Writing North Carolina History

Writing North Carolina History is the first book to assess fully the historical literature of North Carolina. It combines the talents and insights of eight noted scholars of state and southern history: William S. Powell, Alan D. Watson, Robert M. Calhoon, Harry L. Watson, Sarah M. Lemmon, and H. G. Jones. Their essays are arranged in chronological order from the founding of the first English colony in North America in 1585 to the present. Traditionally North Carolina has not received the same scholarly attention as Virginia and South Carolina, despite the excellent resources available on Tar Heel history. This study, derived from a symposium sponsored by the North Carolina Division of Archives and History in 1977, asks questions and describes methodologies needed to redress past neglect. Besides providing a comprehensive evaluation of what has been written about North Carolina, the essayists offer perspectives on how historians have interpreted the state's history and what directions future historians need to take. Particularly important, the book provides a bibliography and suggests opportunities for future historical investigation by discussing topics, themes, and source materials that remain untapped or underused. North Carolina's unique and colorful culture, folklore, geography, politics, and growth demand new and creative historical analysis. Collectively the authors and editors of Writing North Carolina History offer a welcome, necessary guide to the study of Tar Heel history. Originally published in 1979. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

New Voyages to Carolina offers a bold new approach for understanding and telling North Carolina's history. Recognizing the need for such a fresh approach and reflecting a generation of recent scholarship, eighteen distinguished authors have sculpted a broad, inclusive narrative of the state's evolution over more than four centuries. The volume provides new lenses and provocative possibilities for reimagining the state's past. Transcending traditional markers of wars and elections, the contributors map out a new chronology encompassing geological realities; the unappreciated presence of Indians, blacks, and women; religious and cultural influences; and abiding preferences for industrial development within the limits of "progressive" politics. While challenging traditional story lines, the authors frame a candid tale of the state's development. Contributors: Dorothea V. Ames, East Carolina University Karl E. Campbell, Appalachian State University James C. Cobb, University of Georgia Peter A. Coclanis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Stephen Feeley, McDaniel College Jerry Gershenhorn, North Carolina Central University Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Yale University Patrick Huber, Missouri University of Science and Technology Charles F. Irons, Elon University David Moore, Warren Wilson College Michael Leroy Oberg, State University of New York, College at Geneseo Stanley R. Riggs, East Carolina University Richard D. Starnes, Western Carolina University Carole Watterson Troxler, Elon University Bradford J. Wood, Eastern Kentucky University Karin Zipf, East Carolina University

This collection of nineteen original essays on selected topics and epochs in North Carolina history offers a broad survey of the state from its discovery and colonization to the present. Each chapter consists of an interpretive essay on a specific aspect of North Carolina's history, a collection of supporting documents, and a brief bibliography. Selections cover historical periods ranging from Elizabethan to contemporary times and examine such issues as slavery, populism, civil rights, and the status of women. Essays address the tragedy of North Carolina's Indians, the state's role in the Revolutionary War and the Confederacy, and the impact of the Great Depression. North Carolina's place in the New South and evangelical culture in the state are also discussed. Designed as a supplementary reader for the study and teaching of North Carolina history, The North Carolina Experience will introduce college students to the process of historical research and writing. It will also be a valuable resource in secondary schools, public libraries, and the homes of those interested in North Carolina history.

Using Charlotte, North Carolina, as a case study of the dynamics of racial change in the 'moderate' South, Davison Douglas analyzes the desegregation of the city's public schools from the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision through the early 1970s, when the city embarked upon the most ambitious school busing plan in the nation. In charting the path of racial change, Douglas considers the relative efficacy of the black community's use of public demonstrations and litigation to force desegregation. He also evaluates the role of the city's white business community, which was concerned with preserving Charlotte's image as a racially moderate city, in facilitating racial gains. Charlotte's white leadership, anxious to avoid economically damaging racial conflict, engaged in early but decidedly token integration in the late 1950s and early 1960s in response to the black community's public protest and litigation efforts. The insistence in the late 1960s on widespread busing, however, posed integration demands of an entirely different magnitude. As Douglas shows, the city's white leaders initially resisted the call for busing but eventually relented because they recognized the importance of a stable school system to the city's continued prosperity.

Read your way across North Carolina's Piedmont in the second of a series of regional guides that bring the state's rich literary history to life for travelers and residents. Eighteen tours direct readers to sites that more than two hundred Tar Heel authors have explored in their fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction. Along the way, excerpts chosen by author Georgann Eubanks illustrate a writer's connection to a specific place or reveal intriguing local culture--insights rarely found in travel guidebooks. Featured authors include O. Henry, Doris Betts, Alex Haley, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, John Hart, Betty Smith, Edward R. Murrow, Patricia Cornwell, Carson McCullers, Maya Angelou, Lee Smith, Reynolds Price, and David Sedaris. Literary Trails is an exciting way to see anew the places that you already love and to discover new people and places you hadn't known about. The region's rich literary heritage will surprise and delight all readers.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers expands the range of writers included in the landmark South Carolina Encyclopedia. This guide updates the entries on writers featured in the original encyclopedia and augments that list substantially with dozens of new essays on additional authors from the late eighteenth century to the present who have contributed to the Palmetto State’s distinctive literary heritage. Each profile in this concise reference includes essential biographical facts and critical assessments to place the featured writers in the larger context of South Carolina’s literary tradition. The guide comprises 127 entries written by more than seventy literary scholars, and it also highlights the sixty-five writers inducted thus far into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, which serves as the state’s literary hall of fame. Rich in natural beauty and historic complexity, South Carolina has long been a source of inspiration for writers. The talented novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, journalists, historians, and other writers featured here represent the countless anonymous individuals who have shared tales and lore of South Carolina.

This successor to the classic Lefler-Newsome North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, published in 1954, presents a fresh survey history that includes the contemporary scene. Drawing upon recent scholarship, the advice of specialists, and his own knowledge, Powell has created a splendid narrative that makes North Carolina history accessible to both students and general readers. For years to come, this will be the standard college text and an essential reference for home and office.