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…
Read moreThe Enka Voice in White and (Rarely) Black
American 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 moreMoving on Up to Pisgah Heights: The Whisnants in West Asheville
This is the story of a street railway operator and his family moving from a small rented house (their home for 16 years) on an in-town estate in downtown Asheville…
Read moreThe Down Side of the Land of the Sky: The Whisnants and Rudisills in Asheville and West Asheville, 1922-1951
This post is lovingly and admiringly dedicated to my father-in-law Frank Joseph Mitchell (February 12, 1927 – July 25, 2017). Lifelong student, prodigious reader, indefatigable writer, fearless preacher and unforgettable…
Read moreThe Several Lives of West Asheville, Part III: Edwin Carrier in West Asheville
Quick Take on the Early Years: Incorporation, De-/Re-incorporation, Annexation, and Mini-Boom, 1889-1925 When West Asheville–already on the way toward development and modernization–was incorporated on February 9, 1889, the language of…
Read moreThe Several Lives of West Asheville, Part II: Edwin G. Carrier Before West Asheville
The Story So Far Edwin Carrier was born in 1839, so he was in his late forties when he arrived in Western North Carolina (probably in 1885). Early discussions of…
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