Happy Birthday, dear Bayard

 

As captioned in Light and Air: The Photography of Bayard Wootten, "The staff of the Wootten-Moulton Chapel Hill studio joined Wootten in a birthday celebration about 1940. George C. Moulton, her half brother, stands on the far left. In front of him and leaning over the table is T. C. Moore, Wootten's successor in the business. Margaret Howland Fowler, a secretary in the studio for two decades, is to Wootten's right. (Mary Moulton Barden Collection)"
As captioned in Light and Air: The Photography of Bayard Wootten, “The staff of the Wootten-Moulton Chapel Hill studio joined Wootten in a birthday celebration about 1940. George C. Moulton, her half brother, stands on the far left. In front of him and leaning over the table is T. C. Moore, Wootten’s successor in the business. Margaret Howland Fowler, a secretary in the studio for two decades, is to Wootten’s right. (Mary Moulton Barden Collection)”

Today marks the 142nd birthday of photographer Bayard Wootten.  Born 17 December 1875, Wootten began her photographic career in 1905 in New Bern.  The photograph above depicts Wooting blowing out candles on one of her many birthday cakes, probably around 1940.  She died on 6 April 1959 in her 83rd year.

In 1998 the University of North Carolina Press published Jerry Cotten’s biography of Wootten, which received the Mary Ellen LoPresti Award from the southeast chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America.  In October of this year on the eve of the books twentieth anniversary, UNC Press reissued the biography as a paperback edition featuring photographs reproduced from Wootten’s original negatives using twenty-first digital imaging technology.  The results are photographs reproduced with even more richness, both subtle and dramatic, than the first printing.

When you get your new 2018 calendar, circle March 27th.  On that evening, Jerry Cotten and I will each give a presentation during a program titled, “Bayard Wootten: Then and Now.”  Jerry will talk about Wootten and her accomplishments as featured in the biography, and I will discuss what we have learned about Wootten during the twenty years since the book’s initial publication.  The presentations will follow a brief opening reception for a new exhibition in The Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library, and a book signing will follow the presentations.

Robert Ruark still gets around

When I travel abroad, I often checkout the local bookstores to see if they carry books by any Tar Heel authors. I am used to finding translations of blockbuster novels by Kathy Reichs, Nicholas Sparks, Orson Scott Card, or Patricia Cornwell. There were some of those in a bookstore in Bratislava that I went in last month, but imagine by surprise to find this:

ruark_cover_blog

It’s a 2012 Slovak edition of Robert Ruark’s The Honey Badger. Seeing this book piqued my interest–are Ruark’s books currently being published in other places and other languages? Yes. Since 2000, translations of Ruark’s books have appeared in Chinese, Czech, German, and Vietnamese.

An online literary map of North Carolina

Screenshot of North Carolina Literary Map

Congratulations to our library colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who are re-launching their website the North Carolina Literary Map today. The site includes 2,583 North Carolina authors and 4,808 titles set in real or fictional locations in North Carolina. The site’s creators note that their selection process was broad and inclusive. They write:

The criteria focuses on works written about North Carolina and authors who were born in North Carolina, who currently live or have lived in North Carolina, who have written about North Carolina, or who have made a significant contribution to the North Carolina’s literary landscape. The author must have at least one publication cataloged by the Library of Congress.

Wonder how many works are about or have been set in Northampton County? The answer is now at hand.

You can be a part of today’s launch festivities by joining the site’s creators for a webinar at 3:30.

Check out what’s new in the North Carolina Collection

Several new titles just added to “New in the North Carolina Collection.”  To see the full list simply click on the link in this entry or click on the “New in the North Carolina Collection” tab at the top of the page.  As always, full citations for all the new titles can be found in the University Library Catalog and they are all available for use in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Errol Morris tackles the Jeffrey MacDonald case

But as wily as [Errol] Morris is, I was worried when he told me about his latest obsession: the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. ‘Oh my God, no,’ was my measured reaction, ‘Not that!’

