Category: This Month in N.C. History

July 1937: Krispy Kreme Opens in Winston-Salem

This Month in North Carolina History

Krispy Kreme hat

On July 13, 1937, the first Krispy Kreme store opened for business in Winston-Salem, NC. The company’s success and quick rise to popularity were due both to the personal history of Vernon Rudolph, its owner, and the larger cultural history of doughnuts in America (and more specifically, the American South).

There were very few doughnuts shops in the South prior to the 1930s, and doughnut recipes that found their way into Southern kitchens were often thought of as “Yankee treats,” coming from places like Pennsylvania. However, several Southern food traditions and preferences helped pave the way for successful doughnut ventures. Bready foods such as biscuits and deep-fried snacks like hushpuppies had long been extremely popular in the region, as were other doughnut-like products, including French beignets in New Orleans.

Vernon Rudolph opened his first doughnut shop in 1933 in the town of Paducah, Kentucky, with a recipe his uncle had purchased from a chef in New Orleans. Within a few years, he had moved his business to several other Southern cities, and was focused on selling his doughnuts wholesale to local grocery stores. He still had not found the perfect location to establish his business. It wasn’t until the summer of 1937 that Rudolph set off for Winston-Salem, NC, with little more than twenty dollars in his pocket, two friends, and the intention of opening a new doughnut shop.

Why Winston-Salem? Many sources report that Rudolph was inspired by the pack of cigarettes he was smoking. He figured that a city that already supported one large industry – tobacco – would be able to support another. He also saw Winston-Salem’s early acceptance of industrialization and technology as promising, because his methods of doughnut production were mechanized. In addition he believed that a city with a large population had the potential to translate into a sizeable customer base.

The first Krispy Kreme store was located in Old Salem, across the street from the Salem Academy. After they made their rent payment, Rudolph and his partners had no money left to buy supplies and ingredients. Rudolph didn’t let this stop him, and managed to convince a local grocer to advance him the ingredients he needed in order to make the first batch of donuts, with the promise that he would soon pay the grocer back. In mid-July of 1937, the first batch of Krispy Kreme doughnuts was made.

The Krispy Kreme business model continued as it had before in Rudolph’s earlier stores, selling wholesale to local groceries. He used the Pontiac car that brought him to Winston-Salem to make his deliveries. In order to make delivering large quantities of doughnuts possible, Rudolph had to take out the back seat of the car – perhaps he could have taken inspiration from the same delivery methods that North Carolina bootleggers used during Prohibition?

However, Rudolph’s location in a busy downtown district was pumping the smell of his deep-fried donuts into an area frequented by pedestrians. They began stopping by to ask if they could purchase doughnuts for themselves rather than waiting to buy them at a store. Rudolph eventually succumbed to their demands and cut a hole in the wall so that he could sell doughnuts directly to the public fresh from the production line. The hole in the wall, which turned a wholesale operation into a retail business, had unintended consequences for how customers interacted with the business by showing them an open view directly into the production center. In addition to purveying their glazed calorie-bombs to the general public, Krispy Kreme was now selling the experience of sneaking a peek into the behind-the-scenes activities of the shop.

Rudolph used the new window into the production space to get customers’ attention. It was successful because it highlighted how clean and modern it was and introduced an element of tourism. Opening this window showed customers the machines Rudolph was using to produce doughnuts, which were definitely not old-fashioned. In fact, even the shape of a Krispy Kreme is mechanically derived: the doughnuts are formed from dough extruded by air pressure to form a perfect doughnut shape. There’s no traditional doughnut hole here! The Ring King Jr. used by Krispy Kreme stores to make doughnuts in the 1950s could make 75 dozen doughnuts in an hour.

Eventually, Krispy Kreme stores began installing their “Hot Now!” signs which lit up when fresh doughnuts were being produced in order to catch customers’ attention. At the beginning, Krispy Kreme’s business was largely focused on the wholesale market, so most doughnuts were being produced very early in the morning. As the company’s retail trade grew, it began producing doughnuts at times that were more customer friendly, with the “Hot Now!” used to draw in customers when they most wanted a doughnut.

