September 11, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Muscadine Wine and Yadkin Valley Wine

This week for our North Carolina Icons series, we’re featuring Muscadine wine and Yadkin Valley wine. They are numbers 28 and 85 on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons. Muscadine grapevines are native to the Southeastern United States and have been used to make wine since the sixteenth century. Yadkin Valley stretches from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the North Carolina Piedmont and is full of wineries and vineyards. Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Muscadine Wine and Yadkin Valley Wine

Categories Cooking / Food/North Carolina/Travel
September 10, 2012

Kathleen Purvis: Preparations of a Book-Signing Novice

As a first-time book author facing book-signing events, I’m going to have to sign my name in books that people are buying. (At least I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll get a lot of practice sitting at little tables and smiling cheerfully while people ignore me.) Continue Reading Kathleen Purvis: Preparations of a Book-Signing Novice

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/The Book Biz
September 6, 2012

Gordon M. Sayre: The Founding of New Orleans: A City of Floods

A large portion of New Orleans lies below sea level, although the historic and touristic French Quarter, the part of the city that dates to the French period in the mid-eighteenth century, is just barely above sea level and suffered the least from Katrina. The reasons for New Orleans’ vulnerability, and the reasons why the city was established where it is, are revealed in the narrative of Jean-François Benjamin Dumont de Montigny. Continue Reading Gordon M. Sayre: The Founding of New Orleans: A City of Floods

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Biography / Autobiography/Environmental Studies/Geography/Guest Bloggers/History/Hurricanes/Weather
September 5, 2012

Debbie Moose: Confessions of a Crazed Cookbook Author: 7 Tips for Writing a Cookbook

People often ask me how to write cookbooks and where I get my recipes from…. As with all writing, there’s a certain amount of mystery involved. A high number of trips to the kitchen for snacks and other attention-diverting activities are also critical. After writing five cookbooks, I believe I’m qualified to offer seven tips for creating them. Feel free to take notes. Continue Reading Debbie Moose: Confessions of a Crazed Cookbook Author: 7 Tips for Writing a Cookbook

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers
September 4, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Asheville and the Biltmore House

This week in our North Carolina Icons series we’re featuring Asheville and its most famous residence, the Biltmore House. Our State describes Asheville as “A different kind of place. Unless you’re a little different yourself. Make a visit and see.” Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Asheville and the Biltmore House

Categories Art / Architecture/North Carolina/Travel
August 30, 2012

Lara Putnam: Children of Immigrants, the American Way: Mitt, Gwen, and Barack

In some unexpected ways, it is Mitt and Gwen who have the most in common. For both of them are not only children of immigrants, but children of parents who were themselves children of immigrants. Continue Reading Lara Putnam: Children of Immigrants, the American Way: Mitt, Gwen, and Barack

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Politics
August 29, 2012

Anne M. Butler: Sisterhoods and Habits

Most sisters do not wear the once ubiquitous garb any more; many bishops yearn to see the gender-weighted tradition reinstated; nostalgic lay people reminisce about the habit along with such Catholic signposts as fish on Friday or parish bingo. It is time to drop the overdone fascination with the antiquated clothing of an earlier era—the long black veils, starched bonnets, and sweeping serge skirts—that supposedly measured the holiness of cloistered women, or at least made nuns easy to identify. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Sisterhoods and Habits

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
August 28, 2012

North Carolina Icons: The Great Dismal Swamp

This week in our North Carolina icons series we’re featuring the Great Dismal Swamp, which stretches from Norfolk, Virginia to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It’s number 80 on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list, where it’s described: “Birds don’t find the swamp dismal at all. More than 200 species of birds can be spotted there during the year. Grab your binoculars and go.” Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: The Great Dismal Swamp

Categories African American Studies/Fiction/Literature/Nature/North Carolina
August 27, 2012

Excerpt: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other, by Carol Reardon

Military theory is an intellectually sophisticated and complex form of cultural expression. At the start of the Civil War, the U.S. Army and the people it defended barely had begun to demonstrate an interest in developing a capacity to think about war as an element of national life. They had done little to institutionalize such study. As a consequence, when the Civil War broke out, Northerners had few resources to turn to for insights on an American way of war, and they had no choice but to look to the military classics from across a cultural divide for the intellectual authority they sought. Continue Reading Excerpt: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other, by Carol Reardon

Categories American History/Civil War/Excerpts/History/Military Studies
August 24, 2012

