Charlotte Observer Research Articles

North Carolina seeking more mental health professionals

After securing nearly $5.6 million in county funding, Charlotte‐Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) hired 25 new social workers for the 2019–20 academic year — and the district is looking to hire 30 additional mental health professionals, including counselors and psychologists, The Charlotte Observer reported Jan. 25. But once those positions are filled, Charlotte‐Mecklenburg Schools will still lack hundreds of staff members who are needed to adequately address social and emotional learning. Staffing deficits at the Charlotte‐Mecklenburg Schools call for recruiting 500 more social workers, as well as 150 counselors and 115 psychologists, according to an analysis provided to the Mecklenburg County commissioners ahead of their annual board retreat last week. Nationally recommended ratios suggest there should be a single school psychologist designated for every 700 students. But that ratio is drastically skewed at CMS, with one school psychologist serving nearly 1,600 students, according to the county's retreat material. There should also be one school social worker for every 250 students, according to the national recommendations.

Tar Heel Lightnin': How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World by Daniel S. Pierce

Reviewed by: Tar Heel Lightnin': How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World by Daniel S. Pierce Max Fraser Tar Heel Lightnin': How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World. By Daniel S. Pierce. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. [viii], 303. $30.00, ISBN 9781-4696-5355-6.) Like one of the Foxfire books, Daniel S. Pierce's Tar Heel Lightnin': How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World is exceptionally good with the small details. Did you know, for instance, that yellowroot or horsemint growing alongside a creekbank indicates the presence of "soft," mineral-free water—the best kind to use when making corn whiskey—while touch-me-nots are a sign of less-ideal, "hard" water (p. 9); that a "'hulled out'" 1940 flathead Ford V-8 can hold twenty-two six-gallon cases of whiskey where its innards used to be (p. 162); or that the early hillbilly singer Charlie Poole bought his first Orpheum No. 3 Special banjo with the proceeds from a moonshining operation he ran with Posey Rorer—later the fiddle player in Poole's pioneering string band, the North Carolina Ramblers? That many such morsels here are gleaned from already published sources—including the Foxfire books themselves, as well as earlier works of scholarship on moonshining and mountain culture in the rural South—may limit the number of entirely original insights offered up by Pierce's book. Nevertheless, Tar Heel Lightnin' does a fine job of being precisely what it sets out to be: a highly readable and always engaging account of the place of moonshining in the history of the Tar Heel State—or, as the book's subtitle would have it, "the Moonshine Capital of the World." And what a sizable place it is. "Indeed, one could argue," as Pierce does, "that illegal liquor production has been as important as tobacco, textiles, or furniture, an integral part of the warp and woof of the state's economic, social, and cultural fabric" (p. 7). A professor of history at the University of North Carolina–Asheville, Pierce knows this territory well (and lest you have any doubts by the end of the book, see the epilogue, which includes a photograph of the author visiting a disused [End Page 741] still site in Montreat). More to the point, he has combed through a century and a half of federal, state, and local records to demonstrate just how ubiquitous and consequential a practice moonshining has been, from the enactment of a federal excise tax on whiskey (at the time a nonissue for North Carolina's whiskeymakers, given that it was passed by Congress in 1862), to the bobo-renaissance in artisanal "so-called legal moonshine" that has become part of the contemporary scene in places like trendy and tourist-friendly Asheville (p. 3). Pierce's discussion of the complex political dynamics surrounding moonshining during Reconstruction and Redemption is particularly illuminating. Initially associated with local defiance of federal authority after the Civil War (illegal whiskey was first known in the state as "blockade liquor," in an appreciative allusion to Confederate blockade-runners [p. 25]), by the 1890s the "drunken Negro" had become a favored bugbear of North Carolina Democrats and temperance advocates alike, who began working hand in glove to push for prohibition and black disenfranchisement within the state (p. 76). Even the Charlotte Observer noted, in 1895, that it had "'not been a great while since the moonshiner was … made a sort of hero in North Carolina'"—yet, by that point, only "'the most densely ignorant or the debased'" could deny "'that the moonshiner lacks all qualities of a hero and is a public enemy'" (p. 44). Doggedly, if not always successfully, Pierce emphasizes the important and often overlooked roles that women, African Americans, and Native Americans have played in North Carolina's moonshining tradition. He attributes the relative underdevelopment of these discussions to a lack of available sources—but a more diligent scholar of race or gender might have done more with the diversity of experiences that Pierce documents...