Rudolph died in 1973 at the age of 58, but the company’s success continued to be closely tied to the spectacle of mechanical production. Even administrators of the company today refer to Krispy Kreme shops as “factory stores.” The stores were renovated again in the 1980s, creating more of a “stage” for doughnut production than a kitchen. More recently, Krispy Kreme introduced a line of coffees and espresso drinks to compete with other popular doughnut and coffee chains, which continues to encourage customers to stay and watch the doughnut production line.

Krispy Kreme has become something a cult obsession over the years, and its distinctive logo can often be found on T-shirts, thermoses, or the little paper chef’s hats you can take when you visit a store location. In 2004, NC State students developed a charity race, the Krispy Kreme Challenge, in which participants run two miles from the Bell Tower on State’s campus to the Krispy Kreme store on Peace Street, eat a dozen donuts, and run the two miles back, all within one hour.

Currently there are dozens flavors of Krispy Kreme doughnuts (not to mention their mini doughnuts and doughnut holes), but the Original Glazed has always been the most popular. The recipe that Vernon Rudolph’s uncle purchased from the French baker in New Orleans remains a secret, locked up in a safe in Winston-Salem. And while the recipe may not be available for your perusal, the corporate archives of Krispy Kreme are located at the Smithsonian Institution, as are some of the company’s doughnut-making machines from the 1950s, like the famous Ring King Jr.

Donut Queen button

Sources:

Kazanjian, Kirk and Joyner, Amy. Making Dough: The 12 Secret Ingredients of Krispy Kreme’s Sweet Success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004.

“Our Story,” Krispy Kreme website, accessed July 2014

Mullins, Paul R. Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut. Gainesville, FL: The University of Florida Press, 2008.

de la Pena, Carolyn. “Mechanized Southern Comfort: Touring the Technological South at Krispy Kreme,” in Dixie Emporium: Tourism, Foodways and Consumer Culture in the American South, ed. by Anthony J. Stanonis. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2008.

Image Sources:

[Krispy Kreme paper hat], North Carolina Collection Gallery, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

“Krispy Kreme, Donut Queen,” Lew Powell Memorabilia Collection, North Carolina Collection Gallery, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

June 1859: James Buchanan visits the University of North Carolina

This Month in North Carolina History

Campus 1855Wednesday, the first of June 1859, was hot and dry in Chapel Hill The University’s annual commencement exercises had already been going on for two days, and the morning’s program was just winding up when a large party of visitors, tired and covered with dust, arrived from Raleigh. Although late, this party was perhaps the most important part of the graduation ceremonies, because it included James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States and the second chief magistrate to visit the University campus.

In anticipation of Buchanan’s visit the largest crowd ever to have attended graduation gathered in Chapel Hill, putting a serious strain on the resources both of private hosts and public accommodations. Every carriage in the village and surrounding countryside had been pressed into service transporting the crowds, and when they were not sufficient, springless wagons took up the slack in a bone-jarring sort of way. The carriage of the President and official party was drawn by matched horses. Anything that could pull a wagon, including combinations of horses and mules, sufficed for the rest.

Music for the occasion was provided by the Richmond Armory band. In honor of the President, for the first time in its history the University invited a militia company, the Wilmington Light Infantry, to participate in the festivities. Reporters from the New York Herald and the Richmond Dispatch covered the visit, along with several local papers. Difficult as observers of the modern University may find it to believe, in 1859 UNC ignored and neglected the press. One reporter complained of paying two dollars for a ride from Durham in a wagon and then having to sleep on the floor when he got to Chapel Hill.

Buchanan was a hit with the crowds and seems to have enjoyed himself thoroughly. He made several well received impromptu speeches, although he usually spoke from prepared texts. He dined on the lawn of President Swain’s house with members of the senior class, the faculty, and the trustees. He met the public at a reception under the Davie Poplar during which, a University historian points out, the President kissed only one young lady. Perhaps this was noted especially since Buchanan, the only bachelor president, seems to have enjoyed kissing young ladies. The wife of one of his cabinet officers noted that the President “…had a good time in N. Carolina for Mr. T. says he kissed hundreds of pretty girls which made his mouth water.”

