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 moreEnka Builds a Labor Force: The Magic of Native-Born Mountain Workers
NOTE TO READERS: This is the third in a series of posts on the coming of the American Enka Corporation plant to Buncombe County’s Hominy Valley in 1928, and its…
Read moreEvery Marriage Is Two Marriages: John Whisnant and Mary Neal Rudisill Whisnant’s Early Years Together, 1934-1940
Every marriage is two marriages: his and hers. Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage (1973)1 After a short train ride north from Asheville in late August 1934, John Whisnant and…
Read moreRetrospective I: A Primer on the Sad Truths of Slavery in Asheville, Buncombe County and Western North Carolina
The Consensus Myth: “No Slaves or Slaveholders in the Mountains” John Preston Arthur’s popular 1914 history put the matter of slaves and slaveholders in the mountains succinctly and unambiguously::…
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