The false Donald J. Trump article and the ethics of misleading journalism

On August 8, 2016, a story appeared on the top page of Yahoo that read “Trump: You people really believed me?” It was written by Walker Lundy of the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, NC, USA on August 6, 2016. The article was shocking, even to a non‐U.S. citizen, because it revealed the sudden, and unexpected, withdrawal of Donald J. Trump from the U.S. Presidential race, which would surely have been welcome news for the Hillary Clinton camp. Less than 24 hours later, that article could no longer be traced on Yahoo, and the original links led to a 404 error. The original story is still published on another Charlotte Observer webpage. National and independent polls related to the presidential election fluctuate, but pollsters are always influenced by news events related to either candidate. Yet, one has to wonder why Mr. Lundy would have published a false and misleading story, which was widely circulated, including by the powerful media engine Yahoo, that has serious national and international consequences. Some of the policies espoused by both presidential candidates are radically different, and thus any media story that can tilt the opinion of readers in the direction of one or other candidate needs to be carefully analyzed. Sowing doubt by using false or misleading journalism does not do the public any favors and casts a doubtful light on the practice of political journalism. The Charlotte Observer and Mr. Lundy failed to respond to a request for comment.

Pitching Patriotism: Fourth of July Baseball in the Late Nineteenth Century

Pitching PatriotismFourth of July Baseball in the Late Nineteenth Century Adam J. Criblez (bio) An 1884 article in the Charlotte Observer noted, "The fourth of July is no sort of a fourth at all without a game of baseball."1 From the end of the Civil War to the turn of the twentieth century, both the sport of baseball and commemorations of the national holiday changed dramatically. In 1869, Harry Wright and the Cincinnati Red Stockings fielded the first openly professional baseball team and, just seven years later, a group of businessmen founded the National League. By 1900, Ban Johnson's American League threatened the baseball monopoly and, after a merger, the modern big leagues began to take shape, culminating in the first World Series, held in 1903. Just as baseball changed, so too did Independence Day celebrations. Patriotic orations and civic-sponsored parades which typified antebellum Fourths gave way to family picnics, fireworks, and, of course, baseball games. Professional baseball teams in the second half of the nineteenth century understood the importance of holidays to maximize revenue. In the era of the six-day work week and blue laws banning Sunday baseball in many major league cities, owners took full advantage of off-days, like the Fourth of July, to bring folks to the ballpark.2 As early as 1877, Chicago's Fourth of July baseball attendance was breaking national records—drawing an estimated twelve thousand for a single game.3 By 1895, a record thirty-six thousand Chicagoans packed the West Side Ball Park to watch a doubleheader featuring the hometown Colts and the visiting Cincinnati Reds.4 This tradition of the holiday doubleheader persisted until the mid-1960s, as owners routinely scheduled two games apiece on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day.5 Unsurprisingly, then, during the nineteenth century, the Fourth of July marked an important financial milestone for many professional clubs. "The Fourth of July is a sort of day of salvation for the weak and tottering clubs," an 1894 newspaper article remarked, "and they bravely keep heads above water long enough to get the benefit of a good-paying holiday crowd."6 [End Page 1] But National and American League owners were not alone in recognizing the potential alliance between baseball and the Fourth of July. In fact, my emphasis here is not on professional baseball, but is instead focused on amateur baseball—specifically contests between nearby towns or rival civic organizations broadly referred to as match games. Over the course of the late nineteenth century, match games on the Fourth of July encouraged debates about the role of sporting traditions in American patriotism, to stimulate interregional civic rivalries, and to provide cathartic release and relaxation for players and fans. Today, few Americans have a difficult time connecting the Fourth of July to baseball. In March of 2018, for example, Major League Baseball released its jersey and cap designs for the Fourth and every team had a patriotically themed alternate uniform. Even the Toronto Blue Jays sport a jersey with American and Canadian flags on opposite sleeves. But in the late nineteenth century, Americans were divided on the patriotic significance of baseball. Some reports demonstrate a clear and positive connection between baseball and the Fourth. One newspaper declared that "the national game is the most appropriate sport for the national holiday."7 Another argued that "it was extremely proper that the nation's birthday should be celebrated in the baseball game, with a close, and remarkably fine, game between the Providence nine, the reigning champions, and the Chicagos, the undisputed coming heroes of the diamond."8 In Buffalo, a local paper lamented the fact that the local Bisons only split an 1897 doubleheader with the Toronto Canucks, for "it would have been a treat to the loyal Americans who patronize baseball in this city, to have seen the Yankees trounce Her Majesty's subjects right out of their boots … [on] the celebration of the Glorious Fourth."9 Yet not all reports were so positive, and many blamed baseball for negatively impacting celebrations of the national holiday. Overemphasizing baseball, it seemed, took away from the sentimental meaning of America's natal day. "This holiday...

