http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:36:55 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "In 1976, after its workers in North Carolina voted for the ACTWU to represent them, [J.P. Stevens] once again refused to bargain.... "A five-year international consumer boycott proved ineffective -- in part because 'Peanuts' characters, stitched into the textile giant's sheets and towels, masked the corporate identity. "The 'Peanuts' line, [touted as] the 'single ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/22/j-p-stevens-strikers-no-fans-of-peanuts/ "I have a framed, yellowing copy of my first published oeuvre, a poem called 'Fresh Fruits of Autumn Leaves,' which at five years old I had composed for my mother while we were having a bath.... My mother jumped out of the tub, grabbed a pen and paper and asked ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/20/james-jones-5-year-old-debuts-in-charlotte-2/ Nick Graham, the ever-alert manager of the digitization project, North Carolina Maps, knows that I love maps and, at one time, studied the history of highways in North Carolina. He recently alerted me to a great 1924 highway map of North Carolina digitized from the collection of the State ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/19/map-gets-it-right/ Series 2 of the Hugh Morton finding aid is now available online! Visit the finding aid here to check out the addition of People and Events, late 1920s-early 2000s (bulk 1940s-1990s). To see photos from Series 2 online through the Hugh Morton Collection of Photographs and Films, click here. ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/18/morton-finding-aid-series-2-now-up/ "Robert Williams was one of the most realistic comedians the screen had. He made Cary Grant look like he was overacting.... To watch Robert Williams act was like seeing a comic using the Method, long before the Method became famous with Marlon [Brando] and Monty [Clift]." --From a Turner Classic Movies ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/18/carteret-countys-ill-starred-method-actor/ In an undated 20th Century essay by Olive F. Gunby titled "Courtship in Carolina," the author describes the socially appropriate way of wooing a proper North Carolina lady. The courtship, as described by Gunby, should naturally begin when the gentleman invites the lady for a ride in his buggy after church.  ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/17/courtship-in-the-carolinas-take-her-for-a-drive-but-no-dancing/ "In 1840 U.S. census takers...recorded 9 percent of adult whites as illiterate.... "In New England no state had less than 98 percent literacy, which equaled [world leaders] Scotland and Sweden. "The state with the highest white illiteracy was North Carolina: 28 percent. The public school system called for in the state constitution of 1776 had never ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/16/why-johnny-couldnt-read-if-he-lived-in-n-c/ "[Three months later] there was a cave-in in a North Carolina mine in which 71 men were caught and 53 actually lost. It attracted no great  notice. It was 'just a mine disaster.' "Yet for more than two weeks the plight of a single commonplace prospector for tourists [near Mammoth Cave] had riveted ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/14/why-one-miner-drew-attention-that-71-didnt/ Check out this new Harriet Jacobs website, hosted by the Edenton-Chowan County Tourism Development Authority.  It's a great resource for information about Jacobs, the runaway slave and abolitionist from Edenton, North Carolina.  The website contains a biography of Jacobs, historic maps of Edenton, NC, curriculum for North Carolina fourth and ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/13/new-harriet-jacobs-website/ "Instead of an Ivy League university, [Robert Moses' grandson Christopher Collins] wanted to go to little Chapel Hill College in North Carolina; [his mother] Jane was appalled, but Moses told her, 'Oh, let the boy go where he wants.'" --From "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" ... http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2009/11/12/view-from-n-y-little-chapel-hill-college/