Month: August 2016

Taft ‘impressed mightily’ by Charlotte’s parading possums

“A large ‘possum occupied an exalted position on one of the wagons [in the parade celebrating President Taft’s 1909 visit to Charlotte], and the President laughed outright when he witnessed in the raw the meat that made his Georgia trip some months ago memorable.

“This was merely a forerunner, however, to the ‘Possum Club [float], which contained a number of ‘possums up in a huge limb and a number of hounds furiously barking after them. …. The Chief Executive continued to laugh as the float moved into the distance. It had impressed him mightily.”

— From a souvenir booklet commemorating Taft’s visit [souvenir postcard here]

In 1909, of course, controversy had not yet attached to the use of possums for entertainment purposes.

 

Exhibition “Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective” opens in Raleigh

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Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective opened this past Saturday at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. The Museum of History is the sixth venue for the exhibition since its debut in August 2013 at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone.  The Morton photographs will be at the museum for more than a year!  Admission is free.  If you are looking for ways to beat the triple-digit heat index temperatures we’ve been experiencing in the eastern part of the state in recent days, a visit to Museum of History may be just the ticket.  The exhibition looks terrific!  The museum’s staff designed the exhibition to flow chronologically and several images sport new descriptive labels, so if you’ve seen the exhibition once before it is worth seeing it again.

There will be several programs at the museum related to the exhibition in the coming months, including “Hugh Morton, More Than Bridges and Bears” with Hugh Morton’s grandson Jack Morton and the exhibition’s curator Stephen J. Fletcher, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archivist, on December 8, 2016, 5:30-8:00 pm.

Infants fatally ‘over-fed, over-clothed’ in 1844?

“So overeager were mothers toward their sick children that in 1844 the Raleigh Star complained that the results were counterproductive. Maternal fussiness was a reason why, the editor asserted, one-fifth of North Carolina infants died before reaching a year of age. They are ‘over-fed, over-clothed, take too little exercise in the air.’

“Swaddling was not common, so far as we know, but obviously the mothers of whom the writer spoke were killing their young with kindness and restricting their movements in some way.”

–– From “Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South” by Bertram Wyatt-Brown (2007)

 

Taking a look at James Taylor’s Jewish influences

“While [James] Taylor is known mostly for writing his own songs… he has turned to numerous Jewish songwriting duos for material, including Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (‘My Romance’), Burt Bacharach and Hal David (‘[The Man Who Shot] Liberty Valance’) and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (‘Hound Dog’).

“Of Scottish heritage himself, and a native New Englander who grew up mostly in North Carolina, Taylor… has surrounded himself in his adult life with Jewish musicians, friends and collaborators, most notably his first wife, Carly Simon….”

— From “The Secret Jewish History of James Taylor” by Seth Rogovoy in The Forward (Aug. 3)

 

Bibliography for Set in the Southern Part of Heaven

Set in the Southern Part of Heaven: Chapel Hill Through Authors’ Eyes

North Carolina Collection Gallery, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC Chapel Hill

June 20 – Oct. 2, 2016

Bibliography of works included in the exhibition:

Adams, Alice. Careless Love. New York, N.Y.: New American Library, 1967.

Athas, Daphne. Entering Ephesus. Sag Harbor, NY: Second Chance Press, 1991.

Bache, Ellyn. The Activist’s Daughter. [Uncorrected proof]. Duluth, Minn.: Spinsters Ink, 1997.

Battle, Kemp P. History of the University of North Carolina. Reprint Co., 1974.

Betts, Doris. Souls Raised from the Dead : a Novel. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1994.

Blythe, Will. To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever : a Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry. New York: Harper, 2007.

Brown, Nic. Doubles : a Novel. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010.

Correll, Jon. The Sparks Fly Upward. Portland, Oregon: Inkwater Press, 2013.

Deford, Frank. Everybody’s all-American. 1st Da Capo Press ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2004.

Diary entry from Karen L. Parker,  Collection #5275, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ehle, John. Move over, Mountain. 1st ed., 50th anniversary ed. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Press 53, 2007.

Fahy, Thomas Richard. Night Visions. 1st ed. New York, NY: Dark Alley, 2004.

Fox, Missy Julian. Goodnight Carolina. Carrboro, N.C.: McDonald & Associates, 2012.

Freymann-Weyr, Garret. Pretty Girls : a Novel. 1st ed. New York: Crown, 1988.

Fuller, Edwin W. Sea-gift : a Novel. North Carolina?: G. H. Dortch, 1940.

Green, Paul. Dog on the Sun : a Volume of Stories. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949.

Hawkins, Jeremy. The Last Days of Video : a Novel. Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, an imprint of Counterpoint Press, 2015.

Link, Phil. Another Time : a Fictional Story of the Truth About Fraternities at Chapel Hill in the 30’s. Greensboro, N.C.: Carolina Cerulean Books, 1990.

McConnaughey, James. Village Chronicle. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.

Mebane, Mary E. Mary, Wayfarer : an Autobiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Moore, John W. The Heirs of St. Kilda : a Story of the Southern Past. Raleigh: Edwards, Broughton, 1881.

Morgan, Diana. Chapel Hill. Warner Books ed. New York: Warner Books, 1992.

Pahlow, Gertrude. Cabin in the Pines. Philadelphia: Penn Pub., 1935.