Steinbeck Today

Steinbeck Today

Travel Nurses and 21st Century Nurse Staffng

In the wake of the 2012 US presidential election, hospitals are taking action to mitigate the anticipated financial impact of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. “Over the next 10 years, the federal government will cut reimbursements to hospitals by over $150 billion.” 1 Gralia J Moody's sees affordable care act pressuring hospitals. Reuters Business & Financial News. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-usa-healthcare-moodys-idUSBRE85R1KD20120628Date: June 28, 2012 Google Scholar According to Moody's Investor Service, the newly expanded Medicaid program for the care of formerly uninsured patients will not balance the scale. 1 Gralia J Moody's sees affordable care act pressuring hospitals. Reuters Business & Financial News. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-usa-healthcare-moodys-idUSBRE85R1KD20120628Date: June 28, 2012 Google Scholar Financial leaders are merging their expertise with clinical nurse leaders to design new infrastructures for nurse staffing to meet increasingly complex needs of patients via a fiscally sustainable model. Embedded in this activity is a call to action for a new worldview underlying the theories and methodologies of nurse staffing. Stability in nurse staffing supports a practice environment that enables registered nurses (RNs) to maintain a sense of autonomy, to perform productively, and to think more critically. 2 Duffield C Diers D O'Brien-Pallas L et al. Nurse staffing, nursing workload, the work environment and patient outcomes. Appl Nurs Res. 2011; 24: 244-255 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (302) Google Scholar , 3 Tuttas C Robbing Peter to pay Paul: breaking the RN “recruitment cycle.”. J Nurs Care Qual. 2002; 16: 39-45 Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar Old staffing strategies (“the way we have always done it”) will not suffice in the new milieu of healthcare delivery. With declining reimbursement on the horizon, some hospitals have already initiated preparation. In November 2012, a North Carolina academic medical center announced the elimination of 950 full-time jobs, including full-time nursing positions. 4 Garloch K Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center announces eliminations of 950 positions, 7 percent of staff. Charlotte Observer. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/15/3665739/wake-forest-baptist-medical-center.htmlDate: November 15, 2012 Google Scholar An article in News & Record quoted North Carolina State economics professor Michael Walden: “I think this is a bellwether announcement likely to be repeated across the state and nation.” 5 Associated Press Update: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to cut 950 jobs. News & Record. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/15/3665739/wake-forest-baptist-medical-center.htmlDate: November 14, 2012 Google Scholar In the wake of the 2012 US presidential election, hospitals are taking action to mitigate the anticipated financial impact of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. “Over the next 10 years, the federal government will cut reimbursements to hospitals by over $150 billion.” 1 Gralia J Moody's sees affordable care act pressuring hospitals. Reuters Business & Financial News. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-usa-healthcare-moodys-idUSBRE85R1KD20120628Date: June 28, 2012 Google Scholar According to Moody's Investor Service, the newly expanded Medicaid program for the care of formerly uninsured patients will not balance the scale. 1 Gralia J Moody's sees affordable care act pressuring hospitals. Reuters Business & Financial News. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-usa-healthcare-moodys-idUSBRE85R1KD20120628Date: June 28, 2012 Google Scholar Financial leaders are merging their expertise with clinical nurse leaders to design new infrastructures for nurse staffing to meet increasingly complex needs of patients via a fiscally sustainable model. Embedded in this activity is a call to action for a new worldview underlying the theories and methodologies of nurse staffing. Stability in nurse staffing supports a practice environment that enables registered nurses (RNs) to maintain a sense of autonomy, to perform productively, and to think more critically. 2 Duffield C Diers D O'Brien-Pallas L et al. Nurse staffing, nursing workload, the work environment and patient outcomes. Appl Nurs Res. 2011; 24: 244-255 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (302) Google Scholar , 3 Tuttas C Robbing Peter to pay Paul: breaking the RN “recruitment cycle.”. J Nurs Care Qual. 2002; 16: 39-45 Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar Old staffing strategies (“the way we have always done it”) will not suffice in the new milieu of healthcare delivery. With declining reimbursement on the horizon, some hospitals have already initiated preparation. In November 2012, a North Carolina academic medical center announced the elimination of 950 full-time jobs, including full-time nursing positions. 4 Garloch K Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center announces eliminations of 950 positions, 7 percent of staff. Charlotte Observer. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/15/3665739/wake-forest-baptist-medical-center.htmlDate: November 15, 2012 Google Scholar An article in News & Record quoted North Carolina State economics professor Michael Walden: “I think this is a bellwether announcement likely to be repeated across the state and nation.” 5 Associated Press Update: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to cut 950 jobs. News & Record. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/15/3665739/wake-forest-baptist-medical-center.htmlDate: November 14, 2012 Google Scholar

