Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia on May 14, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
UNC’s 2013 graduating class enjoyed a beautiful day for its commencement. In honor of those students, our artifact of the month is a commencement marshal’s baton, used at UNC’s commencement ball around 1915 or 1916. This baton was carried by William B. Umstead, a graduate of the Class of 1916 who later went on to [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, History, Memorabilia Moment, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on April 17, 2013 | 1 Comment »
For decades, patriotic souvenir hunters have chipped away at Plymouth Rock and cut fragments from White House curtains. Less exuberant collectors satisfy themselves with the mass-produced trinkets available at historic sites. In a recent article on Smithsonian.com, curator Larry Bird attributes this behavior to our desire to “touch” the past by owning a piece of [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, UNC History on March 15, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Last month we did what so many do this time of year: We devoted our attention to college basketball. This month we turn our focus to another group of athletic students who are equally agile but far too often unsung: cheerleaders. This month we bring you not just one but three artifacts, all of them [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, History, Tar Heelia, UNC History on February 15, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Zealous, maniacal, obsessed, rabid. There’s a reason why writers describing Tar Heel fans proceed directly to the extreme corners of the English language. The UNC men’s basketball team has earned every bit of its fans’ devotion, though, with a storied history of dramatic wins. The team has enjoyed no prouder moment than its 1957 season, [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia on January 15, 2013 | 3 Comments »
Our January Artifact of the Month follows in the tobacco-tinged footsteps of last month’s Artifact, although this one is quite a bit older and, one might argue, a little easier on the eyes than the Joe Camel holiday lighter. This tobacco pouch once held Seal of North Carolina Plug Cut tobacco, a product of the [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia on December 14, 2012 | 2 Comments »
We reached into our tobacco ephemera collection in search of something seasonal and found our December artifact of the month, a holiday-edition “Joe Camel” lighter. On the lighter, Mr. Camel is smoking, naturally. He’s also jamming on a keyboard, wearing sunglasses and a red bowtie. Just off to the side, a red cocktail with a [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, Events & exhibits, History, Tar Heelia on November 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.” It sounds like the advice of a frugal mother, but during World War II those words were issued from the federal government to all Americans on the home front. It was only seventy years ago that U.S. citizens were asked to be judicious in their shopping, driving, [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, History, Memorabilia Moment, Tar Heelia on October 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The 2012 presidential election is so complicated: convoluted electoral equations, Super PACs, televised debates with real-time feedback from undecided voters. Remember when a voter could express his or her support with nothing more than a smiling peanut? Our October Artifact of the Month is a green toboggan supporting Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign. The words [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia on September 14, 2012 | 5 Comments »
There’s so much to love, and so much to say, about our September Artifact of the Month. This head scarf from the mid-1950s features a brightly-colored pictorial map of North Carolina. Elizabeth Stinson, who donated the scarf, describes acquiring it during a childhood moving around between Greenville, South Carolina and Cooleemee, Ridgecrest, Black Mountain, and [...]
Posted in Artifact of the Month, Tar Heelia on August 15, 2012 | 2 Comments »
“Be just and fear not.” With these words, David Ward Simmons, UNC class of 1861, signed a classmate’s autograph book. Three years later, Simmons died at the age of 23 of wounds sustained on the battlefield near Petersburg, Virginia. Our August Artifacts of the Month, donated by a relative of Simmons, include an ambrotype of [...]
