Feeds:
Posts
Comments

While Charlotte mayor lectures, President Wilson swelters

May 20, 2012 by Lew Powell

On this day in 1916: Woodrow Wilson visits Charlotte for Meck Dec Day. “A hearty cheer greeted the president as he left the train, and he smiled warmly and doffed his silk hat in response,” The Observer reports. “Southern crowds are not much on cheering except when ‘Dixie’ is played; they usually prefer to gaze in silence, but the president and Mrs. Wilson were greeted with vocal demonstrations wherever they went.”

Wilson, however, is soon overshadowed by Mayor T. L. Kirkpatrick, who takes the speakers’ platform to introduce Gov. Locke Craig. Undeterred by the sight of spectators and soldiers fainting in the steamy heat, Kirkpatrick offers a 40-minute review of Mecklenburg history. When the mayor at last yields, Craig introduces President Wilson in a single sentence.

Kirkpatrick, who will suffer considerable teasing about having spoken more than twice as long as the president, always insists that Wilson told him he was not feeling well and to stretch his remarks. The mayor’s speech makes such an impression on First Lady Edith Wilson that she scathingly recalls it in her memoirs.

 

Posted in History, On This Day | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Governor Tryon to the Regulators at Alamance: “Surrender up the outlawed ringleaders”

May 16, 2012 by John Blythe

Great Alamance Camp May 16, 1771

In answer to your Petition, I am to acquaint you that I have ever been attentive to the true Interest of this Country, and to that of every Individual residing within it. I lament the fatal Necessity to which you have now reduced me, by withdrawing yourselves from the Mercy of the Crown, and the Laws of your Country, to require you who are Assembled as Regulators, to lay down your Arms, Surrender up the outlawed Ringleaders, and Submit yourselves to the Laws of your Country, and then, rest on the lenity and Mercy of Government. By accepting these Terms in one Hour from the delivery of this Dispatch you will prevent an effusion of Blood, as you are at this time in a state of War and Rebellion against your King, your Country, and your Laws.

–Governor William Tryon to “the People now Assembled in Arms who Style themselves Regulators.”

When the Regulators refused to lay down their arms and surrender, Tryon ordered his colonial militia to fire on them. The two-hour engagement came to be known as the Battle of Alamance. The Regulators, largely untrained frontiersmen, were no match for the well-supplied militia and they were defeated. There is no reliable count of the Regulators losses. Nine members of the militia were killed and 61 were wounded. Tryon’s men took 15 prisoners and seven were later hanged. Some Regulators left North Carolina. Those who remained were offered pardons if they pledged allegiance to the royal government.

Posted in From the Stacks, History, Just A Bite, On This Day, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk | Leave a Comment »

Artifacts of the Month: Chang Bunker’s silverware

May 15, 2012 by Emily Jack

Chang & Eng Bunker

The North Carolina Collection Gallery exhibit on Chang and Eng Bunker, the original “Siamese twins,” continues to fascinate and intrigue visitors. Among the items on display are artifacts from Chang and Eng’s many years on tour, a time when they were presented as walking curiosities to paying spectators in town after town. Figurines and advertisements in the Gallery’s exhibit provide a window into the twins’ travels, compelling us to wonder what it was like to live on display.

But for many visitors, what’s even more absorbing are the materials that illuminate the Bunkers’ lives at home in North Carolina, with their wives and dozens of children, away from the inquisitive eyes of the world. A picture of Eng’s home in Surry County. A letter opener. A photo of the twins with two of their sons. These items speak of extraordinary efforts made to lead ordinary lives, despite challenges that most of us can barely imagine.

Our May artifacts of the month fall into that second category. These pieces of silverware, recently donated by one of Chang’s descendants, bear on their handles the initials “CE,” for Chang and Eng. The silverware pattern was known as “Fiddle Thread” and was made by Tenney.

Chang's silverware

It is precisely the ordinariness of these artifacts that makes them worth contemplating. They offer one more reminder that daily life for Chang and Eng was not all that different from the lives of their neighbors.

Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia | Leave a Comment »

An Absquatulated Horse

May 15, 2012 by Jason Tomberlin

I learned a new word on Monday: “absquatulated.”

I’m no scholar of journalism, but I’m assuming that the cost of this notice was not calculated by the number of characters used.

[This image comes from the 20 May 1847 issued of the Hillsborough Recorder.]

Posted in From the Stacks, Tar Heelia | 2 Comments »

North Carolina Symphony celebrates eighty years of making music

May 14, 2012 by John Blythe

The North Carolina Symphony played its first concert at Hill Hall in Chapel Hill on May 14, 1932. Lamar Stringfield conducted 48 musicians hailing from 11 communities throughout the state. The N.C. Symphony garnered state support in 1943 when the N.C. General Assembly passed the “horn tooter” bill, which provided $2000 yearly from 1943-1945.