Buchanan came to Chapel Hill near the end of his presidency at a time when he was feeling deep unhappiness and frustration in his political life. When he was elected president in 1856 he brought to the office not only his political popularity, but also substantial experience and talent. He had served for years in both the Pennsylvania legislature and the United States House and Senate. He had been U. S. ambassador to Russia and Great Britain and had been Secretary of State under President Pierce. He had for decades been a shrewd leader of the Democratic Party in his home state and the nation. In less than four years, however, his presidency had fallen apart under the stress of sectional animosity. Buchanan was a northern man with southern sympathies. He liked and admired many slave holders and believed slavery to be a benevolent institution. However, he also revered the constitution and federal union. Caught between militant supporters of slavery on the one hand and abolitionists on the other, Buchanan could find no political way out except to appeal to everyone to obey the law. This position satisfied no one and the country moved ever closer to dissolution as his term came to an end.

When Buchanan spoke at Chapel Hill he often referred to his love of the union, the constitution, and the law. Perhaps this is one of the sources of his popularity during the visit. Perhaps North Carolinians, many of whom supported both the federal union and the “peculiar institution” of slavery, could identify with James Buchanan, caught, and increasingly helpless, between veneration of the union and the conflict over slavery.

Sources:

Klein, Philip Shriver. President James Buchanan: a biography. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, c. 1962.

Battle, Kemp Plummer. History of the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC: Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002.

Auchampaugh, Philip. “A forgotten journey of an antebellum president,” reprinted from Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, July 1935.

Image Source:

[“UNC Campus ca. 1855”] from the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives. File #77-113

May 1898: The Death of Ensign Worth Bagley

This Month in North Carolina History

Bagley-1The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba, on the night of February 15, 1898, accelerated the deterioration of relations between Spain and the United States which had resulted from Spain’s attempt to crush a long-simmering rebellion on the island. On the 19th of April, well in advance of the declaration of war on the 25th, the United States Navy began a blockade of Cuba. U. S. warships patrolled the approaches to every significant Cuban port and began probing coastal defenses.

On the afternoon of May 11, three American ships, the gunboat Wilmington, the torpedo boat Winslow, and the converted revenue cutter Hudson entered Cardenas Bay, about seventy miles west of Havana to confirm the presence of Spanish gunboats in the bay and the creation of new Spanish artillery batteries. Spotting a gunboat tied to a dock in the city of Cardenas, the Winslow moved closer to investigate and suddenly found itself the target of a barrage of shells, fired from the gunboat and hidden artillery on shore. In short order the Winslow‘s steering was shot away and its engines damaged. Attempting to limp away from the Spanish guns, the Winslow signaled for a tow. With shells falling all around them, the Hudson managed to get a tow line to the stricken torpedo boat. As the Winslow was pulled out of range, a final shell exploded on its deck killing three men instantly and mortally wounding two others. One of the men killed, Ensign Worth Bagley of Raleigh, North Carolina, is thought to be the first American naval officer to die in the Spanish-American War.

Bagley entered the U. S. Naval Academy at the age of fifteen in 1889 where he made a name for himself as a football player. Following graduation and a series of typical junior officer assignments, Bagley became secretary to the captain of the Maine, which post he left in November 1897 to become executive officer of the Winslow. The navy hoped for great things from its torpedo boats and service on one was a good choice for a young officer who wanted to distinguish himself.

Bagley’s death was widely reported and caused a sensation in North Carolina. He was buried in Raleigh with the military honors due a brigadier general, and in 1907 a monument was erected to him on Capitol Square. In part this attention stems from Bagley’s family connection. As grandson of a governor and brother-in-law of a powerful newspaper editor and Democratic Party leader, Worth Bagley was clearly part of North Carolina’s political elite, but the reaction to his death also points to the symbolic importance of the Spanish American War. North Carolina had resisted the clamor for war with Spain until after the destruction of the Maine. In the war itself, however, many North Carolinians and other southerners saw a reuniting of the country after the Civil War. Former Confederates volunteered to serve under the American flag—although Joseph Wheeler, once general in the Confederate Army and commander of American cavalry in Cuba, kept referring to the Spanish as Yankees. Worth Bagley, and other young southerners gave their lives in what many saw as a renewal of national allegiance.

Sources
Daniels, Josephus. The First Fallen Hero: A Biographical Sketch of Worth Bagley, Ensign, U. S. N. Norfolk, VA: Sam W. Bowman, Publisher: 1898.

