Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina before 1770

Presents a comprehensive social history of North Carolina by focusing on dozens of historic sites and the lives of ordinary people who lived and worked nearby. First published in 1983 as a five-volume series, this illustrated state history is now revised and available in a single volume.

When the shooting of the American Revolution died away, North Carolinians continued to work out the meaning of independence in the fabric of their daily lives. This book describes how these efforts toward independence left their marks on public and private life. It is the second volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina, a pioneering series that uses historic places as windows to the past.

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.

North Carolinians of the nineteenth century dwelt in an agrarian world. Close to the Land details the lives of antebellum Carolinians from the tobacco field to the grist mill, the courthouse to the schoolyard, and the camp-meeting arbor to the slave-quarter stoop. It is the third volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina, a pioneering series that uses historic places as windows to the past. The farm, whether of ten acres or ten thousand, was the basic unit of economic production and social organization in antebellum North Carolina. The Tar Heel town, whether port city or back-country village, was intrinsically tied to agriculture. Even budding industry and improved transportation facilities were essentially the outgrowth of efforts to process agricultural products and to reach markets efficiently. Although war and industrial expansion were to revolutionize society and transform the economy, the state's continued commitment to agriculture linked North Carolina with its rural traditions. Sites used to illuminate life in this period include slave dwellings, a coastal manor house, a piedmont farmstead, a restored theater, a female academy, an early gold mine, a rural temperance/ literary society, and a Civil War battleground. 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.

Since its establishment in 1792 as the "permanent and unalterable seat of government of the state of North Carolina," Raleigh has seen many changes. Historian Joe Mobley offers a detailed and compelling portrait of North Carolina's capital as it has evolved from town to thriving metropolis, from the Civil War and Reconstruction through the Great Depression and Raleigh's coming of age in the decades following World War II. Learn about the many obstacles Raleigh has overcome on its way to becoming a major center of economic, social and political life in North Carolina.

The North Carolina barrier islands, a 325-mile-long string of narrow sand islands that forms the coast of North Carolina, are one of the most beloved areas to live and visit in the United States. However, extensive barrier island segments and their associated wetlands are in jeopardy. In The Battle for North Carolina's Coast, four experts on coastal dynamics examine issues that threaten this national treasure. According to the authors, the North Carolina barrier islands are not permanent. Rather, they are highly mobile piles of sand that are impacted by sea-level rise and major storms and hurricanes. Our present development and management policies for these changing islands are in direct conflict with their natural dynamics. Revealing the urgency of the environmental and economic problems facing coastal North Carolina, this essential book offers a hopeful vision for the coast's future if we are willing to adapt to the barriers' ongoing and natural processes. This will require a radical change in our thinking about development and new approaches to the way we visit and use the coast. Ultimately, we cannot afford to lose these unique and valuable islands of opportunity. This book is an urgent call to protect our coastal resources and preserve our coastal economy.