NRJ Book Review: Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action

Gwyneth Mellinger, Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2013), Paperback, 240 pages, $25.Review by Joseph HaydenInstitutional histories tend not to be very compelling, usually because their authors are burdened by the desire to catalogue everything that ever happened to an organization. That is not the case with this monograph, which tackles only one aspect of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' 90-year life span: the group's stance toward newsroom integration and diversity. The result is a brisk account of an often contentious professional quest. It is also a story of failure.Part of the University of Illinois' History of Communication series, edited by Robert McChesney and John Nerone, this study examines ASNE's attitudes and initiatives concerning social justice in the workplace. Author Gwyneth Mellinger starts her analysis with the recalcitrance of white editors in the 1950s. This was the era of Brown v. Board of Education, and just as schools were asked to open their doors, other sectors of society, including the newspaper industry, were likewise scrutinized. Now editors were being challenged, albeit quietly and usually privately, to do more, too. They usually responded with defensiveness and rationalizations.Thus the association would weather the 1950s with its all-white identity challenged but intact (20), Mellinger writes. Indeed, the group tolerated racist editors like Harry Ayers of the Anniston (Ala.) Star, whose offensive comments about black people embarrassed the organization at its 1956 convention. It gave voice to people such as Frederick Sullen of the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News, who fretted over mongrelism. And it amplified the voice of segregationists who trumpeted southernism and their Confederate identity, motifs often played up in the words and cartoons in the ASNE Bulletin.That is not to say that all southern editors in ASNE were racial reactionaries. Several individuals, such as Virginius Dabney of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, sympathized with the goal of greater inclusiveness. But the foes of integration checked and effectively silenced the more progressive tendencies of their colleagues. Thus, a handful of vocal louts held sway: While few editors openly opposed social integration by the end of the decade, few openly supported the integration of their (45).The one event that may have altered the mindset of ASNE members and eventually influenced them to change was the Kerner Commission's 1968 report blaming recent urban riots, in part, on the nation's monochromatic newsrooms. That impact did not manifest itself immediately, though. Just as the editors' group had utterly ignored the Hutchins Commission report of 1947, calling for the media to exercise greater social responsibility, they at first tried to look the other way in the face of these accusations. At the 1968 convention, speakers...acknowledged it only in passing (48). But coming in the wake of such traumatic national events, which had triggered the report, ASNE members slowly started addressing the issues raised by the study.The years immediately following the Kerner commission were, therefore, a time of transition, when the idea of integrating newsrooms and the ASNE had appeared on the horizon and many editors had begun contemplating its distant inevitability (51).Editors like Norman Isaacs of the Louisville Courier-Journal and C.A. Pete McKnight of the Charlotte Observer were among the first association officers to push hard for the recruitment of minorities. When McKnight became president of the group in 1971, he launched the Minority Employment Committee.By the mid-1970s, more members were behind the goal of diversity, and they were working more aggressively to encourage it. They also sought alliances with people outside their association. Eugene Patterson of the Atlanta Constitution and later the St. …

Indicaciones recurrentes en las normativas para el uso periodístico de las redes sociales

Mainstream media all over the world have been regulating the behavior of their journalists in social media, fearing these new forms of communications might damage the credibility of their institutions. Those who have not yet done so face with concern this unstoppable challenge and are now outlining their own guidelines for social media policies. In an effort to inspire the design of these new policies, this paper aims to approach the recurring topics in the policies already written by leading media such as AP, American Society of News Editors (ASNE), BBC, Bloomberg, Charlotte observer, Freedom communication, Los Angeles times, NPR, Orlando sentinel, Politico, Reuters, Rockford register star,Saint Louis post-dispatch, Source media group, The Denver post, The guardian, The journal gazette, The Manhattan Mercury, The New York times, The Roanoke times, The Wall Street journaly The Washington post. A qualitative content analysis of 22 of these policies has been conducted to identify these topics.

