Category: New Books

Encyclopedia of North Carolina

Illustration from 1924 biology textbook

Even before William S. Powell wrapped up work on the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography we knew that he was planning an encyclopedia. We looked forward to it more than most, knowing that it would be a reference tool that we would use almost every day in the North Carolina Collection. We were right. Decades in the making (Powell says in the introduction that he first had the idea for the book shortly after the end of World War II), the Encyclopedia of North Carolina is finally here.

The Encyclopedia has everything that we knew it would — succinct, authoritative articles about historic places and events — but it also has so much more, covering North Carolina culture in all of its rich variety. There are entries for “Headache Powders,” “Revivals,” “Hoi Toiders,” “Grits,” and even an entry for “Mooning,” written by William S. Powell himself. Combined with the North Carolina Gazetteer and the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, both of which were also edited by Powell, North Carolina now has a reference shelf that puts a wealth of information at our fingertips.

Thirteen Moons in Cherokee

Sunday’s Raleigh News and Observer reported the interesting news that a section of Charles Frazier’s new novel, Thirteen Moons, will be translated into Cherokee. Apparently, it will be the first novel ever to be published in that language.

The majority of publications in the Cherokee language appeared in the 1840s and 1850s, many the work of the Mission Press in Park Hill, Oklahoma. These were primarily translations of the Bible, religious tracts, and hymnbooks. After the Civil War there were some legal materials published in Cherokee, including a set of the laws of the Cherokee Nation, but publications in the native language dwindled until a resurgence of interest in Cherokee in the late twentieth century.

Many of the more recent publications in Cherokee have focused on language instruction, with some clearly aimed at younger readers: in 1975 the comic strips “Blondie” and “Beetle Bailey” appeared in booklets in the Cherokee language. The University of North Carolina library holds several recent Cherokee language instruction books, including “How to Talk Trash in Cherokee” (Downhome Publications, 1989).

Perhaps with this continued interest in the language, combined with the inspiration and example of Frazier’s novel, it won’t be long before we see a novel composed in Cherokee.

Biltmore in 1905

Biltmore House, 1905

George Washington Vanderbilt was the youngest of his parents’ eight children. Because of the age difference between George and his siblings, some of his closest family ties were with his nieces and nephews. One niece, Edith Shepard Fabbri, visited Biltmore in late 1905 with her husband, Ernesto G. Fabbri, and their two children. Ernesto Fabbri, described in his New York Times obituary as a “world traveler, linguist, and former president of the Society of Italian Immigrants in New York,” was the heir of Egisto Fabbri, a J.P. Morgan partner. He and Edith Vanderbilt Shepard were married in 1897 and divorced in 1923.

Apparently, Fabbri was an amateur photographer. The North Carolina Collection recently purchased an album of photographs that Fabbri made during that 1905 visit to Biltmore. The seventeen large (7 1/2 x 9 1/2 inch) photographs include images of the exterior of the mansion, the model village, farm buildings and animals, and the ferry across the French Broad. The final image in the album shows George Vanderbilt’s wife, Edith Dresser Vanderbilt, setting up her camera on a hillside on the estate. Several of the images appeared in Ellen Erwin Rickman’s Biltmore Estate (Arcadia Publishing, 2005), but most have not been published. The first image in the album is shown here.

N.C. Novels for the Fall

This is a great season for reading North Carolina literature, with new novels by some of the state’s most respected writers coming out within a few weeks of each other. Lee Smith’s On Agate Hill, set in Civil War era Hillsborough, has just been released and Doug Marlette’s Magic Time comes out this week. Follow the links from each title for recent reviews in the Charlotte Observer.

These two books should keep anxious readers busy until October 3, when Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier’s long-awaited second novel is released. Raleigh News & Observer columnist J. Peder Zane has already declared it a “worthy successor” to Cold Mountain.

Donuts

I’ve just been looking through John T. Edge’s latest, Donuts: An American Passion. Despite the fact that there are no North Carolina places listed in his “Black Book of Donut Shops” (the closest place to us is Mulligan’s in suburban Atlanta), that hardly means we’re suffering a donut deficiency here. Of course, everyone knows that North Carolina is home to the headquarters of Krispy Kreme, but we can also be proud of the Tar Heel roots of the Doughnut Plant, which is currently producing some of the most delectable donuts in New York City.

The Doughnut Plant was started in 1994 by the grandson of Herman Isreal, who operated the College Pastry Shop in Greensboro for decades. The store on Tate Street was a popular hangout for students from Women’s College from the 1930s through the 1960s. Isreal’s grandson came across the recipe for the donuts in the early 1990s, made a batch, and before long people throughout New York were discovering what students and alumna of Women’s College had known for years: these donuts were something special. The whole story is on the Donut Plant website.

Since the Doughnut Plant seems to be doing well these days, I think it’s time the owners honored their roots and opened a branch back in North Carolina. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in Greensboro. Something in my neighborhood would be just fine.

NASCAR Dogs and Cats and Goats

The NASCAR section of the North Carolina Collection is one of the fastest growing areas in the library, with one of the latest additions being Pit Road Pets: NASCAR Stars and Their Pets. Yellow labs look to be the most popular among the pets shown here, though my favorite is Stacy Compton’s pet goat, Billie. Proceeds from the book will go to the Humane Society of Catawba County, N.C.

Blackbeard

Blackbeard

Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review ran reviews of a couple of new children’s books on colonial North Carolina’s most famous temporary resident: Blackbeard. I couldn’t help but notice that the illustration that ran with the reviews showed the one of the most notorious and curious aspects of the pirate’s appearance — the matches under his hat. This legend may have originated with a description from Charles Johnson’s General History of the Pyrates, first published in London in 1724:

“. . . In Time of Action, [Blackbeard] wore a sling over his Shoulders, with three Brace of Pistols, hanging in Holsters like Bandaliers; and stuck lighted Matches under his Hat, which appearing on each Side of his Face, his Eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a Figure, that Imagination cannot form an Idea of a Fury, from Hell, to look more frightful.”

The picture shown here is a detail from the Johnson book. Read more about Blackbeard in This Month in North Carolina History.

High Speeds in Hillsborough

I’ve been perusing the new NASCAR Encyclopedia, and learning quite a bit. Of the eight races held in 1949, NASCAR’s first year, three were in North Carolina. Charlotte and North Wilkesboro hosted races, which seemed about right, but the third, I was surprised to read, was in Hillsborough. It’s hard to imagine the small, picturesque town as the site of a major stock car race, but they held quite a few at the dirt-track Occoneechee Speedway. Hillsborough hosted Grand National Races from 1950 until 1968, when its race date was assumed by Talladega.

The first Hillsborough race, held on August 7, 1949, was won by Bob Flock, driving a ’48 Oldsmobile and completing the 200-mile race at an average rate of 76.8 miles per hour. That’s probably close to the speed at which most cars zip through town on I-40 today.

Carolina Parakeet

Carolina Parakeet

There was a story in Monday’s Greensboro News & Record about Carole Boston Weatherford’s new book, The Carolina Parakeet: America’s Lost Parrot in Art and Memory (Avian Publications, 2005). Weatherford traces the history and decline of North America’s only native parakeet. The Conuropsis carolinensis was once common throughout the eastern United States and is depicted in brilliantly-colored drawings by naturalists Mark Catesby and John James Audubon. A victim of hunters, collectors, and a changing environment, Carolina Parakeets have not been seen since the 1920s.