Feuer, A. B. The Spanish-American War at Sea: Naval Action in the Atlantic. Westport, CN: Praeger, c. 1995.

Gibson, George H. “Attitudes in North Carolina Regarding the Independence of Cuba, 1868-1898.” North Carolina Historical Review, 43:1 (January 1966), pages 43-65.

Image Source:
[Front cover of] Daniels, Josephus. The First Fallen Hero: A Biographical Sketch of Worth Bagley, Ensign, U. S. N. Norfolk, VA: Sam W. Bowman, Publisher: 1898.

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

March 1916: The End of North Carolina Whaling

This Month in North Carolina History

Illustration titled "Whale on beach at Beaufort"

On March 16, 1916, North Carolina shore-based whalers caught and killed their last whale in the shallows off Cape Lookout. The last shore-based crew in the area disbanded the next year, after their gear was destroyed by a fire. These events marked the end of more than 250 years of tradition. Although whaling was never a major operation in North Carolina, the unique geography of the state and the tenacity of its residents allowed a small whaling industry to operate from colonial times through the early 20th century.

The earliest North Carolina whaling was not about catching whales, but rather was about processing whales that had already beached themselves or otherwise became stranded near the shore. Later, fishermen all along the East Coast developed shore-based systems of capturing and killing whales using teams of small boats. New England and New York fishermen—the main American whalers—gradually evolved their technique into a famous and extremely profitable ship-based industry. Whaling ships left from ports like New Bedford and Nantucket and hunted on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans until the industry’s demise in the mid-1920s. North Carolinians, however, held to the older tradition, and after 1800 it was the only state south of New York truly participating in a shore-based whaling industry.

North Carolina whaling activities centered on Beaufort, with the most active crews operating off Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks. These particular locations were ideal because they were very close to both the Gulf Stream and the regular migration paths of several types of whales. The season generally ran from late December to early June, with the peak coming sometime between February and May, when the whales migrated northward for the summer. Whalers spent the rest of the year in other endeavors, such as mullet or porpoise fishing. The number of men and the profitability of their whaling varied greatly from year-to-year. For example, R. Edward Earll reported that in 1879 there were four camps with a total of 72 men on the North Carolina coast. They took five whales and sold their products for $4,000. The next year, however, they missed the main migration and 108 men only caught one small whale for a sales total of $408.46. Because whale hunting was a cooperative endeavor, the profit made was divided among the men on a share basis, with about 30 to 45 shares for an 18-man crew. Each man received one share, gunners drew an extra share, and steersmen received an extra half share. In addition, for each gun he provided a man would get an extra two shares. A boat entitled a man to one additional share, and a full set of harpoons and lances was worth about 2/3 of a share.

A relatively detailed description of the North Carolina system of whaling was written by R. Edward Earll in the early 1880s for a federal document about the nation’s fishing industries. At the beginning of the season the whalers would build a camp on the shore that included huts or shelters from the weather and a “crow’s nest” or other type of lookout station on a hill. The station would be constantly manned. When the lookout spotted a whale, he would signal the camp and men would set out in their row boats in pursuit. Upon catching up with the animal, the men would harpoon it, usually with a wooden weight attached to the harpoon. The whale generally attempted to flee, but the drag from the weight would tire it. When it slowed or turned to fight the boats, a gunner would shoot it. In many cases, the men would initially target a calf, knowing that they were slower than the adults and that its mother would stay behind to help it. Early whalers used lances and harpoons to kill their prey, but the post-Civil War years also saw the use of specially-designed whale guns that shot explosive cartridges filled with a quarter pound of gunpowder. After it was killed, the whale’s carcass would be towed to shore. It was then cut apart and the blubber was processed or “tried out.”

There were generally two types of whales targeted by North Carolina crews: right whales—so-called because they were considered the “right” type of whales to hunt—and sperm whales. Both types yielded blubber, as well as fat from tongue, tail, skin, and flukes. These portions of the whale were processed into oil used as a fuel and a lubricant. The flexible baleens of right whales (which they used to filter food from the water) were utilized in a wide variety of products, including women’s corsets and umbrella ribs. Sperm whales produced two unique and very expensive materials. From their heads, whalers collected a very high quality wax/oil called spermaceti which was used in high-quality candles. In their digestive systems sperm whales created ambergris, a natural by-product that was used as a fragrance and fixative in perfumes. After the harvest of these parts, the bulk of the whale was discarded.