Charlotte Observer reports proposed law to limit sea-level-rise projections

Charlotte Observer reports proposed law to limit sea-level-rise projections

Portfolio of Woodturning: A Special Section

Portfolio of WoodturningA Special Section Charles Farrar (bio) [End Page 379] Click for larger view View full resolution Charles Farrar © Ellen Scarborough / The Charlotte Observer [End Page 380] Click for larger view View full resolution Hol-e Grail (2003) by Charles Farrar. Thin wall ant-eaten vessel, poplar (h: 7″h × 7″). Collection of Mrs. Joan Leggett, Danville, Virginia. Charles Farrar © 2003 [End Page 381] Click for larger view View full resolution Singing Bowl (1997) by Charles Farrar. Tall, open jar, quilted maple burl (h: 13″ × 10 ½″). Collection of Ms. Marlene Cox, Charlotte, North Carolina. Charles Farrar © 1997 [End Page 382] Click for larger view View full resolution Hammered Wood Series (1999) by Charles Farrar. Textured wood surface with gilding, ash (h: 5″ × 7″). Charles Farrar © 1999 [End Page 383] Click for larger view View full resolution Windswept (1999) by Charles Farrar. Black walnut burl (h: 9½″ × 19″). Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Warren Kean, Mooresville, North Carolina. Charles Farrar © 1999 [End Page 384] Click for larger view View full resolution Hollow Form (2004) by Charles Farrar. Buckeye burl (h: 11″ × 12″). Charles Farrar © 2004 [End Page 385] Click for larger view View full resolution Hammered Wood Series (2003) by Charles Farrar. Textured surface with African blackwood spout and foot, poplar (h: 8″ × 11″). Charles Farrar © 2003 [End Page 386] Click for larger view View full resolution Lidded Vessel with Brass (2009) by Charles Farrar. Textured surface, antiqued with brass application, ambrosia maple (h: 10″ × 13″). Collection of Mrs. Crandall Bowles, Fort Mill, South Carolina. Charles Farrar © 2009 [End Page 387] Click for larger view View full resolution Lidded Hollow Form (2011) by Charles Farrar. Spalted maple with maple burl lid (h: 10″ × 9″). Charles Farrar © 2011 [End Page 388] Charles Farrar American Artist Charles Farrar Charles Farrar holds a business degree from Virginia State University, is a James Solomon Russell Scholar in Religious and Philosophical Studies, and has completed graduate work with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace, London. His artwork has been exhibited in such major US cities as Albuquerque, Charlotte, St. Paul, Richmond, Atlanta, and New York, and his work has been on permanent loan with the State Department at the US Embassy in Madagascar. His corporate commissions include Bank of America, First Citizens Bank & Trust Company, and The David Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles. He has served as member of the Advisory Committee of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC, and is a member of the Cabarrus Arts Council Board, Concord, NC, the American Association of Woodturners, the American Craft Council, and Charlotte Area Woodturners. He lives and creates in Concord, NC. Copyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Flight crews off work after sickness

US Airways passengers might have been exposed unknowingly to toxic fumes on a number of flights, according to a report in the on-line version of The Charlotte Observer.

“Peace and a Smile to the Lips”: Favorite Southern Food Dishes

“Peace and a Smile to the Lips”Favorite Southern Food Dishes Kathleen Purvis (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution “In the South, our food isn’t just the things we eat. Our food is experiences, history, heritage. It’s as personal as the sound of our mothers’ voices and as sweet as the smell of breakfast on a cold morning.” Photograph from the Collections of the Library of Congress. [End Page 28] You might want to handle these pages carefully. What you have in your hands isn’t just a list of memories and tastes. It’s an act of bravery akin to holding a lit stick of tnt. We have asked these southerners—respected writers and historians, all—to pick their favorite southern food experience. I shake my head and pity them. We southerners are an argumentative lot. We can’t hear a frog croak on a summer night without starting a debate. (“You think it’s hot tonight, Mr. Croaker? Oh, I’ve known hotter nights, and better ponds than the one you think is so fine. Why, let me tell you about this pond my mama told me about . . .”) As the food editor of a southern newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, for nearly twenty years, I’ve learned to be careful about stating any opinion, no matter how carefully considered. I once wrote about the southern origins of pimento cheese. I pored over records and old cookbooks. I interviewed the late Jeanne Voltz, who was born in Alabama early in the twentieth century. Food-wise, that’s the same thing as being present at the creation. What happened? Readers lit up my phone, debating the minutest point of pimento cheese history. One determined gentleman sent me a three-page typed letter accusing me of “a shoot-from-the-hip reporting style.” Why was he so upset? Because I reported that pimento cheese’s origins were southern. His grandmother, he declared, had made pimento cheese—in Maryland. (I didn’t point out that Maryland is a southern border state, and recipes migrate.) Actually, I think I understand the point he was trying to make. In the South, our food isn’t just the things we eat. Our food is experiences, history, heritage. It’s as personal as the sound of our mothers’ voices and as sweet as the smell of breakfast on a cold morning. Before the South got so darned rich, we were a land of deprivation; the only thing most of our ancestors had was pride and memory, and what kept them alive was sheer stubbornness and determination. If you live like that long enough, you’ll start to harbor a few opinions. So all I can do in introducing this piece is bow with respect to my fellow food writers. Jean Anderson, Mildred Council, John Currence, Nathalie Dupree, John Egerton, Jessica Harris, Matt and Ted Lee, Fred Sauceman, and Bill Smith: I respect and admire you all. But I hope you know what you’re getting yourselves into. Jean Anderson on Tidewater Sweet Potato Pie and the Home of Robert E. Lee’s Mother Back in the 1980s while on assignment in Tidewater Virginia for Bon Appétit, I spent several days at Shirley Plantation, first interviewing the lady of the house and then photographing the colorful makings of tomato ketchup in the old slave [End Page 29] kitchen. Dating back to the 1720s, the mansion at Shirley Plantation, overlooking the James River, is a tall, proud, red-brick house with a unique Queen Anne forecourt. It was here that Ann Hill Carter, the mother of Robert E. Lee, once lived. Now open to the public, Shirley remains in the Carter family. During my visit Helle Carter, the Danish wife of Hill Carter, gave me a number of old Tidewater Virginia “receipts,” including one for sweet potato pie—for me the most glorious in all creation. Tidewater Virginia Sweet Potato Pie The sweet potato filling, though made with cream and spiked with wine, is surprisingly light—a rarity among southern pies. Note: If you use a frozen pie shell, choose a deep-dish one and re-crimp the crust, making a high, fluted edge...

