A Belated Happy 100th to JFK

We’re a day late in marking the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s birth. But, on the principle of better late than never (that’s always been my view on gift giving and receipt), North Carolina Miscellany and its sister blog A View to Hugh share with you images of the 35th President. Many of the […]

We’re a day late in marking the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s birth. But, on the principle of better late than never (that’s always been my view on gift giving and receipt), North Carolina Miscellany and its sister blog A View to Hugh share with you images of the 35th President.

Many of the North Carolina Collection’s images of Kennedy are found in the Hugh Morton Collection. Morton, less than four years younger than JFK, photographed Kennedy on several occasions. The photo above features Kennedy, at the time a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, addressing the North Carolina Caucus at the 1956 Democratic National Convention.

In 1961, as President, Kennedy visited Chapel Hill and spoke at UNC’s University Day celebration in Kenan Stadium. Morton was among the photographers who snapped photographs that day.

The North Carolina Collection’s photographic archivist, Stephen Fletcher, has shared the stories behind some of Morton’s photographs of Kennedy on A View to Hugh.

The North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives includes the works of other photographers who captured Kennedy on film. Burlington Times-News staff photographer Edward J. McCauley covered a Kennedy campaign appearance in Greensboro in 1960. The future president appeared with Terry Sanford (to his left and campaigning for Governor), Governor Luther H. Hodges and Senator Sam J. Ervin.

Photographs of Kennedy and his 1960 Presidential campaign opponent Richard Nixon helped the Charlotte Observer‘s Don Sturkey win recognition as National Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1961. In the photo below Kennedy is joined by U.S. Congressman Herbert C. Bonner and Sanford on a campaign stop at East Carolina University in Greenville.

Copyright is held by Don Sturkey. All use requires permission of Don Sturkey.

Word has it that our collections may include images of Kennedy captured by different photographers at the same event. One photographer may have even included another photographer in his shot. That’s for you to verify. Happy hunting!

A Belated Happy 100th to JFK

We’re a day late in marking the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s birth. But, on the principle of better late than never (that’s always been my view on gift giving and receipt), North Carolina Miscellany and its sister blog A View to Hugh share with you images of the 35th President. Many of the […]

We’re a day late in marking the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s birth. But, on the principle of better late than never (that’s always been my view on gift giving and receipt), North Carolina Miscellany and its sister blog A View to Hugh share with you images of the 35th President.

Many of the North Carolina Collection’s images of Kennedy are found in the Hugh Morton Collection. Morton, less than four years younger than JFK, photographed Kennedy on several occasions. The photo above features Kennedy, at the time a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, addressing the North Carolina Caucus at the 1956 Democratic National Convention.

In 1961, as President, Kennedy visited Chapel Hill and spoke at UNC’s University Day celebration in Kenan Stadium. Morton was among the photographers who snapped photographs that day.

The North Carolina Collection’s photographic archivist, Stephen Fletcher, has shared the stories behind some of Morton’s photographs of Kennedy on A View to Hugh.

The North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives includes the works of other photographers who captured Kennedy on film. Burlington Times-News staff photographer Edward J. McCauley covered a Kennedy campaign appearance in Greensboro in 1960. The future president appeared with Terry Sanford (to his left and campaigning for Governor), Governor Luther H. Hodges and Senator Sam J. Ervin.

Photographs of Kennedy and his 1960 Presidential campaign opponent Richard Nixon helped the Charlotte Observer‘s Don Sturkey win recognition as National Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1961. In the photo below Kennedy is joined by U.S. Congressman Herbert C. Bonner and Sanford on a campaign stop at East Carolina University in Greenville.

Copyright is held by Don Sturkey. All use requires permission of Don Sturkey.

Word has it that our collections may include images of Kennedy captured by different photographers at the same event. One photographer may have even included another photographer in his shot. That’s for you to verify. Happy hunting!

Student Protests over Time in NC Student Publications

Today over on the DigitalNC blog we’re sharing 10 examples of North Carolina student protests, beginning with the historic Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in on this date in 1960 and continuing up to 2012. The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is located in Wilson Library and works closely with the North Carolina Collection. We’ll occasionally be cross-blogging some […]

Today over on the DigitalNC blog we’re sharing 10 examples of North Carolina student protests, beginning with the historic Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in on this date in 1960 and continuing up to 2012.

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is located in Wilson Library and works closely with the North Carolina Collection. We’ll occasionally be cross-blogging some posts that North Carolina Miscellany readers may find interesting.

