeks away for UNC Tar Heel fans! May’s “Artifact of the Month” highlighted the contributions to the game by Carolina’s cheerleaders. This month we salute the members of UNC Cardboard, students who planned and executed card stunts during halftime at home football games. Norman Sper, a UNC cheerleader in the class of ’50, brought the tradition to Carolina in 1948 after admiring the card shows at UCLA. For a few decades in the mid to late twentieth century, students sitting in the lower deck on Kenan Stadium’s south side flipped colored cards to make designs and spell out words. By the early 1950s more than 2,000 students participated in the stunts, and UNC’s card section was believed to be the largest in the eastern United States.
Jacket courtesy of F. Marion Redd
This navy jacket was awarded for service to F. Marion Redd ’67, who led the club during the 1966-67 academic year. According to Redd, club leaders preplanned stunts on grid paper and hand stamped and placed all instruction cards underneath stadium seats the evening before the game
Stunt instruction card for UNC vs. Wake Forest, 1966. Other cards used colors rather than stunt names. Instruction card courtesy of F. Marion Redd.“Hi Deacs” stunt, 1966. Photograph courtesy of F. Marion Redd.
UNC Cardboard was an official student organization and was funded by the Carolina Athletic Association. It’s unclear when or why Cardboard stopped performing stunts. In the late 1960s there were several occasions when students hurled cards at the end of games, injuring other fans. These incidents left University administrators threatening to pull the plug on card stunts at football games. Perhaps one of our readers can offer more details on the demise of UNC Cardboard?
