New Towns Added to NC Postcards

During the month of April, we uploaded quite a few new towns to the NC postcards website.  Be sure to check them out!

Coats, Harnett County
Cramerton, Gaston County
Loray, Iredell County
Randleman, Randolph County
Rich Square, Northampton County
Salemburg, Sampson County
Valdese, Burke County
Winterville, Pitt County
Zirconia, Henderson County

For Tiger, something to Bragg about

Back when a visit from Tiger Woods didn’t evoke such conflicted feelings, he spent four days training with the Green Berets to better understand what his father, Earl, had experienced at Fort Bragg 40 years earlier.

This plastic tag was issued for a golf exhibition  Woods gave afterward.

Happy (Belated) 85th Birthday To UNC’s Bull’s Head Bookshop

I’m a little late on this (so late, in fact, that I missed the birthday cake they served up), but I did want to point it out.

Though I missed the cake, I did pick up several packets of Zinnia seeds (see above). On the back is the following quote:

“He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers.”
-from The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Always available at the Bull’s Head

Weaverville’s ideas had consequences

“Ever since Richard M. Weaver wrote his bracing conservative manifesto in 1948, ‘Ideas Have Consequences,’ the title phrase has been a guiding maxim for the movement.”

— From The New York Times, April 27, 2010

“Weaver found himself, far from his beloved Weaverville, North Carolina, in cruel, heartless, philistine Chicago [teaching at the University of Chicago], where he would do his part to stem what he believed was the descent of America into barbarism….

“Weaver purchased a home in Weaverville for his widowed mother and spent all his summers there, drawing upon the sources of what he believed to be the real and permanent things away from the rarefied atmosphere and urban artificiality…  about which he wrote in ‘Ideas Have Consequences.’

“Disdaining the possibility of getting to Weaverville in a few hours by plane, he always went by train. Before he arrived, his mother would have his garden plowed and ready for him to plant. He would have reminded her to have this done by a horse or mule instead of a tractor.

” ‘There are numberless ways in which  the South disappoints me, [he wrote] but there is something in its sultry languor and in the stubborn humanism of its people… which tells me that for better or worse this is my native land.’ ”

From “Richard M. Weaver, 1910-1963: A Life of the Mind” by Fred Douglas Young (1995)

Clingman’s Tobacco Remedies

Whenever I was stung by a bee as a child, I remember my dad breaking open a cigarette, taking a little of the tobacco out, wetting it in his mouth, and packing it around the site of the sting. I always thought it was a little unusual and a bit icky, but I honestly can’t remember if the “remedy” really worked–or I eventually just got over my crying spell.

I was reminded of my dad’s bee-sting cure, by the Clingman’s Tobacco Remedies pamphlet above. The title and picture of Clingman caught my eye, but what was inside the pamphlet was even cooler…

It is “Clingman’s Tobacco Plaster”…a piece of cloth with tobacco powder glued (or somehow attached) to the back. According to instructions inside the package, one was supposed to “wet thoroughly before using; and apply with bandage, to keep it securely in place.” The powder was “of the purest seadtive [sic] compounds, mixed with the purest Tobacco Flour, and [was] specially recommended for Croup in Children, Weed or Cake of the Breast, and for that class of irritant or Inflamatory Maladies, Aches or Pains.” However, if you applied the plaster to infants or small children you were to observe caution since their nervous system was “very delicate and highly strung, and unless very closely watched, serious, if not fatal results might follow an injudicious use of these remedies in such cases; otherwise it is harmless.”

In Charlotte, JFK suffered wedding-bell blues

On this day in 1940: John F. Kennedy, on the verge of graduating from Harvard and writing the best-selling “Why England Slept,” visits Charlotte for the wedding of an old girlfriend.

Frances Ann Cannon, a member of the well-known textile family, marries John Hersey, future author of “Hiroshima.” Kennedy dated Miss Cannon for a year and may even have asked to marry her. She was Protestant and he Catholic, however, and her family took her on an around-the-world tour to discourage the romance.

The wedding is at White Oaks, the James B. Duke mansion. Beforehand, Kennedy wrote a friend that “I would like to go but I don’t want to look like the tall slim figure who goes out and shoots himself in the greenhouse half-way through the ceremony.”

Wilmington church displayed racial schism

“The ownership of church property provoked bitter controversy [during Reconstruction]. A case in point: the Front Street Methodist Church in Wilmington, North Carolina,  whose congregation before the war numbered about 1,400, two-thirds of them black.

“When Union soldiers occupied the city early in 1865, the black members informed Rev. L. S. Burkhead ‘that they did not require his services any longer… he being a rebel,’ and proceeded to elect a black minister in his place. Gen. John M. Schofield, emulating Solomon, ordered that the spiritual day be divided equally between the races, each with a minister of its own choosing. The conflict continued into 1866, with Rev. Burkhead preaching in the old manner (although a few blacks, he complained, ostentatiously attempted to sit downstairs during his sermons).

