Day: October 28, 2008

Political Ephemera

Throughout this election season, I’ve been sharing some of the North Carolina Collection’s wonderful collection of political ephemera (I hope you’ve enjoyed). I’m sharing another piece today; the image to the right is a list of Republican Party candidates for state office in 1884.

However, I’d also like to turn this posting into a solicitation for more ephemera. Yesterday, our collection development librarian (the person in charge of getting “stuff” for the NCC), sent out an email to North Carolina librarians. In this email, she asked them to save all of the various politically related mailings that they have been getting, pack them up, and mail them to us. Well, I want to do the same thing with our loyal NCM readers. Since all of the NC Collection’s staff members live near Chapel Hill, most of the political ephemera we collect is “Triangle-centric.” Our collection, however, seeks to document the history and culture of the entire state. So, for those of you in the western or eastern (or other parts of the Piedmont) parts of the state, please do the following: 1) save the mailings you get 2)pack them up 3)send them to the NC Collection. Who knows…a hundred years from now my replacement may be blogging about the ephemera you sent to us in 2008.

Windmill on Lake Mattamuskeet

Nick’s post earlier today reminded me of the photograph in the North Carolina County Collection you see above.  The caption on the back of the photograph reads, “Early and late method of grinding corn in Hyde Co N.C.  Mill on edge of lake Mattamuskeet.”  The photograph was donated by the family of Collier Cobb, who became instructor of geology at UNC in 1892 and, in 1893, the chairman of the university’s newly-established Department of Geology. He served in that post until 1934, the year of his death.  Cobb was a photographer among his many talents, so he may be the creator of this unattributed photograph.  A collection of Cobb’s negatives and photographs are part of the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives.

New Holland, N.C.

Some of my favorite maps in the North Carolina Maps project are maps of towns and communities that never existed. One of the most detailed by far is a map of New Holland, in Hyde County. Planned for the southern shore of Lake Mattamuskeet, New Holland was planned around 1910 by a company that wanted to drain the lake for farm land. The elaborate map shows a decidedly Dutch theme to the town, with canals, wide avenues named Amsterdam and Haarlem, and even a windmill. Unfortunately, the town was never completed. The developers gave up in 1934 and the lake was refilled.