In case you missed it! Last week, Buncombe County Special Collections joined forces with the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and Vance Birthplace State Historic Sites to host “Exile From Altamont? Race and Belonging in Thomas Wolfe’s Asheville,” a mini-symposium examining issues of race in Thomas Wolfe’s Asheville and how those themes continue to impact our community.
February kicks off the NASCAR Cup Series and marks the 76th anniversary of the founding of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Did you know that located where North Buncombe High School has its football field was once the first NASCAR-sanctioned racetrack in WNC, the Asheville-Weaverville Speedway?
Today, we’re looking back on our 2023 accomplishments and impact! We believe that our staff and community of colleagues, donors, researchers, and visitors are making a positive impact in contributing to the collective memory of Buncombe County and WNC. Thank you to each and every one of you who have been part of our community
Archives and special collections as kitchen reference materials? Why not! This past September, the staff of Buncombe County Special Collections went on a search through the historic cookbooks in our collection for recipes to try out and share. Here’s the “reading list” that inspired our potluck, and the recipes we shared. The Carolina Housewife by
If you have visited the Special Collections reading room in the past few months, you may have noticed that there’s a new exhibition on view, featuring a variety of limited-run pamphlets, booklets, and artistic ephemera—zines! The exhibition Belonging and Non-Belonging: The History and Future of Zines in Western North Carolina is curated by Miles Lamberson,
In recognition of October’s American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, Thomas Wolfe’s birthday, and the publishing of his first novel, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the complex history between Pack Memorial Library and Look Homeward, Angel. On October 18, 1929, just a few weeks after Thomas Wolfe turned 29,