Category: Postcards

Oh, You “Creepers” And Your Hickory Postcards!

While browsing the North Carolina postcards this Sunday afternoon, I was struck by a rather humorous message to a Miss Daisy of Lattimore, NC, that relates to the vernacular of today’s language. Have you ever heard of anyone described as a “creeper”? Apparently, lots of people (males, mostly) fit the description: awkward passerbys, stalkers at Alpine Bagel, hunchbacks of Notre Dame, Drouets from Sister Carrie, etc. The list is endless and, well, Chapel Hill is a rich contributor of these seedy figures (ever visit a certain corner in Davis Library?)

In this particular postcard featuring Main Street of Hickory, NC, we gain scope into the psyche of…of… well, we don’t know his name (the point!). The message reads:

“Hello, Miss Daisy, How are you getting along these days? Suppose you will be puzzled to know who this is from, Wont you? Try and guess who.”

Does Miss Daisy ever guess the name of her addresser? Was this merely flirtatious- October-of-1906-romance in action? Or, rather, the vicious intent of a “creeper” extraordinaire?! We’ll never know, I suppose, but the view of Main Street in Hickory is rather nice!

Postcards And Slang – I’m Out Of The Swim.

Even though most messages sent via postcard are fairly standard updates about the weather and/or places of interest, it often feels a bit voyeuristic to be transcribing these messages from the more or less distant past.  Every once in a while I come across a card that has to be shared because it presents some pretty funny content.

Grady, the sender of the card below, offset his slang phrases in quotations which made it easy for me to notice them more than 95 years after the card was mailed.  He writes, “Howdy! Why didn’t you come to Charlotte today? There’s “some time” going on here and I’m “in the swim.” May I write to you tomorrow? Grady.”

When I showed some co-workers my find, we immediately began looking for definitions and references to the phrase “in the swim.”

Like any good librarian, my boss checked the OED.  Sure enough, “in the swim” has been in use since 1869, meaning, “the current of affairs or events, esp. the popular current in business, fashion, or opinion; chiefly in phr. in (out of) the swim.”

And as for “some time?”  That could mean any number of things, and we’ll leave that to your own imagination of what the movers and shakers of 1910s Charlotte were doing.

Susie Sharp

Author Anna R. Hayes and UNC Press have recently released Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp. The book examines the life of the first woman judge in the state of North Carolina and the first woman in the United States to be elected chief justice of a state supreme court. Hayes extensively used the Susie Sharp Papers in Wilson Library’s Southern Historical Collection to write the book, but I thought I would share a recent find from the North Carolina Collection’s Postcard project. A handwritten note on the back of this real photo postcard states: “Susie Sharpe family picture 1910-1918, from Reidsville, N.C. Susie Sharpe — N.C. Supreme Court.” I have a guess, but can anyone help identify which one is Susie Sharp?

Restaurant Menus, 1960

I’m constantly amazed at what I find in the NC Collection stacks. While looking for an item that was shelved incorrectly (yes, that does happen), I found a box of menus from various North Carolina restaurants in 1960. I’m not sure who collected them, though I’d bet it was William S. Powell, curator of the NC Collection from 1958 to 1974. Just as Bridget’s “The Price is What?” post highlighted one aspect of our consumer culture, these menus do the same thing. As an example, I’ll share two images with you. To the right is a menu from The Chuck Wagon Restaurant in Blowing Rock. The interior of the menu also mentions several other popular destinations in the area, such as Grandfather Mountain. Is it still there? I couldn’t find any information about it. Does anyone remember eating there?

I’ll also share with you a postcard that I found tucked into the menu. It is by the late Hugh Morton, owner of Grandfather Mountain and promoter and proponent of everything North Carolina. You can see more Hugh Morton images at the NC Collection Photographic Archives’ blog, A View to Hugh: Processing the Hugh Morton Photographs and Films.