Posted in From the Stacks, History, Tar Heelia on May 13, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Twin City residents this past weekend celebrated the 100th anniversary of the consolidation of Winston and Salem into one municipality. The joining of the two towns in 1913 was a long time in the making. As Frank Tursi writes in Winston-Salem: A History, in 1879 the town boards in Winston and Salem appointed a special [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, Just A Bite, Memorabilia Moment, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on April 18, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
The North Carolina Collection Gallery proudly announces the launch of Carolina Keepsakes, a digital collection of some of the Gallery’s most interesting and significant items. As the main photographer for this project, one of my favorite items is the shaving kit of David L. Swain, president of UNC and former governor of North Carolina. This [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, History, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk, UNC History on April 12, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
The expected naming of Carol Folt as the next chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill will mark the first time in the university’s 224-year history that a woman has held the top post. But Folt follows on the heels (pardon the pun) of several other women who have held significant positions with the University. Katherine “Kitty” Carmichael, [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, History, Just A Bite, On This Day, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk, UNC History on February 22, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
The UNC-Chapel Hill student newspaper printed its first issue on February 23, 1893. The Tar Heel‘s editors explained that the paper, issued every Thursday morning, would include “a summary of all occurrences in the University and village of Chapel Hill.” The paper vowed to cover UNC sports, “all society news, personals and every subject of [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, Tar Heelia on February 22, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Google doodle commemorates the birthday of author and illustrator Edward Gorey. Gorey, whose odd but simple stories and gothic illustrations remain quite popular today, designed book covers early in his career. His iconic artworks grace the covers of a series of paperbacks published by Anchor Books. The wide-ranging series includes authors from Chaucer to [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, History, Just A Bite, On This Day, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on February 6, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
“In late 1959, Thomas J. White, a former state representative of North Carolina and a powerful figure in the state’s political circles, was appointed chairman of the commission to build the new North Carolina State Legislative Building. The commission had already heard from a number of North Carolina architects who had expressed a strong interest [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, History on February 4, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
I found this interesting article in the June 4, 1926 issue of The Pilot, then published in Vass, N.C. When I saw the headline about the state song, I assumed it would be about William Gaston’s well-known “The Old North State,” which we wrote about a few years ago in This Month in North Carolina [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, Memorabilia Moment, Tar Heelia on January 16, 2013 | 1 Comment »
I am a person who wears hats, so perhaps it was inevitable that I would notice when campaigns used headgear to make a point. Chapeaux faux-pas have been a bit of a tradition in American politics—many of us remember the unfortunate images of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in a helmet or the tittering when [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, Memorabilia Moment, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on January 15, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Loyal blog readers and sundry others know that the North Carolina Collection collects political ephemera, including those annoying post cards and letters that fill our mailboxes in election season. During the 2008 presidential election cycle, friends of the Collection sent us more than 700 pieces of campaign ephemera. During the 2012 campaign season we received [...]
Posted in From the Stacks, History, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on January 10, 2013 | 2 Comments »
This what if began with a question found in the December 6, 1877 edition of The Farmer and Mechanic, a weekly paper published in Raleigh. Dr. W. Haw, an “analytical chemist” of Oswego, N.Y., wanted to know whether the poppy species that yields opium could be planted in the South. I resided a long time [...]