“As Close to Magic as I’ve Ever Been”: Thomas Wolfe at Chapel Hill

One hundred years ago today the tall, rather awkward, not quite yet sixteen-year-old Thomas Clayton Wolfe boarded an early morning train in Asheville bound for Durham. There he was met by his brother-in-law who drove him the twelve miles over to Chapel Hill to enroll at the University of North Carolina. Wolfe had longed to […]

Image of Thomas Wolfe smoking a pipe. The photo reportedly shows him during his senior year at UNC.

Thomas Wolfe during his senior year.

One hundred years ago today the tall, rather awkward, not quite yet sixteen-year-old Thomas Clayton Wolfe boarded an early morning train in Asheville bound for Durham. There he was met by his brother-in-law who drove him the twelve miles over to Chapel Hill to enroll at the University of North Carolina. Wolfe had longed to attend the University of Virginia. But his father had insisted he go to Chapel Hill, foreseeing a possible legal career and future in politics for his youngest child. Once at Chapel Hill, however, Tom quickly dove into both coursework and campus activities with a passion and focus that quickly made him among the most prominent and popular students on campus.

Upon arrival in Chapel Hill, Tom signed up for room and board at the three-story rooming house of Mrs. Mattie Eva Hardee, a widow originally from Asheville–$15 a month for board and $7.50 for a student’s half of a room. Writing to his brother-in-law a few days later, he declared the food “splendid” but the room rent “exorbitant.” His professors were “all fine fellows” for whom he hoped to “do well in all my studies and my guess is that I’ll have to ‘bone’ up on math.”

During the next four years, Wolfe would do well in his studies—as a junior winning the prize in philosophy for best student thesis and earning multiple A’s that same year from favorite professors Edwin Greenlaw in English, Frederick Koch in dramatic literature, and Horace Williams in philosophy. His achievements in student publications and as a leader of campus organizations were equally outstanding—assistant editor, then managing editor, and finally editor-in-chief of the Tar Heel student newspaper; assistant editor, then assistant editor-in-chief of the University Magazine; associate editor of the Yackety Yack yearbook; member of student council; author of and sometimes actor in plays performed by the campus Carolina Playmakers campus theater company; and class poet.

After graduating from UNC in 1920, Wolfe studied playwriting at Harvard, then moved to New York where he initially did some teaching at New York University. But soon he turned his legendary intellectual energy and passion to fiction writing. In 1929 his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, was published, winning wide praise among literary critics and creating a sensation because of the thinly-veiled autobiographical nature of the book. The life and experiences of the book’s protagonist, Eugene Gant, are often unmistakably similar to those of Thomas Wolfe. In Look Homeward, Angel, however, young Gant attends the state university at Pulpit Hill, not Chapel Hill. But the sense of adventure, excitement, and intellectual stimulation he experienced there as described in Look Homeward, Angel, echo loudly the fond memories of Thomas Wolfe for a place and time he would later describe as being “as close to magic as I’ve ever been.”

“As Close to Magic as I’ve Ever Been”: Thomas Wolfe at Chapel Hill

One hundred years ago today the tall, rather awkward, not quite yet sixteen-year-old Thomas Clayton Wolfe boarded an early morning train in Asheville bound for Durham. There he was met by his brother-in-law who drove him the twelve miles over to Chapel Hill to enroll at the University of North Carolina. Wolfe had longed to […]

Image of Thomas Wolfe smoking a pipe. The photo reportedly shows him during his senior year at UNC.

Thomas Wolfe during his senior year.

One hundred years ago today the tall, rather awkward, not quite yet sixteen-year-old Thomas Clayton Wolfe boarded an early morning train in Asheville bound for Durham. There he was met by his brother-in-law who drove him the twelve miles over to Chapel Hill to enroll at the University of North Carolina. Wolfe had longed to attend the University of Virginia. But his father had insisted he go to Chapel Hill, foreseeing a possible legal career and future in politics for his youngest child. Once at Chapel Hill, however, Tom quickly dove into both coursework and campus activities with a passion and focus that quickly made him among the most prominent and popular students on campus.

Upon arrival in Chapel Hill, Tom signed up for room and board at the three-story rooming house of Mrs. Mattie Eva Hardee, a widow originally from Asheville–$15 a month for board and $7.50 for a student’s half of a room. Writing to his brother-in-law a few days later, he declared the food “splendid” but the room rent “exorbitant.” His professors were “all fine fellows” for whom he hoped to “do well in all my studies and my guess is that I’ll have to ‘bone’ up on math.”

