Memorabilia Moment – Page 6

New in the collection: WWII air base matchbook

“When World War II started, Douglas Municipal Airport was renamed Charlotte Army Air Base. It had been taken over by the Army just months before Pearl Harbor. At the dedication Fiorello H. La Guardia, mayor of New York City, told about 10,000 visitors, “We are challenged by Adolf Hitler now.”

“In 1942 the airport was renamed Morris Field, in honor of Harrisburg native William Colb Morris, who had served as a World War I flier and instructor. Over the course of the war the federal government spent $6 million to create and operate a pilot training base.

“In 1946 the airport was turned back to local officials. Renamed Charlotte Municipal Airport, it would eventually grow into Charlotte Douglas International Airport.”

— From “Morris Field” by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library

Coined in early 1941 to promote Army recruitment, “Keep ‘Em Flying!” became a popular homefront rallying cry (and the name of an Abbott and Costello comedy).

New in the collection: transgender delegate badge

The 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte included a record 486 LGBT delegates, 13 of whom were openly transgender.

In this photo the delegate on the right is wearing one of these oversized (3.5 inch diameter) pinback buttons.

New in the collection: ‘New Bag’ title strip

James Brown’s funk-fomenting recording session at Arthur Smith Studios in Charlotte has been painstakingly analyzed, but what about another musical innovation, one that upgraded jukeboxes across the land?

Yes, I’m talking about the printed title strip. Until 1949 jukebox titles were individually typewritten. “The average typist can only type 250 to 300 title strips per hour,” the president of Star Title Strip Co. told the trade paper Cash Box. “The [jukebox] operator can now buy, under our new plan, 300 neatly printed title strips for only 30 cents. Surely, anyone’s time in this day and age is worth a lot more than 30 cents per hour.”

Star Title Strip remained in business at least into the 1980s, but today’s surviving “juke ops” (in Cash Box speak) can easily generate title strips on the internet.

New in the collection: Dixie Dew matchbook

“When my Dad went broke mining coal in the early 1950s he moved his wife and two youngest sons from Gadsden, Ala., to Charlotte, where he had managed to hang on to his syrup plant.

“I worked there when I was a boy, starting when I was 13 or 14 years old, making Dixie Dew Syrup, an excellent honey flavored syrup….

“The plant where he manufactured syrup and, later, clothes hangers, was in the basement of a building on Graham Street in what is now part of the parking lot of the stadium where the Carolina Panthers football team plays…”

— From “The Sweat Shop” by Pat Stith at the Final Edition

New in the collection: James Taylor benefit pinback

“He endured his share of critical and commercial setbacks during a fallow stretch in the middle of the decade, but by the end of the ’70s James Taylor was undeniably one of the biggest rock stars on the planet – and he capped his remarkable run on July 31, 1979, when he played to a packed crowd during a free concert in New York City’s Central Park.

“The show, held to help raise funds and awareness for a campaign to restore the park’s Sheep Meadow to its former glory, came in the midst of a summer tour to promote Taylor’s ninth LP, Flag….”

— From “When James Taylor Played to 250,000 in Central Park” by Jeff Giles at ultimateclassicrock.com (July 31, 2014)

New in the collection: newsboy badge

“Among the most determined opponents of the child labor amendment [to the Constitution] are the newspaper publishers. The newspapers have always enjoyed a cheap circulation system, based on child labor. The publishers successfully resisted amendments to their code strengthening the provisions regulating child labor in the sale and delivery of papers. These additions to the code would have set a 14-year minimum for newsboys, an 18-year minimum for girls, with, an exemption in favor of boys of 12 already employed. They would have forbidden work before 6 a.m. and late in the evening for boys under 16; and required badges issued by a public agency under the U. S. Department of Labor for children in the newspaper trade.

“At a code hearing circulation managers testified that boys were ‘no good’ for newspaper distribution after the age of 14 because they ‘became interested in girls.’ Under questioning, that was repeatedly broken down into an admission that the older boys were not attracted by the low rates of pay.”

— From “Children Wanted” by Beulah Amidon, in Survey Graphic, (January 1937)

The child labor amendment was passed by the House and Senate but never ratified by the required three-fourths of states. North Carolina was a quick no.

I’ve been frustrated in finding details on North Carolina’s regulation of newsboys, but they did wear this sturdy badge.

New in the collection: milk caps

“After 1900, in areas of North Carolina where farms were changing from row crops to livestock (primarily the Piedmont and western regions), some farmers with milk surpluses started regular dairy routes. These routes gave farmers ready cash each month rather than forcing them to wait for the annual row crop harvest. Small dairies, or creameries, usually served nearby geographic areas, selling fresh milk, butter, and ice cream to local families. By the early 1940s, such creameries were delivering milk to homes and grocery stores daily. These creameries often developed their own brand names in direct competition with some of the larger processors such as Pet and Sealtest.

“By 1953 more than 300 dairies existed in Iredell County, which has been the leading dairy county in North Carolina since records were officially kept.

— From Dairy Industry by Chester Paul Middlesworth in NCpedia (2006)

These milk bottle caps came from Lashmit & Nelson’s White Pine Dairy near Winston-Salem, from J.C. Bowers & Sons’ Hillside Dairy near Norwood (also Boone and Pittsboro) and from Brookwood Dairy of Asheville. (The Medical Milk Commission certification cited on the Brookwood cap was an early 20th century means to allow sales to pasteurization-wary consumers. The milk commission has disappeared, but the debate continues.)

From ancestry.com this note about the surname Lashmit:

“The most Lashmit families were found in the USA in 1920. In 1880 there were 9 Lashmit families living in North Carolina. This was 100% of all the recorded Lashmit’s in the USA. North Carolina had the highest population of Lashmit families in 1880.”

New in the collection: department store mirror

The Leader department store was once among more than 80 Jewish-owned businesses on Patton Avenue. Its building remains, but — more typically for contemporary Asheville — now houses a grass-fed-beef burger joint and “a small-batch hand-craft nano-brewery and ale house.”

This nifty little celluloid lagniappe, circa 1920, includes a pocket mirror on the back and a supply of straight pins around the rim.

New in the collection: ECU license plate

Unusual state-map design for this well-used municipal license plate. Most plates from this era are type only, although others bore such images as teapots (Edenton), bears (New Bern) and fish (Grifton).

In 2017 East Carolina University formalized its familiar diminutive.

New in the collection: Tobacco Fair badge

“The first Forsyth County fair, in the 1880s, was dedicated to wheat, at the time the most valuable product, along with fruits and berries, grown in the area. But in 1897, the tobacco interests put on a huge ‘Industrial and Tobacco Fair’ which eclipsed all former efforts. The Twin City Sentinel published a special commemorative edition. All of the events were held in the tobacco warehouses.”

— From the colorful and thorough “Tobacco warehouses…T.J. Brown lights the fire…” by the North Carolina Collection, Forsyth County Public Library

The Tobacco Fair turned into the Dixie Classic in 1956 and then into the Carolina Classic in 2019.