For the past four decades the MacDonald affair has been a toxic swamp that has drawn in some of journalism’s best and brightest writers.

‘Yes, that,’ Morris replied, telling me that MacDonald is the subject of his next book, titled A Wilderness of Error. In fact, he said, the book is the culmination of 20 years of fascination with the case, going back to a time in the early ’90s when Morris and his wife visited wig shops in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to investigate the wig-fiber evidence at the MacDonald crime scene. He is not a MacDonald partisan in that he doesn’t necessarily believe prosecutorial errors are proof of innocence, rather evidence of uncertainty.

If Errol Morris is that excited about the MacDonald case, it’s a sign we can’t say ‘Case closed.’

-from “Errol Morris: The Thinking Man’s Detective,” by Ron Rosenbaum. In the March 2012 issue of Smithsonian magazine. As a documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has focused his camera on former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, physicist Stephen Hawking and Texas death row inmate Randall Adams. His book on Jeffrey MacDonald is slated for publication in August.

Check out what’s new in the North Carolina Collection

Several new titles just added to “New in the North Carolina Collection.” To see the full list simply click on the link in this entry or click on the “New in the North Carolina Collection” tab at the top of the page. As always, full citations for all the new titles can be found in the University Library Catalog and they are all available for use in the Wilson Special Collections Library Reading Room.

En Espanol…Libro de Hechos de El Viejo Estado del Norte

I received an interesting email from the Historical Publications Section of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History concerning The Old North State Fact Book…it is now published in Spanish. See below for more information:

The Historical Publications Section of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History announces the publication of its first Spanish-language title Libro de Hechos de El Viejo Estado del Norte (The Old North State Fact Book).

First published in 1976 and now in its sixth revised edition, The Old North State Fact Book provides a concise reference source for North Carolina’s early history, along with information on the State Capitol; the Legislative Building; the Executive Mansion; and the state flag, seal, song, and motto. The book also includes information about and color pictures of all official state symbols and festivals. A list of North Carolina’s governors (1585–2011) completes the text.

To order a copy of Libro de Hechos de El Viejo Estado del Norte, please visit:

http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net/3482.html

Link dump shrugs off Iowa straw poll, heads to N.H.

— Captured battle flags returning to N.C. coast  (and not everybody is happy about it).

— Tidbits of Tar Heelia tucked in David McCullough’s latest.

— For Colored Agricultural Fair, “The whole city participated, just like Bele Chere.”

Nitrate negatives yield a (slow-loading) gallery of “Old Wilmington Mystery Photos.”

— Who would steal Mitch Easter’s storied guitars?

 

Link dump says thanks but no to coaching vacancy

— Why are Robert E. Lee‘s descendants playing keep-away with historians?

— Four towns remember their minor league pasts, while one longs for a minor league future.

— After Appomattox, a scourge of suicide, divorce and debt.

Montford Point Marines look for recognition given Tuskegee Airmen.

“Seven Wonders of Charlotte” inexplicably omits visitor-vexing intersection.

 

Sir Walter Raleigh: The Man Behind the Myths and Legends

Cover of Sir Walter Raleigh in Life and Legend

You’re invited to join us Thursday night for a look at Sir Walter Raleigh. Here’s a description.

Soldier, voyager, courtier, colonizer, politician, poet, historian, possible traitor—Sir Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) played many roles on the public stage of Elizabethan England. Historian Mark Nicholls, President and Librarian of St. John’s College, Cambridge University, will discuss a new biography of Raleigh he has co-authored that offers fresh insights and observations about a man whose spirit of adventure helped set the course of the history of North Carolina—a land he never visited but whose capital city bears his name.

5:00 p.m. Reception with display of items from the Library’s Sir Walter Raleigh Collection, lobby of Wilson Library on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

5:45 p.m. Program, Pleasants Family Assembly Room, Wilson Library on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.