This post focuses on the Asheville Street Railway Strike of 1913; the great Asheville flood of 1916; and the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920, in which my father nearly died.
Read moreGlimpses into the Daily Lives of the Whisnants
My previous post conveyed as much as I have been able to discover about the “little house behind the big house” setting of the Whisnant family’s life on Asheville’s South…
Read moreWorking Class Family Behind the Big House: Asbury, Ella, and Their Children: 1907-1918
Living Large and Small: Class and Difference on an In-town Estate This post examines the place where Asbury and Ella lived with their family for fifteen years after 1907, and seeks to employ the…
Read moreMid-Course Correction: Ella Goes to (Mid-Course) Asheville, 1907
A previous post explored Ella Austin’s and Asbury Whisnant’s lives during the post-Civil War years–before they both took jobs at the State Hospital at Morganton around 1894. Another focused on the…
Read moreAsbury’s Asheville: 1900-1907
For Starters: Some Guesses as to Why Asbury Chose Asheville Although the romantic designation as the Land of the Sky was bestowed upon Asheville in Christian Reid’s 1875 novel, this…
Read moreElla, Asbury and the State Hospital at Morganton: From Social and Institutional to Personal History
Every day of the year somebody’s brain reels. Splendid as is our civilization, insanity, and intemperance, its foremost proximate cause, are its dark shadows which follow its march with ever-deepening…
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