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HeardTell Blog

HARD TIMES…STRANGE MEASURES

The Great Depression was in full swing in 1934.  Looking back at people’s wildly varying reactions to such adversity elicits a mixed bag of emotions. Great sadness for the suffering.  Amazement at the triumph of human spirit.  Bafflement at seemingly futile (but perhaps poetic) gestures of hope. Take, for example, this poor family passing through Pack Square on a
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Happy New Year from the North Carolina Room, Pack Memorial Library

It is said that in the olden days in Asheville, you didn’t need a holiday to throw a big party. So imagine what this 1914 New Year’s Eve ball and dinner party, hosted by Mrs. Alice Thomas Connally in the ballroom of the Manor must have been like!   Mistletoe hangs from the ceiling above the arches of
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Christmas Greetings, circa 1940, from Ignatius Brock

The staff of the NC Room offers you “best wishes for the season” in the words of Asheville personality Ignatius Watsworth Brock (1866-1950), nationally known photographer and artist. Old Earth its cycles still repeating Brings us Christmas every year Now to you we send a greeting For the festive season here With best wishes for
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Yutaka Minakuchi: A Story in a Name
One of the delights of cataloguing incoming materials in the NC Room is that the smallest  detail can lead down a rabbit hole into worlds of stories. Recently, while working with papers of Albert Heath Carrier, partner of the Smith & Carrier architectural firm that designed many of Asheville’s historic buildings, I discovered an amazing
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WHO WAS GEORGE WELLER?

GEORGE WELLER LIVED IN ASHEVILLE FOR A SHORT TIME BUT HE SEEMED TO KNOW MANY INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE. THE “CITIZEN JR” BEGAN APPEARING IN THE SUNDAY ASHEVILLE CITIZEN AROUND 1925 AND CONTINUED FOR AT LEAST A COUPLE OF YEARS.  WELLER MADE HIS HOME AT THE BATTERY PARK HOTEL…AND IT LOOKS LIKE HE KEPT HIMSELF BUSY BY MINGLING WITH MANY
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“I want to learn to read!” Buncombe County’s Adult Education Program in Literacy

One of the benefits of working in the North Carolina collection is the discovery of new imagery and information on Buncombe County and Western North Carolina.  Recently I’ve been scanning a large group of images of students who were in the Adult Education Program in the mid-1920’s.  But these aren’t typical students.  These photographs document
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