Whaling was serious and dangerous business, but Shackleford had one particularly unique and whimsical tradition: the residents named many of the animals they caught. “George Washington Whale” was captured on the president’s birthday, “Little Children Whale” was chased and killed by boys from the community when the adults were otherwise occupied, and “Cold Sunday” was taken on a day that was reportedly cold enough to freeze ducks in mid-flight. Perhaps the most famous of the state’s whales is “Mayflower,” a fifty-foot right whale killed in 1874. The whale is notorious for its final fight; it capsized one boat and dragged another between six and eight miles out to sea before it died. Its fame continued to spread after its death when its skeleton was put on display in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in the 1880s. (You can still visit Mayflower today in the Raleigh museum.)

The general downfall of whaling was caused by a combination of factors including the over-hunting of whales and the change in women’s fashions that nearly eliminated the need for whale-bone corsets. North Carolina’s whaling industry was also greatly damaged by particularly bad weather on the Outer Banks. Several large storms on Shackleford in the 1890s followed by a hurricane in 1899 prompted the population to abandon the area for safer locations on the mainland or more sheltered islands.

After the last whale was caught and the last crew disbanded, the occasional beached whale would be processed on North Carolina beaches. New England whaling ships also continued to hunt their quarry in North Carolina waters. In fact, they sent ships to the Hatteras Grounds, far off the northeast corner of North Carolina’s coast, until 1925.

Illustration titled "Cutting blubber"

Sources
H. H. Brimley. “Whale Fishing in North Carolina,” in Bulletin of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, 14 (April 1894).

“North Carolina and its Fisheries” in George Brown Goode. The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887.

Marcus B. Simpson, Jr. and Sallie W. Simpson. Whaling on the North Carolina Coast. Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1990.

David Stick. The North Carolina Outer Banks 1584-1958. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958.

William Henry Tripp. There Goes Flukes. New Bedford: Reynolds Printing, 1938.

Image Source:
H. H. Brimley. “Whale Fishing in North Carolina,” in Bulletin of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, 14 (April 1894).

February 1891: Founding of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This Month in North Carolina History

Postcard of UNC-Greensboro Administration Building
On February 18, 1891, the North Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act to Establish a Normal and Industrial School for White Girls,” creating the first public institution in the state to offer higher education to women. Called originally the State Normal and Industrial School, it became North Carolina College for Women in 1919, Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in 1931, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1963.

“The Normal” was one of the notable achievements of the reform movement in education which began in North Carolina in the 1880s. By almost any standard, education in North Carolina was in miserable condition at the beginning of the final decade of the nineteenth century. Nearly one third its citizens were illiterate; school attendance rates were well behind that of the nation as a whole; and, at one point during this period, North Carolina had the lowest per pupil expenditure rate in the nation. A group of young teachers, several of them trained at the University of North Carolina, accepted the challenge of revamping the state’s educational system. To do this they advocated the adoption of the graded school concept throughout the state. Graded schools — in which students pass from lower to higher levels or grades every year — demanded a substantial increase in professionally trained teachers, so the educational reformers also sought the establishment of training schools for a new generation of teachers. Beginning in 1889 Charles Duncan McIver and Edwin Alderman, two of the young leaders of the educational reform movement, crisscrossed the state holding “Teachers’ Institutes” in every county. They hammered home the advantages of the graded school system and always put in a plea for a teachers’ training school. When the legislature finally acted in 1891, McIver was the obvious choice to head the school, while Alderman was one of the first faculty members. After considering several locations, a site on the edge of Greensboro, North Carolina, was chosen for the new school, and in 1892 the Normal and Industrial School welcomed the first students to its new, two-building campus.

Postcard of Student's Building, State Normal and Industrial CollegeOver the years under several names, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro supplied teachers to the public school systems of the state. McIver and Alderman, however, had also believed in the value of higher education for women as a good in itself, and from the beginning the school served this cause as well. The curriculum in the arts and sciences broadened and deepened as the Normal became first a college and then a university. As Chancellor William Moran observed in 1992, the founders and faculty at Greensboro understood “that talented women were one of the new forces that would shape the nation and the twentieth century.”