The Production of Race, Locality, and State: An Anthropology

PrologueThis article emerges from a confrontation in North Carolina in 2001. The article, which is about Newfoundland as well as North Carolina, is a partial, necessarily unresolved attempt to come terms with that moment, for both its causes and its consequences seem to have very broad implications for an engaged anthropology.To tell even a brief story of the incident in 20011 have to start much earlier. For most of 1967-681 was doing rights organizing in Robeson County, North Carolina-on the swampy interior coastal plain, at the border with South Carolina. Robeson was then a particularly nasty place. It was the second richest rural county in the south, by value of agricultural produce shipped from the county, and at the same time one of the 50 poorest counties in the U.S. by average per capita income. A handful of Whites did very well, a substantial number were moderately well-off, and together they were doing whatever they could to keep it that way, against the interests and well-being of the African American and Native American peoples, who together comprised two-thirds of the county population, and who were, for the most part, desperately poor and hard-pressed.Part of the struggle we were then fighting was for school cafeterias and subsidized lunches, particularly in the rural Black and Indian schools. You could see kids rummaging around in the schoolyard garbage dumpsters in the afternoon looking for food. We involved a writer-photographer from the Charlotte Observer, then the most liberal paper in the state, who came down and took a stunning photograph: a young African American boy, about eight, inside a garbage dumpster, with his head and shoulders showing above the rim, leaning out and passing a clearly half-eaten sandwich to a younger boy, who was standing on his tip-toes, reaching up for the sandwich with an angelic smile on his young face. She published this on the front page of the Sunday edition of the paper, where folks could see it on their way to or from church. It blew the state legislature wide open; we got a lot of important programs from the ruckus it caused.Thirty-four years later, in 2001,1 am still working on issues in Robeson County, if now only episodically. In the previous five years, 8500 mostly African American and Native American women had been put out of work by the passage of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), and the ensuing closure of all the textile assembly cut and stitch mills that moved offshore. These mills had been the largest source of employment in the county, from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s. Before the mills were built, agriculture provided most of the work; very quickly after the mills left, poultry and hog packing became the primary employers, but with a completely different labour force. By 2000 county officials were estimating that there were 12 000-14 000 (as all Spanish-speakers and many other immigrant workers are called) in the county, about three-fourths of them undocumented, and all referred to as illegal Mexicans (for a similar instance see Striffler 2005). They were by very far the predominant workforce in the new poultry- and hog-deconstruction plants, and provided almost all of the seasonal agricultural labour. They were hard run both at work and off; most saving money at little more than minimum wage, and doing so by living packed into substandard housing, along with other severe restrictions on consumption expenses.My current research and engagement in this area focusses on the displacement of African American labour, after they won a modicum of civil rights, by undocumented immigrant workers with very few rights. A senior official in the county's Department of Social Services and a local teacher both took enough interest in my present research to tell me that there were about 70 living in a former chicken coop, telling me where it was, and suggesting I go. I went to see it and indeed there were. …

