Author: Elijah Gaddis

Reading Room, New East 211 | Wednesday, February 14, 2018, 12:30-1:45 PM Please join us for a lunch-time presentation and discussion of the transformation of the Dorothea Dix Hospital site into a “destination” park, and the role of the Community Histories Workshop in recovering the long history of that site. The presentation on Dorothea Dix Hospital will take place in New East 211 on Wednesday, February 14th from 12:30pm-1:45pm. From 1856 to 2012, Dix Hospital was the state’s principal insane asylum. For 150 years prior to 1856, Dix Hill, as it was called, was part of the Hunter family plantation. After the closure of the facility, the 308-acre site was purchased from the state by the City of Raleigh so that it could be repurposed as one of the largest new urban parks in the U.S. The Dix Park Conservancy Board was formed to facilitate planning and design of the park and has engaged the nationally renowned landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh...

On June 12 and 13, the Community Histories Workshop will host "Lynching in the American South: A Workshop."  Led by Seth Kotch and Elijah Gaddis, the workshop will bring participants into the work of the CHW and especially our project The Red Record.  Participants will learn about lynching in North Carolina and around the South, be introduced to and practice some new digital tools, and help us expand the project to other states around the South.  You can learn more and register for the workshop here: http://lynching.web.unc.edu/2017-workshop/ .   ...

We started the Rocky Mount Mills Digital Archive as a way to gather together some of the thousands of archived items from the mill's two hundred year history. We started with digitized items from three main repositories: the Rocky Mount Mills Photo Archive and the Rocky Mount Mills Awards, 1970s-1990s, both hosted by the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Charles S. Killebrew Photographic Collection, 1948-2001, hosted by the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since these first items went up, we've continued to add more items to our online collections. There are photographs, newspaper articles, letters, posters, and other items housed in collections throughout North Carolina. Some are in formal archives–like the Rocky Mount Mills Records and the Charles Killebrew Photographic Collection at UNC, or the many collections at Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount. Other collections are in family homes and attics and...

For the latest in our series on Community Histories Workshop fellows, we hear from Morgan Vickers, one of our inaugural undergraduate fellows.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuXkBt6fZos...

With the recent opening of the Alfred C. Kessell History Center in Gastonia, we've been reflecting on the years of collaborations between students, faculty, staff, and Gaston County community members that have helped produce this place. This video, produced by Will Bosley, gives an overview of our process and highlights just a small portion of that collaborative energy.   https://vimeo.com/194714191?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220...

The following is the first in a series of blog posts from Christina Kochanski, a Community Histories Workshop Undergraduate Fellow who is working on The Red Record project.    Godwin “Buddy” Bush has an incredible story. He survived a lynch mob, escaping his kidnappers and hiding in the woods as mob members and county officials hunted him down. Yet his story was repurposed to promote antilynching legislation. Godwin Bush the person got lost in the attempt to create Godwin Bush the symbol. The lynching attempt occurred in 1947, as lynching’s frequency in North Carolina decreased. Bush’s kidnapping presented an opportunity for legislators to make the final push in officially ending lynching. As the FBI investigated the mob members and Congresswoman Helen Douglas pushed for antilynching laws, Bush himself fell by the wayside. His name disappeared from newspapers within days of the attack. Even as the lynching attempt against him shaped national policy, he became invisible, quietly trying to reconstruct his life. Here, I will...

Watch the video below to learn more about our first preview of digital exhibits built in Prospect during the Rocky Mount Mills reunion on October 29, 2016. We welcomed around 75 former workers and their families to visit the mill, learn about our work, and share some of their own history with this place. Look for more material from this event soon.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJsNP5Cb_tU...

This is the first in our series of posts chronicling some of the students, faculty, and other scholars that make up the Community Histories Workshop. Below, Dani Callahan talks about what draws her to digital history, and talks about some of the projects she's worked on in the two years since she started this work.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc2-xk4oh9A...

On Friday, July 20th, 1920, The Evening Telegram of Rocky Mount, North Carolina published an article titled, “States Relation of Mill to City.” This article was a full 102 years after the Battle family acquired the land and founded the mill in what would become Rocky Mount. The article describes the ways in which the Mills made use of various public utilities, including lights, water, sewage systems, and gas. In the context of the pre-Depression era, and the Rocky Mount “gas shortage” of the 1920s, this article provides insight into the operations and finances of the Mills, as led by the Battle family. According to a Sanborn fire insurance map from 1917, the Mills were powered by electric lighting. As stated by Mr. T. H. Battle in the Evening Telegram article, “we have our own light plant and use it entirely... Our bill to you for lights is about $12.00 a month.” Based on inflation this amount would equate to about...

On October 29, 2016, we’re helping to host a reunion at Rocky Mount Mills. Along with Capitol Broadcasting, we’d like to invite every former worker, their friends, families, and communities to Rocky Mount Mills. We’ll be having conversations about your experiences and memories, and sharing with you some digital exhibits that we’re building to help tell the story of Rocky Mount Mills.   We’ve called this event a reunion to recognize that this is a kind of homecoming for many people.  Some families lived in the mill village and worked in the mill for generations. Others came when the mill integrated in the 1960s and commuted, sometimes from many miles away. We want to share the history we’re uncovering with everyone and hope you’ll share your stories and memories with us too.   On October 29, we’ll be recording conversations for a series we’re calling “Closing Stories.” These oral histories will focus on the last years of Rocky Mount Mills. We particularly...