During the next four years, Wolfe would do well in his studies—as a junior winning the prize in philosophy for best student thesis and earning multiple A’s that same year from favorite professors Edwin Greenlaw in English, Frederick Koch in dramatic literature, and Horace Williams in philosophy. His achievements in student publications and as a leader of campus organizations were equally outstanding—assistant editor, then managing editor, and finally editor-in-chief of the Tar Heel student newspaper; assistant editor, then assistant editor-in-chief of the University Magazine; associate editor of the Yackety Yack yearbook; member of student council; author of and sometimes actor in plays performed by the campus Carolina Playmakers campus theater company; and class poet.

After graduating from UNC in 1920, Wolfe studied playwriting at Harvard, then moved to New York where he initially did some teaching at New York University. But soon he turned his legendary intellectual energy and passion to fiction writing. In 1929 his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, was published, winning wide praise among literary critics and creating a sensation because of the thinly-veiled autobiographical nature of the book. The life and experiences of the book’s protagonist, Eugene Gant, are often unmistakably similar to those of Thomas Wolfe. In Look Homeward, Angel, however, young Gant attends the state university at Pulpit Hill, not Chapel Hill. But the sense of adventure, excitement, and intellectual stimulation he experienced there as described in Look Homeward, Angel, echo loudly the fond memories of Thomas Wolfe for a place and time he would later describe as being “as close to magic as I’ve ever been.”

Thanks for the cards, Mr. Barbour

Among the jewels of the North Carolina Collection are more than 15,000 postcards. And we have one man to thank for about 8,000 of those items—Durwood Barbour. For 25 years, Barbour combed through boxes at coin and postcard shows looking for images that told stories of bygone people, places and doings in his native state. […]

Among the jewels of the North Carolina Collection are more than 15,000 postcards. And we have one man to thank for about 8,000 of those items—Durwood Barbour. For 25 years, Barbour combed through boxes at coin and postcard shows looking for images that told stories of bygone people, places and doings in his native state. His collection, housed mostly in shoeboxes, grew so large and valuable that he worried about keeping it at his home in Raleigh. In 2006, he generously donated it to the North Carolina Collection. We learned on Sunday that Barbour died on March 2. He was 87.

Barbour was born in the Barbourtown section of Johnston County, an area near Four Oaks. His parents were farmers and he grew up helping in the fields. In 1948 Barbour enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill. He was the first in his immediate family to attend college and he told an interviewer in 2010 that he earned the money for tuition by raising sweet potatoes. Barbour graduated from UNC-CH in 1952 with a degree in geology, and, shortly thereafter, he began work as an asphalt engineer for the state highway department, where he remained for many years. Barbour made his home in Raleigh with his wife and two sons. Later in life, Barbour sold real estate. He was an active member of two Raleigh Methodist churches, including Edenton Street United Methodist, where his memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday. Barbour was also a local historian, working with Todd Johnson, executive director of the Johnston County Heritage Center, to produce a book of images of his native county in 1997.

Barbour’s interest in postcards grew from his hobby of collecting coins and paper money. His wife, Mary Anne, recalled in 2010 that there were frequently a few boxes of postcards at numismatic shows. As her husband perused tables with coins and paper money, she looked at the postcards. Eventually Barbour, too, turned his interest to postcards. And we’re thankful he did.

As a tribute to Durwood Barbour, here are a few postcards of places or activities that represent significant parts of his life. All of Barbour’s postcards—and a few thousand more—are available via North Carolina Postcards.

Barbour's Grove in Four Oaks, NC

Though his relationship to K.F. Barbour is unclear, Durwood Barbour was born near Four Oaks in 1929.

Main Street of Four Oaks

The town of Four Oaks in the early 20th century.

New East at UNC Chapel Hill

New East at UNC-Chapel Hill served as the longtime home for the university’s geology department. Durwood Barbour graduated from UNC in 1952 with a degree in geology.

Postcard of early Mule Days parade

Benson’s Mule Days, which takes place the fourth weekend in September, has celebrated Johnston County’s agricultural heritage since 1950.

Road paving

Durwood Barbour began work for North Carolina’s highway department as an asphalt engineer shortly after earning his undergraduate degree.

Postcard of Edenton Street United Methodist Church

Durwood Barbour was an active member of Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh.