Remembering Harry Golden: Food, Race, and Laughter

The 2004 meeting of Southern Foodways Alliance at University of Mississippi's Center for Study of Southern Culture brought together more than 300 scholars, food writers, restaurateurs, and just plain food lovers to eat and talk about issues of race and food history. Tom Hanchett, historian at Levine Museum of New South in Charlotte, North Carolina, shared this profile of 1950s southern writer Harry Golden, who used food and humor to advance nascent Civil Rights movement. Imagine a Jewish guy, short, fat, maybe in his fifties, bald, smoking a big cigar, Hungarian immigrants' kid, Yiddish accent, very Lower East Side. Make him a reporter for a labor union newspaper. That's Harry Golden. Now move him from New York, his natural habitat, to Charlotte, North Carolina. Cotton-mill town, banking town, place where religious diversity means Baptists and Presbyterians, adamantly antiunion dating back to General Textile Strike of 1934, when labor was rounded up and put in barbed-wire concentration camps. That's incongruous, right? Well, Harry Golden loved incongruous. He delighted in this new region he found himself in, and he delighted in role of gadfly and kibitzer. Harry Golden came to Charlotte at tail end of Great Depression and found himself a job at a little labor union newspaper. It's a surprise, perhaps, but there were enough unionists in Charlotte to support a newspaper--at least for a little while. Golden was energetic, a good ad salesman, a good talker, good company. Folks gravitated to him, enjoyed his presence and his stories. When newspaper went belly-up, Harry Golden decided to start his own monthly sheet, a one-man show called Carolina Israelite. told you he celebrated incongruous. Actually, if you know South it may not surprise you that Charlotte had enough Jews to support Leo's Delicatessen, and Harry opened Carolina Israelite in a big old Victorian house just a few steps from that nourishment. Harry aimed his new newspaper not specifically at Jews, but at anyone who might listen. He wrote about whatever was on his mind; Kathleen Purvis of Charlotte Observer recently called him the world's first blogger. It might be his Lower East Side youth, his thoughts on news of day, his love of opera, his love of food. It always, somehow, was about community. I have a positive cure for this mental aberration called anti-Semitism. believe we've been doing it all wrong. believe that if we gave each anti-Semite an onion roll with lox and cream cheese, some chopped chicken liver with a nice radish, and a good piece of brisket of beef with a few potato pancakes, he'd soon give up all this nonsense. It is worth a try. Or time he gave a box of genuine halva candy from New York to a Gentile friend here who had been courting a widow lady for years without success ... and next time saw guy he was dancing in streets. Often Harry Golden wrote about race, about incongruities he saw in city and region he had so enthusiastically adopted. Segregation bothered him deeply. So did system of unequal social relations that required that a black man, whose family had been in America 2 or 3 hundred years, step off sidewalk and tip his hat to me, a stranger to Charlotte, an immigrant in America. Golden made friends in black community as he did among whites. His house became a safe place where people of all backgrounds could drop in and talk--perhaps only such place in Charlotte, one of few in South. Out of those meetings, a marvelous strain of satirical humor began to bubble into Carolina Israelite. I prevailed upon manager of a department store to shut off water in his 'white' fountain and put up an 'out of order' sign. …

Civic Approach Not So Different from Traditional Model

This content analysis found some differences in the way a civic newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, covers homelessness. The Observer was less likely to use official sources than was the Indianapolis Star.

Good days, bad days

We teachers have a great deal in common. And I don’t mean just physics teachers; I mean teachers of all subjects at all levels. What brings this to mind is a story told not long ago by Kay McSpadden, a columnist for the Charlotte Observer and a high school English teacher.

The Great Deluge: A Chronicle of the Aftermath of Hurricane Floyd

When Hurricane Floyd visited North Carolina almost exactly two years ago, it was the worst natural disaster in the state's history. According to the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management and the Charlotte Observer, Floyd and its floods left fifty-one dead, sixty-six counties declared disaster areas, $6 billion in damage, 1.5 million people without power, 48,000 people in shelters, and hundreds of thousands of livestock dead. The storm flooded out twenty-four wastewater treatment plants, destroyed seven dams, and caused over $150 million in damage to state highways and $75 million to bridges and drainage systems. In all, Floyd forced police and the military to perform 1,400 swift-water evacuations.

Light and Air The Photography of Bayard Wootten (review)