“Eventually, the white minority regained control, and most of the blacks left to form an independent congregation.”

— From “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877” by Eric Foner (1988)

Aunt Betsey Holmes and Her Horseless Carriage, Raleigh, N.C.

We have several postcards of what appears to be a frequent sight on Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street:  Aunt Betsey Holmes riding in her carriage.  The carriage is pulled by a bull, not a horse, and so the postcards often contain puns relating to her preferred mode of transportation:  “automobull and “horseless carriage” are the two most common.  The bull’s name was Joe, and Betsey is often shown with Uncle Bill.  It appears she became quite the institution – the postcard below lists her age as 93!

Does anyone know anything about Betsey (or is it Betsy) Holmes?

History book wars: The more things change….

“North Carolina last week was upset because its fifth-grade pupils were learning State history out of a book (“North Carolina Yesterday & Today” by Jule B. Warren) which declared that:

” ‘ — Congress elected George Washington… President.’ (The electors, not Congress, did so.)

” — Joseph Martin had fought in the Mexican War in 1848…  and died in 1786.)

”  — Charles McDowell was a hero of the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780… and was buried in 1775.)

“These were among more than 200 errors of fact turned up by a white-haired, peppery schoolteacher named Nell Battle Lewis, who writes a column in the Raleigh News and Observer.

“In North Carolina [textbooks] are picked by the State Board of Education, which consists of the Governor and State officers.

“Four months ago Clyde R. Hoey and fellow board members adopted the Warren book, rejecting a more scholarly work by Professors A. R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler, of the University of North Carolina, and recommended by the State Textbook Commission (educators).

“Nell Lewis had raised such a furor that Governor J. Melville Broughton (who succeeded Hoey Jan. 1) hurried home from a vacation in Mexico City and ordered that the Warren books be recalled for corrections. He also asked Revenue Commissioner A. J. Maxwell to analyze the rejected Newsome-Lefler book. Maxwell, a Hoeyite, explained everything:

” ‘The Newsome-Lefler history continues to harp on the conservatives of the Democratic Party… and intimates that both Governor Ehringhaus and Governor Hoey owed their election to fraud. Such an implication… is entirely out of place in a proposed history for the fifth grade.’ ”

“Last week Authors Newsome & Lefler said in a letter to the Governor: ‘No one can deny the accuracy of the statement that… “many citizens demanded laws to make clean and honest elections more certain.” ‘ ”

– From Time magazine, April 28, 1941

North Carolina last week was upset because its fifth-grade pupils were learning State history out of a book (North Carolina Yesterday & Today by Jule B. Warren) which declared that:

> “Congress elected George Washington . . . President.” (The electors, not Congress, did so.)

> Tarheel Joseph Martin had fought in the Mexican War in 1848 and trained Confederate troops in the Civil War. (The book also states he died in 1786.)

> Tarheel Charles McDowell was a hero of the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780. (On page 306, the book says he was buried in 1775.) These were among more than 200 errors of fact turned up by a white-haired, peppery schoolteacher named Nell Battle Lewis, who writes a column in the Raleigh News and Observer. Miss Lewis described the whole thing as A POLITICAL STINK.

Most U.S. schoolbooks are chosen by the schools that use them, but eleven States have boards which adopt books for the elementary schools of the whole State, a system well liked by politicians. In North Carolina they are picked by the State Board of Education, which consists of the Governor and State officers.

Four months ago Clyde R. Hoey, then Governor, and fellow board members adopted the Warren book, rejecting a more scholarly work written by Professors A. R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler, of the University of North Carolina, and recommended by the State Textbook Commi sion (educators).

Nell Lewis’ campaign had raised such a furor that Governor J. Melville Broughton (who succeeded Hoey Jan. 1) hurried home from a vacation in Mexico City and ordered that the Warren books, already in use by 90,000 fifth-graders, be recalled at the end of the school term for corrections. He also asked Revenue Commissioner A. J. Maxwell to analyze the rejected Newsome-Lefler book. Maxwell, a Hoeyite, explained everything:

“The Newsome-Lefler history continues to harp on the conservatives of the Democratic Party down to and including the administration of Governor Hoey and plainly intimates that both Governor Ehringhaus and Governor Hoey owed their election to election frauds. Such an implication . . . is entirely out of place in a proposed history for the fifth grade. . . .”

Last week Authors Newsome & Lefler said in a letter to the Governor: “No one can deny the accuracy of the statement that . . . ‘many citizens demanded laws to make clean and honest elections more certain.’ ”

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President Obama At Asheville’s Grove Park Inn

Though today’s News and Observer reminds us that President Obama’s weekend visit to Asheville is “officially none of our business,” I thought I would at least share some postcard images of the famous hotel. Click on the image above to see more.

Also, in case you were wondering what other presidents had spent the night at the Grove Park, here’s a list compiled by the inn:

William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Richard M. Nixon
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama