Bridget Madden

The Felch Sisters: Sanford Photographers

This real photo postcard of the oldest house in Sanford, N.C. is one of several cards produced by the Felch sisters that we’ve recently uploaded to the North Carolina Postcards website.  Stephen E. Massengill’s book “Photographers in North Carolina:  “The First Century 1842-1941” provided some brief biographical background on the two sisters.

Dora Alice Felch (b. ca. 1886) and her younger sister Edith E. Felch (b. ca. 1874) were both born in New Hampshire and worked as partners in their studio located above a post office in downtown Sanford between the years 1903-1908.  In 1908, both sisters married and relocated – Dora Alice moved back to New Hampshire, and Edith E. moved west to Idaho.

You can see several of the the Felchs’ other real photo postcards on our website here.

Interestingly enough, well-known Southern Pines photographer E. C. Eddy was also a New Hampshire native.

This Month in North Carolina: Artist Kenneth Noland

This April marks artist Kenneth Noland’s 85th birthday!  Noland was born and raised in Asheville, NC and attended art school at Black Mountain College on the GI Bill after serving in WWII.   You can read about Noland’s artistic career and Tar Heel roots in the newest edition of “This Month in North Carolina.”

New Towns Added to NC Postcards

During the month of March, we added several new towns to the North Carolina Postcard website.  Many of the new towns are represented by postcards from a series of real photo images of railroad depots across North Carolina, which gives an interesting perspective on the varieties of depot architecture across the state.

Creedmoor, Granville County

Duncan, Harnett County

Garner, Wake County

Newland, Avery County

Knightdale, Wake County

Neuse Crossroads, Wake County

Princeton, Johnston County

Wentworth, Rockingham County

Willow Spring, Wake County

Youngsville, Franklin County

Culberson, Cherokee County

April 1924: American Painter Kenneth Noland Born in Asheville

This Month in North Carolina History

Kenneth NolandAmerican painter Kenneth Noland was born on April 10, 1924, and this April marks his 85th birthday. Noland served in the Air Force during World War II and returned to Asheville after the war. He then took advantage of the GI Bill to attend art school at the experimental Black Mountain College near Asheville, and began his studies there in 1946.

There were several important artists on the faculty while Noland was at Black Mountain College, including Josef Albers and Ilya Bolotowsky. These acclaimed teachers were prominent artists in their own right: Albers came out of the Bauhaus School and Bolotowsky was a Cubist. Because Albers was on sabbatical most of the time Noland was at BMC, Noland worked primarily under Bolotowsky, but he did take Albers’ design class once he returned to teach. Both Albers and Bolotowsky had profound impacts on Noland’s work, as did the artists they introduced in their classes.

In an anthology of essays about BMC students and their time spent at the school titled Black Mountain College: Sprouted Seeds, Mervin Lane recounts an interview he had with Kenneth Noland in 1988:

Ken remembers with affection the entrance to the College, which has been designed by Albers. There was no gate, but there was a fairly long run of three or four white horizontal boards on both sides— and for a good stretch, leading toward the entrance. Ken remarked that those bright white boards gently angled through such interesting and gradual changes toward the opening that the visual effect was uninterrupted, so that someone entering was sort of ‘streamed’ through and on up the slight incline of the dirt road into the College.

In addition to this memory of the campus’ built environment, Noland also discusses the intangible nuances of BMC as a place. Noland mentions the alertness he felt while he was a student at BMC, and how the collaborative nature between professors and students contributed to his overall experience. In addition to the small size of the college, Kenneth Noland also attributes the success of the program to the school’s location in scenic Asheville, NC. Noland said, “And I also think that it was probably atmospheric. It might have had something to do with the sheer freshness of the environment, of the air there. Don’t you think that’s right?”

Although Noland is North Carolina born and bred, as an artist he is primarily associated with art movements and communities in Washington D.C. and later, New York City. Noland studied many European artists who focused on geometric abstraction and color theory, including Mondrian and Kandinsky, and was also influenced by American artists at the time, including Jackson Pollock and his action paintings. Shapes and color relationships are two major proponents of Noland’s work, which typically features repeating patterns, including concentric circles, chevrons, and parallel lines. Noland is perhaps best known for his “circle” paintings, which express a stylistic connection to the “squares” that are the basis of many of Albers’ works. In fact, Noland’s circle paintings have become iconic for both the artist as well as the period itself.

Noland emphasizes the materiality of the canvas and the process of applying paint by frequently using shaped canvases and a staining method of painting in order to achieve his often fluid relationships between line, color, and form. In addition to the concentric circles Noland paints, examples of this can best be seen where Noland expresses a repeating chevron pattern on a diamond-shaped canvas, or plaid patterns across a square canvas.

Although Noland lived outside of North Carolina after his student days at BMC, the Tar Heel State clearly left a lasting impact on his life and work. In 1995, Noland received a North Carolina Award in Fine Arts for “his innovative and influential work in modern abstract painting, and for enhancing North Carolina’s artistic reputation.” Noland and his wife currently live in Maine, and an article from the Asheville Citizen Times, 2007, reports that the couple purchased plots for a mausoleum in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, NC. Other notable residents of the Riverside Cemetery include Thomas Wolfe and Governor Zebulon Vance.

The North Carolina Collection has collected material on both Kenneth Noland and Black Mountain College, including some of BMC’s course catalogs and the Black Mountain College Review For further research, the NC State Archives holds the papers of Black Mountain College.

 

Sources:

Mervin Lane, ed. Black Mountain College: Sprouted Seeds, An Anthology of Personal Counts, Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

John Boyle. “Riverside Cemetery gets massive tomb,” in <a href="http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?Ntt=asheville+citizen-times&Ntk=Journal_Title&Nty=1&sugg=s"Asheville Citizen Times, 8 March 2007.

Alison de Lima Greene et al. Kenneth Noland: The Nature of Color. Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 2004.

“Kenneth Noland” in The North Carolina Awards Committee. The North Carolina Awards: 1995. Raleigh: The Committee, 1995.

 

Image Source:

“Kenneth Noland” in The North Carolina Awards Committee. The North Carolina Awards: 1995. Raleigh: The Committee, 1995.

 

External Links:

Because Kenneth Noland’s works are copyrighted, we cannot display them on this website. The link below will take you to The Official Website of Kenneth Noland, where you can view selected works by their creation date.

www.kennethnoland.com

Elisha Mitchell: A Man, His Watch, and a Mountain

Professor Elisha Mitchell taught chemistry, mineralogy, and geology at UNC until he fell to his death trying to prove that Mt. Mitchell was the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River.  At the time, the mountain was called Black Dome, but was later renamed in Mitchell’s honor.  At a height of 6,684 ft., Mt. Mitchell is in fact the tallest peak in the Eastern US.  The image above is a copy of an engraving in the NCC’s photo archives, 87-188.

Mitchell was wearing this pocket watch, which is believed to have stopped at the exact time of Mitchell’s death – June 27, 1857, 8:19:56.  The pocket watch is part of the North Carolina Gallery’s collection, as is Mitchell’s mortar and pestle.

The real photo postcard below was recently uploaded to the North Carolina Postcards website, which has several more views of Mt. Mitchell that can be browsed here.  In addition to biographical information, The NCC holds some material on Mitchell’s scientific research, and even a script for the theatrical performance of Mitchell’s last climb up the Black Dome.

KPN: A Late 19th Century Recipe for Success

This striking image on the cover of one of our pamphlets caught my eye today – “Plant Food:  Its Nature, Composition and Most Profitable Use, Prepared to Aid Practical Farmers,” was published c. 1895 by the North Carolina State Horticultural Society, Experimental Farms, Southern Pines.  This guide contains brief descriptions of fertilizers – Potash, Phosphorus, and Nitrogen, and includes different recipes for different crops, adjusting the levels of each component to optimize the growing of specific vegetable.  The guide also lists some curious sources for finding these nutrients and methods for applying them to your land.

The iconography of the cover follows the style of other turn-of-the-century posters, which tended to draw a direct visual comparison between contemporary technological advancements and classical civilization (a prime example being the Columbian Exposition, which was just two years before this guide was published).  The female figure is wearing a garment reminiscent of Grecian clothing and sprinkling fertilizer from a pottery vessel, which bears the letters K, P, and N (the chemical symbols for the major plant nutrients Potassium, Phosphorus, and Nitrogen) and is rendered the red-figure style of Ancient Greek pottery.  The scene is framed by two trees and root plants along the bottom that sprout up over the frame’s border into the image block, suggesting health, growth, and abundance.

