Charlotte wet and dry

The library recently received a gift of four decades worth of letters from J. B. Ivey, the founder of the Ivey's department store chain. He wrote a newsletter almost every week from the 1920s to the 1950s to far-flung family and friends, informing them of "Home News", as he called it. He used the newsletter to report on sickness and health in his wide circle of acquaintance, to describe the state of his garden, for which he was famous, and to give news from the Methodist Church, in which he was a leader. The one bit of trivia that anyone who knows anything about Mr. Ivey seems to know concerns his adherence to church teaching. He ordered the windows of his store to be shuttered on Sundays, so that no-one would be distracted from church-going by the temptation to window shop.

The letters offer very little commentary on matters beyond his personal sphere, one exception being temperance. As the nation and the state debated Prohibition, Mr. Ivey expressed his hope that North Carolina, at least, would stay "dry" - forbidding the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages. To appreciate the context for his convictions, one may consult a small volume on the Carolina Room shelves: Prohibition Didn't End in '33. It is an oral history project, edited by Margaret Bigger and published in 1994. It features the words of Charlotte residents, who must have been seventy or eighty years old at the time of the interviews, recalling experiences and family lore from the period of Prohibition.

One story in the book from Charlotte's history concerns the disposal of contraband liquor seized by the local police. From the police station on East Fourth Street, they would dump it into the storm drain, which emptied into Sugar Creek. The flow of whiskey produced a noticeable smell, and some local drinkers even filled empty bottles at this source!

Welcome to Black History Month

In February students of all ages and races reflect on African American history. Many different types of resources in the Carolina Room can help them. The photograph collection called "An African American Album", for example, captures family groups, churches, social gatherings, and other moments of black life in Charlotte. Pictured above is a family portrait from 1920: the photograph complements the information on the same people from the census of the same year.