Patterson, James. Kiss the Girls : a Novel. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

Poem by George Moses Horton, Collection #4799-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Prince, William Meade. The Southern Part of Heaven. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.

Rochelle, Larry. Back to the Rat. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: [Larry Rochelle], 2013.

Rochelle, Warren. The Called. 1st ed. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2010.

Ruark, Robert Chester. Poor No More. Corgi ed. London: Corgi Books, 1968.

Scott, Joanna C. Child of the South. Berkley trade pbk. ed. New York: Berkley Books, 2009.

Vining, Elizabeth Gray. Jane Hope. New York: Viking Press, 1947.

Watkins, Graham. Dark Winds. Berkley ed. New York: Berkley Books, 1989.

Weinholtz, Donn. Carolina Blue : a Novella. Hartford, Connecticut: Full Media Services, 2012.

Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel : a Story of the Buried Life. New York: Scribner’s, 1929.

Livermush never made it big (but I don’t care)

“Livermush hails from North Carolina hilltops and foothills that once hummed with tractors, textile mills and furniture factories. Families that ate livermush lived frugally and made do with homemade. But most started buying commercially made once it became available in country and company stores during the Depression.

“Unlike bacon and country ham (or, for that matter, chitlins), livermush never took off. To this day, the epicenter of livermush is a handful of counties in western North Carolina where the five commercial producers — Mack’s, Neese’s, Jenkins, Hunter’s and Corriher’s — remain.

“I was served plenty of livermush when I was a little kid, mostly because my granddaddy loved it. I tapered off livermush as I grew up and headed out into the world….

“For about 30 years, I made one annual exception, at the North Carolina State Fair. Neese’s and/or Jenkins always had a booth in the Jim Graham Building, where workers cut bricks of livermush into bites the size of sugar cubes, fried them up and stabbed them onto frill picks. Fairgoers would queue patiently, awaiting their turn to lift a pick from the tray and pop that free bite into their mouths as though it were a communion wafer….

“These days I don’t eat livermush as often as I could, but I defend it as often as I can…. I am from western North Carolina, and I know my place.

— From “Why Livermush Matters to North Carolina” by Sheri Castle at Extra Crispy (Aug. 2)

 

Confederate colonel’s fame shrinks even further

“Question: Conspicuously missing from the corner of Tunnel Road and Chunns Cove Road [in Asheville] is a state highway historical marker titled,  ‘Lee’s School, 1846-1879.’ The silver and black aluminum sign commemorated a school for boys conducted by Stephen Lee, a West Point graduate and Confederate colonel….  Has it been removed for maintenance, replacement or retirement?

“Answer: First of all, the information on the sign was incorrect.

” ‘I got a message from somebody up that way saying Stephen Lee did not graduate from West Point, so that makes one line out of four or five on the sign incorrect,’ said Ansley Herring Wegner, administrator of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. ‘And sure enough, he was right. He entered the U.S. Military Academy, where he remained for two years, but he resigned’….

“If something simple is incorrect, like a date, that can be fixed with a kit that cost about $100. But in the Lee case, an entire new sign would cost $1,700.

” ‘The [marker review] committee said this guy just doesn’t qualify for a marker,’ Wegner said. ‘This marker came to be in 1951. Back in that day, less research went into the markers. The process for approving markers was not as rigorous….’

“Lee’s failure to graduate West Point was not the disqualifying factor, Wegner said. While locally important, Lee did not have accomplishments of statewide significance, and his military service was relatively short.

” ‘He ran a school, and he was in the Confederate Army for a very short time — less than a year,’ Wegner said, noting that even some generals or military heroes in North Carolina do not have markers. ‘Basically, as a package, the committee didn’t want to spend $1,700 to put up marker for someone who would not qualify for a marker today.’ ”

— From “Confederate marker to go down forever?”  in John Boyle’s Answer Man column in the Asheville Citizen-Times (Aug. 2) 

 

Damien Hirst window-shopped at Carolina Biological

“In 1992, [Damien] Hirst moved to New York, where he met John LeKay, a 31-year-old British artist….

“Hirst mentioned that he was looking for a source of butterflies, and LeKay gave him a spare copy of the Carolina Biological Supply Co. Science catalogue, which he had been using as a source of ideas. They reached an agreement, said LeKay: ‘I put yellow stickers on the pages with the skeletons, skulls, mannequins and resuscitation dolls I was working on. He said he would stick to the animals and I would do the humans and he was very happy.’….

“LeKay’s gift of the catalogue manifested as a dramatic development in Hirst’s oeuvre within a few months. One of the items illustrated was a model cow bisected lengthways. In the 1993 Venice Bienniale, Hirst exhibited Mother and Child Divided, a cow and a calf bisected lengthways….

“Another Hirst exhibit was This Little Piggy Went to Market, a pig split in two lengthways (in vitrines of formaldehyde). One of the pictures in the Carolina Science catalogue was an anatomical model of a pig split in two lengthways….”
— From “The Art Damien Hirst stole” by Charles Thomson at 3:AM magazine (Sept. 14, 2010)

Carolina Biological Supply, founded in Burlington in 1927, immodestly but inarguably bills itself as “truly one of the most extraordinary companies in the world.” Among its nonscientific distinctions: capturing the plum web address carolina.com.

h/t David Perry