The KPN listed on the figure’s vessel is likely one of the earlier instances of identifying fertlizer packages by the chemical symbols of the components – even today, fertilizer packaging bears the letters and amount of each nutrient.  We have an advertisement postcard for the product Eclipse Guano, made by the Caraleigh Phosphate & Fertilizer Works, dated 1928, which shows a man sitting on a 200 lb. sack of fertilizer and holding another upright in front of him.  The bag lists the chemical ratios of the ingredients as, “Phos. Acid Nitrogen 247 Equiv. to Ammonia Potash (K20) Water Soluable Nitrogen 1/3 Total.”

Two Irishmen in the Confederate Army

Another post about the Irish in North Carolina, this time from someone who does look good in green!  We’ve got material about two Irishmen whose paths crossed as they fought for the Confederate Army that I thought I’d share with you today:

Thomas Conolly’s experience is recounted in a book edited by Nelson D. Lankford called, “An Irishman in Dixie:  Thomas Conolly’s Diary of the Fall of the Confederacy,” which is a published version of the diary Conolly kept while fighting for the Confederate Army.  The diary opens while Conolly is in Nassau awaiting passage to North Carolina, and contains descriptions of the South during the war as well as many colorful descriptions of social events with prominent Confederate leaders, including General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.  Don’t ask what he thinks of Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis!

An excerpt from Conolly’s entry dated “Patrick’s Day,” Friday, March 17, 1865, when Conolly was near Richmond, VA reads:

“After dinner Genl Lee showed me the defences of Richmond on the map extending in a Line of 35 miles from the E of Richmond to 5 miles W of the Appotomax & Petersburg He showed me also the enemies lines confronting them nearly the entire way with his bastions & battery (marked & numbered.  Now he said we have 2 lines of defence… Whether under certain circumstances the exigencies of way might not render it advisable to evacuate Richmond I of course said nothing Tho’ when pressed by an unjudicious young Lady Oh General Lee I hope you’ll never give up Richmond He floor’d her by saying “Oh Miss have you no faith in our boys …”

Interestingly enough, the captain of the ship that brought Conolly from Bermuda to the coast of North Carolina was John Newland Maffitt, a blockade runner who was born at sea while his parents were emitrating from Ireland to New York.  Maffitt worked for the US Navy beginning when he was 13 years old and quickly rose through the ranks, but quit at the outbreak of the Civil War to fight for the Confederate Army.

The NCC has a novel written by Maffitt titled, “Nautilus: Or Cruising Under Canvas,” which was published in 1872 and is a fictional account of his time spent on a US Navy ship in 1835.  The John Newland Maffitt Family Papers are held at the Southern Historical Collection, Collection Number 1761.

Writing seems to have been a strength for the Maffitt family.  The NCC has two volumnes of poetry written by Maffitt’s father, the Rev. John Newland Maffitt, who was a Methodist preacher in several New England states.  Both volumes of poetry were publsihed in 1839.  One that is particularly appropriate for today’s post is titled, “Ireland: A Poem.”

Catch-Me-Eye Explosion, March 7, 1942

The Johnston County Heritage Center has a small collection of photographs documenting the Catch-Me-Eye Explosion, March 7, 1942.   The explosion happened early in the morning when a truck carrying munitions collided with an automobile near the Catch-Me-Eye, which was a popular tourist location and service station on Highway 301 between Selma and Smithfield.

According to the biographical sketch for the collection listed on the Heritage Center’s website, “Four people were killed, and many others were injured.  The entire Catch-Me-Eye complex and and the 2 1/2 story Hotel Talton across the road were levelled, and windows shattered over a mile away in Selma’s Edgerton Memorial Methodist Church.  Many local people were convinced the explosion was an air raid by the Germans.”

The postcard above is of the Hotel Talton, ca. 1938, which was located across the street from where the explosion occurred.

Here’s a link to the collection guide at the Johnston County Heritage Center.

Nineteenth Century Student Writing Featured on Documenting the American South

DocSouth has put up a new highlights collection, which features Nineteenth Century Student Writing at the University of North Carolina.  This highlight provides an overview of student publications and student writing.

An 1842 poem written by UNC student Robert T. Hall stands out as a particularly funny example.  DocSouth has presented his work, “Elegy on a Sore Toe,” in two different formats.  You can view the poem in the author’s original hand here, or you can read a transcribed version of the work here.