Sources
Trelease, Allen W. Making North Carolina Literate: the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, from Normal School to Metropolitan University. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2004.

Moran, William E. Between History and Hope: Some Centennial Reflections. New York: Newcomen Society of the United States, 1992.

Bowles, Elisabeth Ann. A Good Beginning: the First Four Decades of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967.

January 1890: Creation of the American Tobacco Company

This Month in North Carolina History

Late in January 1890 the five largest tobacco companies in the United States completed a series of meetings stretching back for almost a year and agreed to combine their operations into the largest tobacco manufacturing corporation in the world. The American Tobacco Company, chartered under the laws of New Jersey, dominated the market for tobacco products in the United States and was a major supplier of tobacco to Europe and Asia for nearly twenty years. A prime example of what historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., called “managerial capitalism,” American Tobacco monopolized the production of all tobacco products except cigars, and replaced market forces with management decision making to both stimulate and supply the demand for its product.
Scotland Coins of All Nations card from American Tobacco packet

The driving force behind the creation of American Tobacco was W. Duke Sons and Company of Durham, North Carolina, led by James Buchanan Duke. The family business had prospered under James B. Duke’s combination of aggressive marketing and strict cost accounting but lagged behind older and larger firms. Duke believed that the future of tobacco manufacturing was in cigarettes and that the key to success in making cigarettes lay in the cigarette rolling machine. In 1885 Duke reached an agreement with the Bonsack Company of Virginia to lease their cigarette manufacturing machines for his factories. Other cigarette manufacturers had rejected the Bonsack machine, fearing that it was unreliable and believing that customers had a strong preference for hand-made cigarettes and would not buy the machine-made variety. Duke’s gamble paid off in a big way. The machines worked effectively and greatly increased W. Duke Sons production. Lower cigarette prices, brought on by increased manufacturing efficiency and secret leasing terms Duke had negotiated with the Bonsack Company, overcame any customer resistance. W. Duke Sons became one of the largest tobacco companies in the United States. In the late 1880s James B. Duke slowly moved toward creating a monopolistic combination of the five dominant tobacco firms. This led ultimately to the series of meetings in 1889 from which American Tobacco was born.

Siam Coins of All Nations card from American Tobacco packet

After 1890 Duke methodically combined the manufacturing functions of the firms comprising American Tobacco. He introduced the accounting system which had been so successful at W. Duke Sons and continued a strong marketing and sales program. Under his leadership American Tobacco flourished, gaining control of the market for plug tobacco and pipe tobacco as well as cigarettes. American Tobacco’s success, however, brought it to the attention of Federal regulators, and in 1907 the national government began an anti-trust suit against the company. In 1911 the United States Supreme Court held that American Tobacco violated the Sherman Anti-trust Act and ordered it dissolved. James B. Duke participated in the process of reorganizing the tobacco giant into three companies: a much smaller American Tobacco, Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company, and P. Lorillard Company, but, after that, increasingly distanced himself from the tobacco business and went on to other interests. For a short while, a North Carolina company was at the center of the biggest tobacco manufacturing concern in the world and one of the giants in the era of great American business combinations.

Sources:

Tilley, Nannie May. “Agitation against the American Tobacco Company in North Carolina.” North Carolina Historical Review, 24:2 (April, 1947), pages 207-223.

Durden, Robert F. Bold entrepreneur: a life of James B. Duke. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2003.

American Tobacco story. [New York]: American Tobacco Co., 1962.

Image Source:

Coins of all nations. New York: Knapp & Co., [188?]. [Distributed in packages of Duke’s cigarettes.]