University of North Carolina Tuition – $60

    When classes officially began on Tuesday, many in-state undergraduate wallets were $8,374 lighter after paying tuition and fees. Over the past four years, tuition has increased about $2000. However, a century ago, the cost of attending UNC held steady for 38 years. Between 1886 and 1924, tuition was only $60 for in-state students. […]

 

Fisherman & Farmer

Fisherman & farmer. (Edenton, N.C.), 04 Oct. 1900. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

 

When classes officially began on Tuesday, many in-state undergraduate wallets were $8,374 lighter after paying tuition and fees. Over the past four years, tuition has increased about $2000. However, a century ago, the cost of attending UNC held steady for 38 years. Between 1886 and 1924, tuition was only $60 for in-state students. The advertisements from a 1900 issue of the Fisherman & Farmer and an 1887 issue of The Progressive Farmer provide information about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including tuition and available curriculum.

Using an inflation calculator to adjust prices according to the historical Consumer Price Index data, a tuition payment in 1900 of $60.00 would be around $1,654 in today’s currency. The second advertisement lists room and board in 1887 at $5.00, which would be around $138.00 for a modern semester. In addition to this, education demand has gone considerably up as teaching faculty increased from 38 in 1900 to 3,696 active faculty in 2013. The newspaper images were obtained from Chronicling America.

 

The Progressive Farmer

The progressive farmer. (Winston, N.C.), 30 June 1887. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

 

 

 

100 Years since UNC’s first female med student

The Class of 2018 began its studies at the UNC School of Medicine earlier this month. The class of 180 doctors-to-be is 48 percent female. That’s a far cry from 100 years ago, when Cora Corpening became UNC-CH’s first female med student. According to Gladys Hall Coates’ Seventy-fifth anniversary of the coming of women to […]

Cora Corpening with Second Year Medical Class, 1916 Yackety Yack

Cora Corpening with Second Year Medical Class, 1916 Yackety Yack

The Class of 2018 began its studies at the UNC School of Medicine earlier this month. The class of 180 doctors-to-be is 48 percent female. That’s a far cry from 100 years ago, when Cora Corpening became UNC-CH’s first female med student. According to Gladys Hall Coates’ Seventy-fifth anniversary of the coming of women to the University of North Carolina, the student body voted against admitting her to the school. But Corpening attended classes anyway. And after about a month, she was formally admitted. According to a profile of the Corpening family in the July 17, 1940 edition of The Robesonian, Corpening finished the two-year program at UNC in  spring of 1916 and then completed her medical studies at Tulane University, where she was one of the top students.  “After completing her medical course, she located at Suffolk, Va. and did the work formerly done by eight physicians during World war times,” The Robesonian reported. After serving at Lakeview Hospital in Suffolk, Corpening moved to Virginia Beach, where she worked in private practice. She died in 1984.

The Tar Heel, October 1, 1914

The Tar Heel, October 1, 1914

Chapel Hill: a place of magic for Thomas Wolfe and his fans

Now about the editor’s note and the ‘small southern college’—if you see anyone who has also read the note, for God’s sake make plain what I think you understand already—that I had nothing to do with it and didn’t see it until it was published. I do not deny that I may be capable of […]

Now about the editor’s note and the ‘small southern college’—if you see anyone who has also read the note, for God’s sake make plain what I think you understand already—that I had nothing to do with it and didn’t see it until it was published. I do not deny that I may be capable of several small offenses—such as murder, arson, highway robbery, and so on—but I do deny that I have that sort of snob-ism in me. Whoever wrote the note probably put in ‘small southern college’ because he did not remember where I did go, or because, for certain reasons connected with the book, he thought it advisable not to be too explicit.

And after all, Ben, back in the days when you and I were beardless striplings—’forty or fifty years ago,’ as Eddie Greenlaw used to say—the Hill was (praise God!) ‘a small southern college.’ I think we had almost 1000 students our Freshman year, and were beginning to groan about our size. So far from forgetting the blessed place, I think my picture of it grows clearer every year: it was as close to magic as I’ve ever been, and now I’m afraid to go back and see how it is changed. I haven’t been back since our class graduated. Great God! how time has flown, but I am going back within a year (if they’ll let me).

–Thomas Wolfe in a letter to UNC classmate Benjamin Cone, July 29, 1929. Look Homeward, Angel, which features the college town Pulpit Hill, was published in October of the same year.

