The Rowan Story 1753 1953

A history of Rowan County, North Carolina, from the time of its settlement in the 1740s through the 1950s. Includes historical, political and social commentary, focusing especially on the time after the U.S. Civil War.

This book described what life was like for country boys on the farm growing up in the beginning of WW II and how they helped their families until they were drafted into military. The book is dedicated to the memory of Ernest Leroy Outen who was killed in Okinawa Japan.

History of Caleb & Hannah Osborne from Rowan County, North Carolina including information on his son James Osborne and Mary Whitaker his wife from Russell County, Virginia. James was a successful business man and land owner. I have lots of documentation on James showing his various land and military activities during the Revolutionary War. Info with land records explaining about James Osborne living in Daniel Boone home, after Daniel moved to Kentucky. I also will have info on Patrick Cragun, his neighbors with his land record. Also info on his neighbors the fact that most of his neighbors came from Pennsylvania before arriving in Tennessee. Were they family or friends of Patrick? How are they connected?

Early Germans played an important part in the settlement of early America. They purchased land. They built factories, not to speak of their composing and artistic talents. They were hardworking and thrifty. During the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, large settlements of Germans were in the same state, Virginia, at the same time. They travelled freely from Pennslyvania to Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, following early roads through the Shenandoah Valley. To these early German Pioneers we owe much.

"This first of two volumes on North Carolina women chronicles the influence and accomplishments of individual women from the pre-Revolutionary period through the early 20th century. They represent a range of social and economic backgrounds, political stances, areas of influence, and geographical regions within the state. Even though North Carolina remained mostly rural until well into the twentieth century and the lives of most women centered on farm, family, and church, Gillespie and McMillen note that the state's people "exhibited a progressive streak that positively influenced women." Public funds were set aside to advance statewide education, private efforts after the Civil War led to the founding of numerous black schools and colleges, and in 1891 the General Assembly chartered the State Normal and Industrial School (later UNC-G) as one of the first publicly funded colleges for white women. By the late 19th century, as several essays in this volume reveal, education played a pivotal role in the lives of many white and black women. It inspired their activism and involvement in a world beyond their traditional domestic sphere"--

Arts in Earnest explores the unique folklife of North Carolina from ruddy ducks to pranks in the mill. Traversing from Murphy to Manteo, these fifteen essays demonstrate the importance of North Carolina’s continually changing folklife. From decoy carving along the coast, to the music of tobacco chants and the blues of the Piedmont, to the Jack tales of the mountains, Arts in Earnest reflects the story of a people negotiating their rapidly changing social and economic environment. Personal interviews are an important element in the book. Laura Lee, an elderly black woman from Chatham County, describes the quilts she made from funeral flower ribbons; witnesses and friends each remember varying details of the Duke University football player who single-handedly vanquished a gang of would-be muggers; Clyde Jones leads a safari through his backyard, which is filled with animals made of wood and cement that represent nontraditional folk art; the songs and sermon of a Primitive Baptist service flow together as one—“it tills you up all over”; Durham bluesman Willie Trice, one of a handful of Durham musicians who recorded in the 1930s and early 1940s, remembers when the active tobacco warehouses offered ready audiences—“They’d tip us a heap of change to play some music”; and Goldsboro tobacco auctioneer H. L. “Speed” Riggs chants 460 words per minute, five to six times faster than a normal conversational rate.

Hinton Rowan Helper (1829--1909) gained notoriety in nineteenth-century America as the author of The Impending Crisis of the South (1857), an antislavery polemic that provoked national public controversy and increased sectional tensions. In his intellectual and cultural biography of Helper -- the first to appear in more than forty years -- David Brown provides a fresh and nuanced portrait of this self-styled reformer, exploring anew Helper's motivation for writing his inflammatory book. Brown places Helper in a perspective that shows how the society in which he lived influenced his thinking, beginning with Helper's upbringing in North Carolina, his move to California at the height of the Californian gold rush, his developing hostility toward nonwhites within the United States, and his publication of The Impending Crisis of the South. Helper's book paints a picture of a region dragged down by the institution of slavery and displays surprising concern for the fate of American slaves. It sold 140,000 copies, perhaps rivaled only by Uncle Tom's Cabin in its impact. The author argues that Helper never wavered in his commitment to the South, though his book's devastating critique made him an outcast there, playing a crucial role in the election of Lincoln and influencing the outbreak of war. As his career progressed after the war, Helper's racial attitudes grew increasingly intolerant. He became involved in various grand pursuits, including a plan to link North and South America by rail, continually seeking a success that would match his earlier fame. But after a series of disappointments, he finally committed suicide. Brown reconsiders the life and career of one of the antebellum South's most controversial and misunderstood figures. Helper was also one of the rare lower-class whites who recorded in detail his economic, political, and social views, thus affording a valuable window into the world of nonslaveholding white southerners on the eve of the Civil War. His critique of slavery provides an important challenge to dominant paradigms stressing consensus among southern whites, and his development into a racist illustrates the power and destructiveness of the prejudice that took hold of the South in the late nineteenth century, as well as the wider developments in American society at the time.

During the quarter of a century before the thirteen colonies became a nation, the northwest quadrant of North Carolina had just begun to attract permanent settlers. This seemingly primitive area may not appear to be a likely source for attractive pottery and ornate silverware and furniture, much less for an audience to appreciate these refinements. Yet such crafts were not confined to urban centers, and artisans, like other colonists, were striving to create better lives for themselves as well as to practice their trades. As Johanna Miller Lewis shows in this pivotal study of colonial history and material culture, the growing population of Rowan County required not only blacksmiths, saddlers, and tanners but also a great variety of skilled craftsmen to help raise the standard of living. Rowan County's rapid expansion was in part the result of the planned settlements of the Moravian Church. Because the Moravians maintained careful records, historians have previously credited church artisans with greater skill and more economic awareness than non-church craftsmen. Through meticulous attention to court and private records, deeds, wills, and other sources, Lewis reveals the Moravian failure to keep up with the pace of development occurring elsewhere in the county. Challenging the traditional belief that southern backcountry life was primitive, Lewis shows that many artisans held public office and wielded power in the public sphere. She also examines women weavers and spinsters as an integral part of the population. All artisans—Moravian and non-Moravian, male and female—helped the local market economy expand to include coastal and trans-Atlantic trade. Lewis's book contributes meaningfully to the debate over self-sufficiency and capitalism in rural America.