December: Jonkonnu in North Carolina

This Month in North Carolina History

In antebellum North Carolina, Christmas season was the time for an African American celebration found almost nowhere else in North America, but widespread through the islands of the Caribbean. Variously called Jonkonnu, Johnkannaus, John Coonah, or John Canoe, the custom was described in the slave community of Jamaica in the late eighteenth century where it was thought to have been of African origin. Although the details often changed from place to place, Jonkonnu usually involved several African American men who dressed in costumes made of rags and animal skins with grotesque masks and horns. Sometimes one of their number wore his best clothes instead. They danced wildly, often playing musical instruments and singing. In towns, the Jonkonnu men went from house to house while on plantations they performed at the homes of masters, overseers, and other white people. They expected to be rewarded with gifts of money or liquor. Jonkonnu dancers were often accompanied by crowds of men and women who cheered them on while taking no direct part in the performance.

Jonkonnu obviously represented a time of release and enjoyment for slaves from the drudgery of their day–to–day work. Some historians believe that it may also have been a time when the constraints of the slave system were loosened in other ways. On plantations in North Carolina slaves of all sorts had access to their masters in ways that they seldom had during the year. The Jonkonnu performers and their accompanying crowd usually came right up to their master’s house, a privilege usually denied to all but house servants. After the performance, the master would often speak to the performers and shake hands with them, another departure from usual practice. Jonkonnu continued in North Carolina after emancipation, at least in Wilmington, where it was observed as late as 1880. A version of it also seems to have been adopted by whites in the late nineteenth century. In the end, however, it may have been too closely tied to the slave system in which it arose to have survived long after freedom.

Sources
Fenn, Elizabeth A. “‘A perfect equality seemed to reign’: Slave Society and Jonkonnu.” The North Carolina Historical Review, 65:2 (April 1988), pages 127-153.

Powell, William S., Ed. The Encyclopedia of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2006

November 1753: Moravians Come to Bethabra

This Month in North Carolina History

Image of Bethabra Church
On November 17, 1753, fifteen weary men and a wagon load of supplies arrived at a deserted cabin in the western part of North Carolina in what is today Forsyth County. The group had been six weeks on a journey from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Their task was to break ground in the wilderness for a new colony of their church, the Unitas Fratrum, better known as Moravians.

The roots of the Moravian faith ran back to the teachings of the Czech priest Jan Hus, whose attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church led to his martyrdom in 1415. The church founded by Hus’s followers was destroyed or scattered in the Thirty Years War, and it was not until the 1720s that adherents of this religious tradition were offered refuge on the estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony. From their village of Herrnhut, the Moravians began sending missionaries around the world, including the colonial settlements of North America. To support their missionary effort, the Moravians founded towns in the American colonies, particularly in Pennsylvania. In 1753 Zinzendorf and other Moravian leaders accepted Lord Granville’s terms for the purchase of 100,000 acres of land from his vast holdings in North Carolina. An exploring party, led by Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg had already located a desirable tract of land, which they called Wachau, but soon came to be known as Wachovia.

The advance party of fifteen founded the village of Bethabara, and soon Moravians from Pennsylvania added to the population. The Moravian pioneers were organized and industrious, carefully selected by church leaders for their skills and talents. Originally all of the settlers were drawn from the “single brethren,” but in 1755 married couples and children began arriving. The resulting overcrowding led to the founding of nearby Bethania in 1759. Finally, in 1765, the Moravians launched an ambitious plan to build a “city” in the wilderness. Located six miles from Bethabara, the new town of Salem quickly outgrew the older settlements to become the center of life in the Wachovia tract.

The Moravians brought to North Carolina their strong system of community life. In the original Wachovia settlements, property was held in common and settlers drew on community stores for food, tools, and other supplies. Towns were governed by the church, which had control or influence not only over municipal affairs, but also over many aspects of the personal lives of the people. The Moravians brought with them a love of music, which was an integral part of their religious life. Distinctive aspects of Moravian worship, such as the community meals called “love feasts,” continued in the North Carolina settlements. In time, church control withered and the strictures of communal life eased. More than most settlers in North Carolina, however, Moravians maintained the heritage of a distinctive way of life into modern times.

Sources:

Chester S. Davis. Hidden Seed and Harvest: A History of the Moravians. Winston-Salem, NC: Wachovia Historical Society, 1973.

Allen W. Schattschneider. Through Five Hundred Years: A Popular History of the Moravian Church. Bethlehem, PA: The Moravian Church in America, 1996.

Daniel C. Crews and Richard W. Starbuck. With Courage for the Future: The Story of the Moravian Church, Southern Province. Winston-Salem, NC: Moravian Church in America, Southern Province, 2002.