Chapel Hill will serve as the gathering place for Wolfe scholars and fans on May 23-24 as they assemble for the annual meeting of the Thomas Wolfe Society. This year’s conference, themed “Wolfe in His Time, Wolfe in Our Time,” will include a reading by Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina’s poet laureate, in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room in the Wilson Special Collections Library at 7:30 pm on May 23. Bathanti’s appearance is free and open to the general public. Other conference programs require advance registration and include talks by Wolfe scholars and enthusiasts. For more information, call 919-962-1172.

Is that a wedding bell in Charles Baskerville’s Circus Backlot?

North Carolina Miscellany‘s Charlotte bureau, a.k.a. a certain Mr. Powell, recently came across a post on the Circus Historical Society’s message board seeking information about circuses operating in North Carolina in 1942. The individual who posted the message is trying to determine the circus featured in the Charles Baskeville painting titled Circus Backlot and pictured […]

circus_backlot
North Carolina Miscellany‘s Charlotte bureau, a.k.a. a certain Mr. Powell, recently came across a post on the Circus Historical Society’s message board seeking information about circuses operating in North Carolina in 1942. The individual who posted the message is trying to determine the circus featured in the Charles Baskeville painting titled Circus Backlot and pictured above. The words June 1942 are written on the rear of the canvas. The post also suggests that North Carolina is included in the title.

A little digging in the vast stacks of the North Carolina Collection and lots of searching on the Web may have yielded an answer. But we’re hoping that readers of North Carolina Miscellany can confirm our theory. And, if nothing else, we’re happy to share with you the story of a once renowned artist with North Carolina roots.

Charles Baskerville Jr. rose to prominence in the 1930s as a portraitist and muralist for the rich and powerful. Those who sat for his portraits included Jawaharlal Nehru, the King of Nepal, Bernard Baruch, William S. Paley, Helen Hayes, the Duchess of Windsor and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. His murals decorated the main lounge and ballroom of the ocean liner S.S. America, the bathrooms of New York’s “21,” the Wall Street Club and the homes of such wealthy and famous individuals as boxer Gene Tunney and New York Mets founder Joan Whitney Payson.

Through his work Baskerville, who was born in Raleigh in 1896 and the son of a UNC chemistry professor, became a darling of the wealthy and hobnobbed with high society. His friends included New York socialite Brooke Astor and John Ringling North, who inherited Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus from his uncles in the 1930s. Baskerville’s friendship with North brought him entree into the world of circus performers and backlots. And he began to travel with the circus, creating backdrops for acts, sketching performers and producing paintings of the animals. During the 1950s, Baskerville produced several covers for Ringling Brothers programs. The 1952 cover features a shapely tiger handler and her charge. And, as Ernest J. Albrecht notes in A Ringling by Any Other Name: The Story of John Ringling North and His Circus a Baskerville painting hung for many years in Jomar, North’s private railway car on the circus train.

So, could it be the Ringling Bros. circus in the Baskerville painting above?

The Ringling Bros. Route Book for 1942 suggests that the circus visited 26 states. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t provide of list of them. The route book does record the cities and towns where Ringling Bros. had stands of two days or longer and no place in North Carolina is included. But it’s also possible that North Carolina was the site of a one-day stand. There were 68 of those in 1942.

The route book also lists the acts or displays that the circus included in 1942. Display 14 reads, “Bridal Bells Ring Out in Clownland. A Mighty and Merry Travesty in Which Pomp and Panoply Have Their Roles-and Rolls.” Then it notes, “The Wedding of Gargantua and Toto.” Is that a wedding bell in the middle of the painting?

As for the wedding….Gargantua and Toto were gorillas. Following the hype that resulted from the release of the film King Kong in 1933, North bought a gorilla for the circus in 1937. Although originally named Buddy, the gorilla was renamed Gargantua by Ringling Bros.’ press department in an effort to make him fit his billing as “the world’s most terrifying living creature.” Indeed, the gorilla could be menacing. His upper lip was curled in a permanent sneer, the result of scarring that occurred when a drunken sailor threw acid at him when he was being transported from Africa as a young animal. Gargantua also occasionally displayed aggressive behavior. He is said to have bitten several who ventured too close, including North in February 1939. Nevertheless, North turned to the animal to give the floundering circus a boost in attendance.

In 1940, hoping to keep alive excitement about Gargantua, North bought Toto, a female gorilla, to serve as the male’s mate. Although the two animals never produced offspring (in fact, they may not have had as much as a one-night stand) the circus billed them as Mr. and Mrs. Gargantua the Great and displayed them in back to back, identical cages inside a specially-designed tent.