Jay Barnes: Hurricanes and Politics

Much of the news coverage for Issac has focused on Tampa, host city for the Republican National Convention set to get underway on Monday. There’s good reason to focus attention on Tampa too, because along with the entire Tampa Bay area, it is the U.S. city most vulnerable to a major hurricane. Continue Reading Jay Barnes: Hurricanes and Politics

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Hurricanes/Weather
August 23, 2012

Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

It was lovely, this old plantation house, perched, as it was, atop a hillside. Striking in its grandeur. Alluring in its light. I could almost believe, staring up at the glowing, Palladian window panes, that the year was 1806, that Cherokees still possessed the lands of northern Georgia, that the wealthy Cherokee family who once dwelled in this home would appear at a doorway in waistcoats and bustles. Continue Reading Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Excerpts/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 21, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Longleaf Pine

This week in our North Carolina Icons series, we jump to #94 on Our State Magazine’s list of 100 North Carolina Icons: the Longleaf Pine. Our book recommendations are to be enjoyed with your favorite beverage, a glass of which you should raise high as you recite the North Carolina State Toast (yes, we have one!). Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Longleaf Pine

Categories Environmental Studies/Nature/North Carolina
August 20, 2012

Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

For all the attention to Lincoln’s ideas and motivations, however, there has been very little focus on the delegates’ side of the story. For decades no one even knew who they were, much less what they stood for. Drawing on the work of the historian Benjamin Quarles, many believed that four of the five delegates were uneducated former slaves, hand-picked by Lincoln and his colonization commissioner, James Mitchell, to be pliable and subservient.

In fact, all five of the men who listened to Lincoln’s case for colonization were members of Washington’s free black elite, chosen by a formal meeting of representatives from Washington’s independent black churches. Continue Reading Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil War/History
August 17, 2012

Excerpt: This Voilent Empire, by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

The fear of alien attacks, the need to violently exclude Others seen as dangerous or polluting has formed a critical component of the United States’ national identity from the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s through Joseph McCarthy’s war on domestic Communists to the present. To fear and dehumanize alien Others, to ruthlessly hunt them down, is truly American. Continue Reading Excerpt: This Voilent Empire, by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

Categories American History/American Studies/Excerpts/History
August 16, 2012

Sandra Gutierrez: Pecan Rum Cake with Figs

I grew up in Latin America, eating cakes soaked in rum that we used to call borrachos or drunken cakes. Rum, after all, is made out of sugarcane and in my opinion, that is enough of a reason to feature it in baked goods. Here, instead of adding it in the form of rum syrup, I add it straight into the batter, which infuses it with a subtle essence and therefore makes it suitable for romantics of all ages. Continue Reading Sandra Gutierrez: Pecan Rum Cake with Figs

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Recipes/Sandra Gutierrez
August 14, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Cheerwine & Krispy Kreme

For this week’s North Carolina Icons, we’re combining two North Carolina companies: Cheerwine and Krispy Kreme, #3 and #34 on Our State Magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list. Both companies started in North Carolina in the early 20th century, Cheerwine in Salisbury and Krispy Kreme in Winston-Salem, and have remained there while spreadingto other states. Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Cheerwine & Krispy Kreme

Categories Cooking / Food/North Carolina
August 13, 2012

Interview: Eric L. Muller on new images of Japanese American internment in World War II

Cameras remained contraband at the camps located within the military district called the Western Defense Command. But Wyoming was outside that zone, and by the spring of 1943, cameras were permitted. The WRA recognized that allowing internees to take pictures was a way of helping them reclaim some sense of a normal life and some of their dignity. Continue Reading Interview: Eric L. Muller on new images of Japanese American internment in World War II

Categories American Studies/Asian Studies/Documentary Studies/Interviews/Photography
August 9, 2012

Notes from the Field: Miguel La Serna Returns to Ayacucho

Miguel La Serna, author of The Corner of the Living, recently returned to his research communities in Peru to donate a copy of his published work to local archives. Here, he shares his field notes from that experience, including some sobering updates on his community collaborators. Continue Reading Notes from the Field: Miguel La Serna Returns to Ayacucho

Categories Anthropology/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 8, 2012

Beth Tompkins Bates: The High Road to Economic Prosperity

To address the human element of production, Ford introduced his Five Dollar Day, Ford Profit-Sharing Plan. When the plan was unveiled in 1914, the world was stunned. Qualified Ford workers would receive five dollars a day, more than double the average wage in the auto industry at that time. When compared to lower prevailing wages in other industries such as steel, meatpacking, or coal mining, the Ford proposal was even more astounding. Simultaneously, FMC reduced the workday from nine hours to eight. Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: The High Road to Economic Prosperity

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Economics/Guest Bloggers/History