The Friendly State

The Tar Heel State, The Old North State, The Old Line State, Land of the Longleaf Pine, and on and on. While many of you are probably familiar with these North Carolina nicknames, I’m going to suggest one that I think we need to add: “The Friendly State.” Why you ask? Well, researchers at Cambridge University have determined that our state is one of the “friendliest and most dutiful” in the union (was there really any question about this?). The story, which recently ran in the Raleigh News and Observer, quoted our own governor as saying, “I’m happy to see that others are learning what we have known for a long time — that nothing could be finer than to live in North Carolina.” So true, so true.

Soapboxes And Tree Stumps

On September 15, 2008, the North Carolina Collection Gallery will open “Soapboxes and Tree Stumps: Political Campaigning in North Carolina.” The exhibition will examine 100 years of political campaigning in North Carolina, focusing on significant elections from 1890 to 1990 and what they reveal about the state’s political history. This exhibition will use broadsides, posters, and photographs from the North Carolina Collection to explore the changing nature of campaigning from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Exhibition highlights include pinback buttons and ribbons from the Lew Powell Memorabilia Collection, as well as several photos and broadsides on loan from the Southern Historical Collection.