In case you have ever (or never) pondered how much cross-cultural tolerance there may have been in Asheville in 1929, ponder this Sunday Citizen item from June 9, p. 18.…
Read moreWomen’s History Month: Pictorial Preview of Upcoming Post on Women Workers at Enka
These images suggest some of the key topics and issues addressed in my upcoming post on the thousands of women who worked at American Enka from the 1930s onward: recruitment…
Read moreThe Enka Voice in White and (Rarely) Black

A Quick Take Beginning in April 1930 and continuing for some 40 years, the Enka Voice carried regular news of employee engagements and marriages, newborn babies, children’s schooling, fishing and…
Read moreAmerican Enka Corporation Was a Dutch Company: Did It Matter, and If So, How?: Part II

Black Workers at American Enka: Few and Mostly Invisible I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. . . . When they approach me they…
Read moreThe American Enka Corporation Was a Dutch Company: Did It Matter, and If So, How? Part I
My initial intention for this post (one in a series on Enka) was to investigate the presence of Black workers at the Dutch-owned American Enka plant in Buncombe County’s Hominy…
Read moreEngineer by Mail: John Whisnant’s Early Years at American Enka, 1933-1941

NOTE TO READERS: This is the fourth in a series of posts on the coming of the American Enka Corporation plant to Buncombe County’s Hominy Valley in 1928, where it…
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