Posted in From the Stacks, History, Just A Bite, Memorabilia Moment, On This Day, Tar Heelia | Leave a Comment »

Underground railroad did lay track in western N.C.

May 14, 2012 by Lew Powell

An enlightening  “I Was Wrong” from Civil War blogger Michael C. Hardy:
“I was digging around and came across something that I’ve been telling folks did not happen: escaped slaves on the ‘underground railroad’ in western North Carolina….
“It’s not so much that it did not happen, it is just that it VERY seldom happened. I have a post-war account here someplace that speaks on escaped Union soldiers telling slaves they could not come with the fleeing soldiers. A slave would be missed and sought after immediately. While escaped Union soldiers were always being sought after by the home guard, it is not the same as a master getting together a posse to hunt for an escaped slave.
“The account below was written by Dr. Steadman O. Pine (sometimes listed as Oran Steadman Pine). Pine served as a private in the 14th Brooklyn and in the 5th New York ( Duryea’s Zouaves).  Pine was captured at Cold Harbor in June 1864.
“This account was written more than 40 years after the event, so we should not take it as gospel.
“Pine probably would have traveled through modern-day Avery or Mitchell Counties to join up with Federal soldiers. Of interest is his description of his escape in Charlotte.”

 

Posted in History, Just A Bite | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Is N.C. lacking in attractive small towns?

May 12, 2012 by Lew Powell

Can a list of  “The 20 best small towns in America” really include none in North Carolina?

So says Smithsonian magazine. What say Miscellany readers?

 

Posted in Tar Heelia | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

Mother knows best. Recipes from the collection to celebrate Mothers Day.

May 11, 2012 by Alison Murray

From What’s Cook’n at Biltmore.

From High Hampton Hospitality.

From The Charlotte Cookbook.

From Tea-Kettle Talk Recipes.

Posted in Recipes, Tar Heelia | Leave a Comment »

Happy Birthday, Morehead Planetarium

May 10, 2012 by John Blythe

Morhead Planetarium

We assemble in the little village of Chapel Hill on the old campus of the University of North Carolina to dedicate to youth and truth, beauty and goodness, the Morehead Building. This building is now forever to be the home of the Genevieve Morehead Memorial Art Gallery, the Morehead Planetarium, and the Morehead Foundation for scholarships and fellowships. The conjunction of stars in their courses, revealed in the Planetarium, suggests to us the conjunction of persons, ideas, engines, enterprises and nations, revealed in the heritage, life, services and aspirations of John Motley Morehead III, devoted son and benefactor of the University of North Carolina….

As philanthropist, his vision and benefactions will enrich his alma mater and, through a nobler alma mater, will serve the world through unending generations of worthy youth whom his endowment will bring for training in this place for the service of mankind….

The Morehead Gallery and Planetarium are not only for the youth of the University, but as an organic part of the University, which would ever share its life, are also for the people beyond the college walls….In the Planetarium will be the meeting of earth, skies, and people who need new acquaintance with the goodness of the earth and the majesty of the heavens.

To the human being, as an infinitesimal bit of life on a tiny speck called the earth in the vastness of the universe, will come a deeper humility, a higher reverence, and a nobler aspiration of the human spirit in the presence of the God, whose physical laws are as wide as the universe and whose moral sovereignty is deep in the consciousness of men. Humble, reverent, and aspiring, we look upward into the heavens and inward into the soul for God, the Father, Who gives us our majestic heavens, our good earth and our common brotherhood in daily sustenance of the body, mind and spirit of man for the human pilgrimage toward the Kingdom of God.

In the dedication of the Morehead Building, its Foundation, Gallery, and Planetarium, we rededicate the University of North Carolina.

–Remarks from U.S. Senator Frank Porter Graham during dedication ceremonies for the Morehead Building (commonly referred to as Morehead Planetarium) on May 10, 1949.

Posted in From the Stacks, History, On This Day, Postcards, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk | Leave a Comment »

J-school study found reader bias about bylines

May 10, 2012 by Lew Powell

“The sex of a reporter can alter a reader’s trust in a news story, according to a recent survey by four professors in the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina….

“Male respondents to the survey were generally found to be more sensitive to story bylines than female respondents. Students taking journalism courses were more likely to base their ratings on traditional sexual stereotypes.”

– From [MORE]: A Journalism Review (October 1975)

JimRomenesko.com reprints the whole story.

 

Posted in Just A Bite | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Older Posts »