Storyline
Chapel Hill’s Dogwood Festival from its first year in 1933 to its third in 1935: the folk music, dancing and crafts, the 1934 charter and second festival, the Cherokee ball game on Emerson Field, and the state Scout Jubilee held with it.
In briefBegun in April 1933 in the Forest Theatre with fiddlers and ballad singers, and more than 1,500 North Carolina crafts shown in the Graham Memorial, the Dogwood Festival paid its expenses from 25-cent admissions and was held again in 1934 and 1935. By 1934 the state had chartered it as a non-stock corporation to promote folk music, drama, dancing, crafts and the protection of native dogwoods, with Russell M. Grumman as president. The second festival brought more than 100 unpaid performers and exhibitors, from Ashe County musicians to the Jugtown potters. The third included a Cherokee ball game that, the Weekly reported, filled the stands at Emerson Field, and a state Scout Jubilee that brought about 1,600 Boy Scouts.
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On April 29, 1933 Chapel Hill's Dogwood Festival filled the Forest Theatre with fiddlers, ballad singers, the Carrboro band and square and English country dances, while more than 1,500 North Carolina crafts were shown in the Graham Memorial. The Weekly called it the first festival. The 25-cent admissions covered expenses and left a small fund, and the committee planned to make it a yearly event. By February 16, 1934 the state had chartered the festival as a non-stock corporation to promote folk music, drama, dancing, games, crafts and the protection of native dogwoods, with Russell M. Grumman as president and Joseph Hyde Pratt as vice-president. The second festival, April 13 to 15, 1934, brought more than 100 unpaid performers and exhibitors, among them musicians from Ashe County, a dance team from Rose Hill in Duplin County and the Jugtown potters. The third opened April 25, 1935 with a Playmakers performance and ran through the weekend with crafts, a folk music program in Memorial Hall and open gardens. On April 27 Cherokee teams from Wolftown and Yellow Hill played a ball game that, the Weekly reported, filled the stands at Emerson Field and paid for itself. Held with the festival, a state Scout Jubilee brought about 1,600 Boy Scouts to camp around Kenan Stadium.
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Background reading on Arts, Music & Performance. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Tom Maxwell's 2024 account of Chapel Hill's alternative rock scene in the 1990s, set against North Carolina's longer musical history. Maxwell writes as a musician who played in that scene, and the book follows the bands, clubs and labels that drew national attention to the town. Subjects include alternative rock music, Chapel Hill, 1991-2000, history and criticism. Published by Hachette, 310 pages with plates.
Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.
A survey of the collection of the Ackland Art Museum, the art museum of UNC-Chapel Hill, published by the museum in 2022. The Ackland opened in 1958 and now has more than 20,000 objects spanning some five thousand years of world art; this volume presents a selection in color as an introduction to the collection and to the museum's approach, summed up in its title, of looking closely and thinking widely. 311 pages, illustrated chiefly in color.
Fifty-year history of PlayMakers Repertory Company, the professional theater founded in 1975 by Tom Haas with Arthur Housman on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. Chapters by Bobbi Owen, Cecelia Moore and Gregory Kable follow the company leader by leader: Haas, David Rotenberg and Gregory Boyd, Milly S. Barranger and David Hammond, Joseph Haj and Vivienne Benesch. Appendices list productions, Department of Dramatic Art faculty, MFA graduates and administrators since 1975. Published by the department in 2021, 168 pages, online edition.
Patricia S. Parker draws on civil rights organizer Ella Baker (1903-1986) to set out a method of community engagement and communication for social justice work, illustrated by case studies from the Ella Baker Women's Center for Leadership and Community Activism in Chapel Hill. Chapters cover entering into community partnerships, creating participative spaces for organizing, storytelling as leadership, and self-care for activists, with a case study timeline and curriculum overview appended. Published by the University of California Press in 2020, 177 pages.
Singer and songwriter Ben Folds (born 1966), whose band Ben Folds Five came together in Chapel Hill, looks back on his life in music. Chapters cover his music teachers and 'cheap lessons', a stretch in Nashville, the band's first albums and the music business, 'Rockin' the suburbs', going solo, and the years after a low point, told through anecdotes and working advice. Published in a first edition of 2019, 311 pages with illustrations.
Laura Veirs's picture book biography of Elizabeth Cotten, the folk singer and guitarist who grew up near Carrboro and Chapel Hill and wrote Freight Train as a girl. Written for young readers, it was published by Chronicle Books in 2018. Topics include African American women singers and singers of the United States in juvenile literature.
Mary C. Sturgeon's catalog of the ancient art collection at UNC-Chapel Hill's Ackland Art Museum, published by the university in 2015. The works, shown in color, were made in many parts of the ancient Mediterranean, Egypt among them. A large-format volume of 333 pages.
Alex Albright's history of the B-1 band, the group of Black musicians drawn largely from students and graduates of North Carolina A&T who became the first Black sailors of the modern Navy to serve above the rank of messman, and the first of more than a hundred Black Navy bands in wartime. The band was posted to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, the book's Orange County link. Published by R.A. Fountain in 2013, 194 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Catalog of works given to the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill by the Tyche Foundation, published by the foundation in 2010. An illustrated record of one donor's gifts to the university's art museum, 72 pages, chiefly color illustrations.
Exhibition book by Timothy A. Riggs for a 2009 show at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill drawn from John P. Eckblad's collection of prints depicting coal, iron and steam industry since 1750. The exhibition ran from January 24 to May 17, 2009. Fifty-two pages, chiefly color illustrations, published by the museum.
John Cook's history of Merge Records, the independent label that Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk built in Chapel Hill. Chapters follow the label year by year from 1987 to 2009 and pause for profiles of Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Lambchop and the Arcade Fire, ending on how it managed to stay small. Advance reading copy of the first edition, published in Chapel Hill in 2009, 289 pages with twelve pages of plates.
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