Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
If you know the story on this 2-inch by 3-inch cast iron paperweight (?), you’re one up on me — and on the experts at North Carolina State. “The university archivist,” I’m told, “thinks this likely dates from the 1930s or the 1940s and suggested that perhaps it was a student project rather than an item that was mass produced.”
Regardless, its simple depiction of Bernoulli’s Principle dates it no earlier than 1738.
“The highlight of [North Carolina’s home demonstration] program was the dress revue….As participants walked across a stage in full view of an audience and panel of judges, they announced their names and the cost of their homemade ensemble….
“The 1933 competition held at North Carolina State University featured county winners from across the state. Forty-eight women modeled outfits in six different categories: house dresses, general wear, ‘remodeled,’ sack garments, afternoon and evening…. Included were a dress made of 20-year-old lace curtains (sewn at no cost), a woman’s suit made of a discarded man’s suit and a woman’s suit made from a fertilizer sack….”
— From “Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South” by Blain Roberts (2014)