The wedding between Gargantua and Toto billed as part of the 1942 Ringling Bros. show didn’t actually include the gorillas. Instead, the clowns staged their own comic interpretation of how such an event might have appeared. Incidentally, the 1942 show also featured the “Ballet of the Elephants,” a dance performed by 50 tutu-clad elephants and 50 ballerinas. The ballet was choreographed by George Balanchine and featured his wife, Vera Zorina, as the principal ballerina. Igor Stravinsky composed the score, which he titled “Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant.” Could the elephants in Baskerville’s painting be waiting for their tutus?

Wanna know more about Baskerville? Read on…..

Baskerville was born in Raleigh and, through his mother, a descendant of William Boylan, an early settler of town and one of the publishers of the North-Carolina Minerva. Baskerville’s father, also Charles, had a distinguished undergraduate career at UNC before joining the faculty there. The senior Baskerville was a star fullback for the football team and the first editor of the Tar Heel, as the student newspaper was known then. As a chemistry professor, in 1903 he garnered attention with announcement of his discovery of two previously unknown chemical elements, which he named carolinium and berzelium. Those claims, refuted by later research, proved sufficient enough to attract the attention of administrators of the City College of New York, who invited him to start a chemistry department there.

With the senior Baskerville’s acceptance of that job, the family moved to New York City. Eventually Charles Jr. headed off to Cornell to study architecture. But, with the publication of several of his drawings in the college humor magazine, Baskerville turned his career plans toward art.

The budding artist had yet to complete his studies at Cornell when the U.S. entered World War I. Baskerville joined the Army as a first lieutenant and headed off to France, where, during summer 1918 he was injured by shrapnel and then a short time later gassed. He spent the remaining seven months of his service recuperating in a French hospital and overseeing German prisoners of war. Baskerville also used that time to create a portfolio of battlefield sketches, which Scribner’s Magazine published in July 1919, some five months after he returned from France.

Back at Cornell Baskerville continued his art studies, entering a work in a contest sponsored by the nationally-circulated, satirical magazine Judge. His entry won first place and was featured on the cover of Judge. That work, in turn, led to other jobs as cover illustrator for such magazines as Life, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Upon graduation from Cornell, Baskerville returned to New York City, where he took classes at the Art Student’s League and roamed Broadway speakeasies dressed in top hat and tails. One of those who joined Baskerville in his explorations of the city’s night life was Harold Ross, whom the artist had met during his service in France. When Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925 he tapped his fellow roamer, Baskerville, to write about the nightclub circuit. Baskerville’s short-lived column,”When Nights are Bold,” made its first appearance in the April 11, 1925 issue of The New Yorker under the pen name “Top Hat.” The columns were accompanied by pen and ink drawings of dancers and performers signed by Baskerville. The column ended with the July 11, 1925 issue, when Baskerville sailed for an extended sojourn in Paris.

Eventually Baskerville’s travels took him to such far-flung destinations as India, Morocco, Russia, Japan, China and Bali. In each locale he recorded the sights with paint, pen and ink, always returning to his home base of New York with detailed sketches and sometimes finished works. During the 1930s Baskerville’s star rose in New York social circles and among industry titans. He was the favored portraitist and muralist for the Astors and the Vanderbilts. In fact, Baskerville, a lifelong bachelor, would develop a long friendship and serve as occasional social escort for Brooke Astor.

Baskerville’s works were exhibited throughout the United States. According to Jim Vickers, who penned a remembrance of the artist for the December 18, 1997 Spectator weekly, Baskerville was the first living American to have a one-man show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Other museums in Washington, as well as those in Palm Beach, San Francisco and Springfield, Massachusetts also featured the artist’s works. Baskerville even received recognition in his home state. In 1967 his paintings highlighted the dedication of a gallery at the Greenville Museum of Art.

Vickers wrote that Baskerville produced art “first to please himself, secondly to please his clients, and thirdly to earn a lucrative income.”

As noted in his 1994 New York Times obituary, Baskerville sold paintings until the end of his life and on the day he died he had signed his name to one of his works. John Russell, a former art critic for the Times , told the paper that Baskerville “did not flatter his sitters, but he sent them home from the studio in high good spirits.” And the artist, himself, once said that “people want to be painted the way they actually look. This business about having to flatter them is nonsense.”