The Quest for Progress: The Way We Lived in North Carolina, 1870-1920Sydney Nathans UNC Press Books, 1983 - 112 pages Few would have guessed in 1870 that within fifty years North Carolina would be the most industrialized state in the South. The Quest for Progress recounts that half-century of turbulent change and growth. It is the fourth volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina, a pioneering series that uses historic places as windows to the past. An accelerating pace of life was evident everywhere in North Carolina at the turn of the century, from mill villages to mushrooming towns. Sky scrapers and suburbs, country estates and mountain resorts testified to the state's new wealth. But new conflicts marked the era as well. Farmers plagued by debt fought back in a Populist movement that carried its cause to the nation. Working men and women fought to keep their independence on the factory floor. Black North Carolinians, despite violence and disenfranchisement, built the churches, colleges, and businesses that prepared the next generation to reclaim its rights. By 1920, North Carolina was a state transformed. Sites used to illuminate this period include mill villages, a tobacco factory, depots, schoolhouses, general stores, a fire station, a drugstore, and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial. Each volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina examines the social history of an era, weaving interpretation around dozens of historic sites and the lives of ordinary people who lived and worked nearby. The series is based on the premise that the past can be most fully understood through the joint experience of reading history and visiting historic places. These volumes will appeal to all who are interested in North Carolina history, historic preservation, and social history. |
Contents
Overview | 1 |
The Rural World | 5 |
Industry Comes of Age | 21 |
The Urban Magnet | 45 |
From Jubilee to Jim Crow | 69 |
The New Leisure | 85 |
The Price of Progress | 95 |
Acknowledgments | 103 |
105 | |
Map of Historic Places | 109 |
111 | |
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Common terms and phrases
A.M.E. Church agricultural Alliance Hall American Asheville became Biltmore boardinghouse brick brought building built Bull Durham Buncombe County cabin Carolinians Charlotte cigarettes Civil countryside Courtesy Courthouse crops decades Dilworth Duke's Durham Edgecombe County employees farm farmers floor Forest Glencoe Greensboro Grove Park Inn Haw River Henderson historic Holt hundred industry Julia Wolfe Katherine Smith Reynolds Körner's Folly labor land Latta live machine manufacturing mill owners mill village mountain N.C. State Archives nation Negro North Carolina North Carolina Mutual Park Pauli Murray Piedmont Polk production profit Propst House Pullen Park railroad Raleigh Randolph County resort Reynolda House rural smoking tobacco South Southern Spencer Shops state's Street suburban textile Thomas Wolfe thousand tion tobacco factories town twentieth century urban wages Wake County warehouse Washington Duke wealth Wilmington Winston woman women workers young