Light and Air The Photography of Bayard Wootten By Jerry w. Cotten University of North Carolina Press, 1998 253 pp. Cloth, $37.50 The North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina Library in Chapel Hill owns over 97,000 negatives of photographs taken by the Wootten-Moulton Studio, a New Bern-Chapel Hill photographic business in operation from 1906 until 1954. It also owns 260 original exhibition prints taken by Bayard Wootten (1875-1959). This is a treasure trove of material. Jerry W. Cotten's Light and Air examines the career of Bayard Wootten within the broader history of twentieth-century photography and reproduces a selection of 136 photographs, mostly from the 1930s. These are images of the South: landscapes, wooden cabins, a plantation house, but mostly black and white Americans in the lower reaches of society. Have we seen their faces before? Some were published as illustrations for books, notably Muriel Earley Sheppard's Cabins in the Laurel (1935), Charles Morrow Wilson's Backwoods America (1934), and Olive Tilford Dargan's From My Highest Hill: Carolina's Mountain Folks (1941). The photos collected by Cotten are both similar to and different from the better-known Depression-era photos: those, for example, of African Americans in Charleston and Appalachian mountaineers taken by Doris Ulmann, those of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration, or those of Margaret Bourke-White in Erskine Caldwell's You Have Seen Their Faces (1937). Each of these photographers is associated with the straight or realistic and documentary movement in photography. Wootten, a decade or two older, was a dedicated pictorialist, part of an earlier movement in which photographers aimed to create images that rivaled the form of painting, making use of mood, studied compositions (sometimes posed or contrived), a tendency to favor or sentimental subjects, and an emphasis on atmospheric effects (hence the Light and Air title). Cotten makes astute comparisons between the work of the and Wootten's slightly softer, gentler images. But the distinction between the two approaches is not always as sharp to the reader. The selection of subject matter is crucial, and the choices were often remarkably similar; those of the realists sometimes seemed to deliberately convey images of dire poverty. Born in New Bern, the daughter of a photographer (who died when she was five) and a mother with an artistic bent, Wootten became interested in photography around 1904. Driven by financial need, she set up her own business, a bold move for a woman of her generation. Her half-brother, George C. Moulton, soon joined her and handled much of the routine photography that kept them afloat financially. Early on, Wootten established a contact with the military at Fort Bragg, doing portraits and job work, and in 1928 she and Moulton moved to Chapel Hill to do similar work for the University of North Carolina. (Many of those 97,000 negatives at the North Carolina Collection represent the bread-and-butter business that sustained them.) As early as 1910 Wootten exhibited at a meeting of the Photographic Association of America. She remained a member of its Women's Federation and kept in touch with the Pictorial Photographers of America until that organization's demise around 1920. A few years later Wootten visited the Appalachian School (now Penland) in the mountains of western North Carolina, a school run by her cousin Lucy Morgan with the aim of reviving rural handicrafts as a basis for fireside industries. Wootten took pictures for the school's catalog and in turn grew to love the region and its people. Her first national recognition came in 1932 when she exhibited forty prints of landscapes and portraits at the Fine Arts Theatre in Boston. The Boston papers, as well as the Charlotte Observer, praised the natural and picturesque quality of her studies of mountain people. …

A Paperless Newsproduct for a New Century

The University of Florida's newspaper conference (Oct. 21-23, 1993) brought educators and professionals together to learn about newspapers: where they've been, what they are, and what they might be.Where they've beenThe so-called electronic of today originated in the early and mid-More sophisticated BBS allowed users to in real time with other users. (It's not surprising that shortwave enthusiasts embraced the idea of BBS because they could do with computers what they had been doing with shortwave radios--communicate with people electronically.) Later BBS offered more powerful PCs with the ability to handle many phone lines simultaneously.On-line services expanded the BBS concept by charging people to access more powerful servers loaded with more data. On-line services line Nexis, Data Times, and Dialog bought data from newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, wire services, and features services. Firms offered specialized financial, legal, community, and news data to clients as well.Although it might seem natural that newspapers would embrace the idea of the on-line electronic newspaper, they were slow to do so. Early attempts by newspapers to deliver information failed in large measure because of the limitations of technology. TeleText and VideoText failed because they required dedicated terminals ($600 to $900), had poor messaging capabilities, used complicated programming schemes, and offered no advertising support. Furthermore, these early services tied up TV and phone lines.Where they areToday, a handful of newspapers across the United States are delivering their news on-line. Some papers sell their news content to big on-line services like Prodigy and America OnLine. Others use bulletin board software to offer news, chat services and features to users who own PCs and modems. Some of those papers with their own on-line services are the Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune, the San lose Mercury News, the Charlotte Observer, the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Chicago Tribune, the Middlesex News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the Florida Today, Newsday, and USA Today Sports.Panelists from the San lose Mercury, the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, and the Albuquerque Tribune had the following observations about their on-line newspapers:* Regardless of their circulation, each paper reported about 4,000 on-line clients.* On-line services require at least a copy editor, a customer service representative, and a technical person. The San Jose Mercury has a staff of 16 (copy editors, software people, and billing staff).* The papers all had to work out special fee arrangements with the wire service to allow wire copy to be distributed on-line.* On-line services tend to supplement--not duplicate--the parent paper's content.* The most heavily used section of the on-line service is the chat service, which allows users to interact in real time with other users or experts. Horoscopes, play listings for movies, and classifieds are popular, too. …

The Charlotte Observer: Its Time and Place, 1869-1986

The Charlotte Observer: Its Time and Place, 1869-1986