January 2019 – NC Miscellany

‘Avoid over-indulgence’ — with Lucky Strikes!

“A 1928 advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes said, ‘Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet,’ until the confection industry threatened legal action. In 1930, the ad was rewritten to say, ‘We do not represent that smoking Lucky Strike Cigarettes will bring modern figures or cause the reduction of flesh. We do declare that when tempted to do yourself too well, if you will “Reach for a Lucky” instead, you will thus avoid over-indulgence in things that cause excess weight and, by avoiding over-indulgence, maintain a modern, graceful form.’

“There is some truth to this claim, says George Bray, professor of medicine at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, since cigarettes do ‘stimulate energy expenditure’ (or burn calories) and probably do substitute for snacking for some users. And those who quit smoking do tend to gain weight when they replace the oral gratification of smoking with eating. But no one can call cigarette usage a healthy approach.”

— From “From Lucky Strikes to tapeworms: 7 of the oddest weight-loss schemes of the past were also unhealthy” by Debra Bruno in the Washington Post (Jan. 27)

New in the collection: A.L. Brown High band decal

Two oddities in this eye-catching window decal: the majorette’s uniform, which seems borrowed from the Confederate flag, and her face, which seems borrowed from a photograph (early Photoshop?).

Undated, but I’m guessing 1960. A.L. Brown High opened in Kannapolis in 1951. Decal maker Angelus Pacific was founded in 1932 in Fullerton, Calif. Both are still in business.

New in the collection: A pennant for ‘Prohibition Sally’

“When, in the 1920s, Route 10 became Highway 70 (now Old U.S. 70), Point Lookout, just east of Ridgecrest, became a major tourist stop, with a view of Royal Gorge. The site was fully developed in the 1930s by H.A. Ragle of Old Fort, with a retail shop, gas station and motel. Motorists came up from Old Fort and stopped to rest their engines and nerves and visit the stop’s most famous attraction, Sally the Bear, also called ‘Prohibition Sally,’ chained to a cage and enjoying soda pop.

“ ‘Presumably, the Point Lookout viewpoint and parking area became the model for overlooks built along the Blue Ridge Parkway,’ Mary McPhail Standaert and Joseph Standaert write in ‘Swannanoa Valley.’ Ragle sold Point Lookout in 1947. The section of Old U.S. 70 between Old Fort and Black Mountain was closed off when Interstate 40 was constructed in 1968. In 2008, public and private partners created Point Lookout Trail for hikers and bikers, without any tourist attractions, except for the view.”
— From “Portrait of the Past: Point Lookout” by Rob Neufeld in the Asheville Citizen-Times (Feb. 9, 2016)

New in the collection: Model of moonshine still

Cherokee — or more specifically, the local tourism industry — does love its moonshine souvenirs. This wood and wire creation stands 3 inches tall.

New in the collection: Mug bids farewell to Cannon Mills

This glass mug reproduces a front-page story in the Daily Independent of Kannapolis, Feb. 4, 1982.

An odd keepsake – but local news didn’t get any bigger than the sale of privately owned Cannon Mills to serial entrepreneur David Murdoch. Three years later Murdoch sold the company to Fieldcrest, which unloaded it on Pillowtex in 1997. In 2003 Pillowtex filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down 16 plants in North America. Some 4,800 Pillowtex workers were in North Carolina — the largest mass layoff in state history.

Check out what’s new in the North Carolina Collection

Several new titles were just added to New in the North Carolina Collection. To see the full list simply click on the link in the entry or click on the New in the North Carolina Collection tab at the top of the page. As always, full citations for all the new titles can be found in the University Library Catalog, and all titles are available for use in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

DC antislavery petition ignites NC congressman

“Public opinion! What class of men have an immense preponderance over the
rest of the community, in their power of representing public opinion in the
legislature? The slave owners. They send from their 12 States 100 members,
while the 14 free States, with a free population nearly double, return but
142. Before whom do the presidential candidates bow down the most humbly,
on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and for whose tastes do they cater
the most assiduously in their servile protestations? The slaveowners
always.

“Public opinion! Hear the public opinion of the free South, as expressed by
its own members in the House of Representatives at Washington. ‘I have a
great respect for the chair,’ quoth North Carolina, ‘I have a great
respect for the chair as an officer of the House, and a great respect for
him personally; nothing but that respect prevents me from rushing to the
table and tearing that petition which has just been presented for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, to pieces.’ ”

— From “American Notes for General Circulation” by Charles Dickens (lightly edited)

North Carolina had 13 representatives during Dickens’s 1842 visit — I’m not finding which of them so respectfully restrained himself.