Image Source:

“Bethabara Church,” Board 8 (Area 7F) of Mary Grace Canfield Photographic Collection, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives.

October 1918: North Carolina and the “Blue Death”

This Month in North Carolina History

On October 3, 1918, Governor Thomas Bickett issued the first order in North Carolina’s battle with an enemy which would prove more deadly to the state than the soldiers of the Central Powers against whom troops from North Carolina were fighting thousands of miles away in Europe. A hitherto unknown strain of influenza had appeared in Wilmington and was spreading west over the state, following the rail lines. North Carolinians were familiar with older forms of influenza, often called the “grippe,” which were debilitating but only occasionally deadly. The new type of flu struck fast, causing two or three days of high fever which, in a distressingly large number of cases, led to death. The lungs of victims filled with fluid and their skin turned a dark blue, as their respiratory system failed and their tissue was starved for oxygen. The old influenza was most dangerous for the weak or elderly; the new flu preyed on the young and healthy.

The influenza epidemic overwhelmed North Carolina’s medical community and rudimentary public health system. The medicines and folk remedies on which people customarily relied were useless. The state’s primary public health response—forbidding public gatherings and quarantining victims—began late and was almost impossible to enforce. When local public health services failed or where they were nonexistent, people working through war-preparedness groups and the Red Cross, organized volunteers to visit the sick and fetch medicine or food. Emergency kitchens were set up to cook for those too sick to help themselves.

What was happening in North Carolina was a part of the worst influenza pandemic in modern times. Present day research has identified the cause of the disease as an influenza A virus strain. The virus produced a violent reaction in the human immune system, which ironically led to the disease being deadliest among those whose systems were strongest, the young and fit. The virus swept in three waves through the populations of Europe and North America, already dislocated by World War I, and eventually spread to all parts of the earth. Overall, as many as 20 million people may have died.

More than 13,000 of those dead came from North Carolina. Influenza killed people in all walks of life and was particularly deadly on those who cared for the sick, both professional and volunteer. It killed with something like the speed of modern warfare: in many cases less than 48 hours passed between the first sneeze and the last breath; the president of the University of North Carolina died near the beginning of the epidemic; his successor died a month later. Soldiers in crowded training camps were especially vulnerable. At the railroad station that served Camp Greene near Charlotte coffins were stacked from floor to ceiling, taking home the bodies of young soldiers who never saw the war.

In some ways North Carolina benefited from the influenza epidemic. The 1920s witnessed an unprecedented boom in hospital construction in the state, fueled, at least in part, by the inadequacy of the old health care system, so graphically demonstrated in the epidemic. For much the same reason, the public health system began to take hold in North Carolina during the years following World War I. In the end, however, the disease, while deadly, was over quickly, and memory of the Blue Death faded. Old stories still circulate: a lonely house in the country where an entire family, parents and children, were found dead in their beds or the four country doctors serving an area at the beginning of the sickness, only two of whom were alive at the end or the woman who, on seeing a new-dug grave, said it reminded her of 1919, when the graveyards looked like they had been turned with a plow.

Image with caption "The way the Germans did it at Chateau Thierry" from The Health Bulletin. Raleigh, North Carolina State Board of Health. vol. 34:10 (October, 1919)Image with caption "The Way North Carolinians Do It at Home" from The Health Bulletin. Raleigh, North Carolina State Board of Health. vol. 34:10 (October, 1919)

Sources
David L. Cockrell. “‘A Blessing in Disguise’: the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and North Carolina’s Medical and Public Health Communities,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 73:3 (July, 1996).

Selena W. Sanders, “The Big Flu,” The State, vol. 44:7 (December, 1976).

Robert Mason, “Surviving the Blue Killer, 1918,” Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 74:2 (Spring, 1998).

Jim Nesbitt, “When killer flu struck,” News and Observer, November 26, 2006.

Annie Sutton Cameron. A Record of the War Activities in Orange County, North Carolina, 1917-1919. [electronic resource] [Chapel Hill, NC] Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel, 2002.

Image Source:
The Health Bulletin. Raleigh, North Carolina State Board of Health. vol. 34:10 (October, 1919)