Summer Studies at the Shore

On June 15, 1931, Archie D. Shaftesbury, Associate Professor of Zoology at the North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG) wrote Mary Taylor Moor, the school's registrar, regarding a proposal "to conduct a three weeks summer term in zoology at Beaufort during this and succeeding summers." Shaftesbury emphasized that "it is our intention to reserve this work for certain selected students, rather than to open the course to classes of any considerable size." He asked Moore to quickly take the proposal to the "college credit committee" to ensure that students planning to participate that summer would be eligible for course credit.

Dr. Archie Shaftesbury

Shaftesbury's work to bring students to Beaufort for marine zoology study continued to develop, and, in 1934, student members of the school's Zoology Field Club actively joined in by writing their alumni members for support "in the establishment of our marine laboratory on the North Carolina coast." They asked that each former member pledge $10 ($5 in 1935 and $5 in 1936) to support the development of these research facilities. These efforts paid off. In 1935, work began on the construction of the "Carolina Marine Laboratory" in Beaufort. Previously, students had made use of local high school classrooms as well as U.S. Bureau of Fisheries laboratories and boats for their summer studies. 

Beaufort continued to grow as a hub of marine research. In addition to the active U.S. Bureau of Fisheries facility and the newly-constructed NCCW laboratory, Duke University established a presence in the town in 1937 with the purchase of 11.5 acres to house a third research facility.

In 1938, the NCCW facility in Beaufort featured a course in Invertebrate Zoology, a class "designed for seriously minded advanced college students, high school teachers, and others who may be interested professionally in biology." An information pamphlet sent to prospective applicants to the course noted that "while the work is not a vacation in the ordinary sense, the experiences offer a pleasant change from the confines of the classroom and laboratory together with an unusual opportunity for observation and study." Classes were held between June 13 and July 9.

Biology students studying  at Beaufort, ca. 1940

That same summer, NCCW's presence in Beaufort expanded beyond marine research as the art department established a 26-day "summer colony" in the town. Gregory D. Ivy, head of the art department and manager of the "colony," proclaimed the project to be an "experiment." The academic work centered around coursework in "advanced landscape painting," which focused on "the theories and methods used by the post-impressionist cubists, and surrealists." It appears that this was indeed a limited experience, as the bulk of the NCCW use of Beaufort focused solely on marine biology.   

The 1961-1962 course bulletin contains the last direct reference to the Invertebrate Zoology course conducted at the Beaufort facility by Shaftesbury (who had become professor emeritus in 1959). Current UNCG students, however, can study marine science in Beaufort as part of a 20-college Marine Science Education Consortium that send students to the Duke Marine Lab for a semester or for summer session.

Tea-Kettle Talk

October 21-27 is North Carolina Archives Week, an annual, week-long observance of the agencies and people responsible for maintaining and making available the archival and historical records of our nation, state, communities and people. This year's theme is "Celebrating North Carolina Food and Culture."

 

"We may live without poetry, music and art:
 We may live without conscience and live without heart;
 We may live without friends and live without books,
 But civilized man cannot live without cooks."

These lines from the Victorian-era poem "Lucile" by Owen Meredith (also known as Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton) served as the preface to a 1924 cookbook published by the Alumnae Association of the North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG). The cookbook, titled Tea-Kettle Talk, was sold by the Alumnae Association for $1 per copy (an addition five cents for mailing). It collated recipes from the college's alumnae, faculty, and faculty wives alongside "suggestive menus for clubs," "simple table service suggestions," and "household suggestions." Many of the recipes hold titles that boast of being "my husband's favorite." Here are a few of the recipes that you might want to try for your next meal:

Banana Salad from Mrs. E.C. Durham (Roberta Womble)
Select large, smooth bananas, wash and cut off one strip of skin. Lift out one banana, cut in small pieces and add equal parts of nuts, apples, and celery. Pour mayonnaise dressing over the mixture and fill banana skins. Serve on lettuce leaves.

French Toast from Kathleen E. Pettit
Dip slices of bread in well-beaten eggs to which salt and pepper have been added. Drop the egg-covered bread in frying pan of hot lard. A cut of butter melted in the frying pan with the lard adds much to the taste. Turn the slices of bread at intervals until both sides are a golden brown. This is a good breakfast food.

Creamed Dates from Mary E. Coffey
Break white of an egg into a glass, add an equal quantity of ice water and one teaspoon vanilla. Beat until light, add little at a time enough powdered sugar to make a smooth fondant. Remove seeds from dates and fill with mixture. Half a walnut may be stuck in side of dates if desired.

And finally, for those looking for guidelines on table settings, Tea-Kettle Talk offers this guidance:

     Cover the table with a silence-cloth and carefully spread the white linen over this. On an attractive centerpiece place a low jar or vase for cut flowers. Let the flowers be of one kind and color, as far as possible, without a heavy fragrance.

Home Economics students practice tea service

     Place the napkins, carefully folded, to the left of the plates. In placing the silver, arrange it so that each piece shall come in the order for use from the outside toward the plate. Knives, with blades turned in, to the right of the plates; spoons to the right; all forks to the left, unless an oyster fork is used, in which case it should be on the right, with the tines resting on the plate. The plates, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins should be placed one inch from the edge of the table. The glass should be at the end of the knife-blade, and the salt should be placed in front of the plate.
     The bread and butter plate should be at the end of the forks to the left. Soup ladles, bonbon spoons, and rest for carving set should be on the table.
     Olives, almonds, celery, and bonbons are placed on the table.

Mary Webb Nicholson: First in Flight

Courtesy of Greensboro Historical Museum

While many women of her time were grounded by more domestic roles, Greensboro native Mary Webb Nicholson yearned for the skies. Her passion for flight would earn her many "firsts" in women's aviation, but would also lead to her untimely death in the service of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. 

Nicholson entered The North Carolina College for Women (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) in 1924 to study music, but after her first airplane ride in 1927 her true interest became flying. She received her first flying lessons free of charge by agreeing to parachute from a plane as an advertisement for the flying school and continued to take jobs as a stenographer and a bookkeeper to support her passion. Soon, she gained enough experience flying at Lindley Field (now Piedmont Triad International Airport) and as a stunt pilot to become the first woman in the state to earn a private pilots' license, a commercial license, and a transport license. By 1931 Nicholson had set the North Carolina light plane altitude record.

By 1937, this North Carolina girl was living in New York City and working as a personal secretary to Jacqueline Cochran, another pioneer in flight, who was directly involved with the formation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). As the Second World War raged in Europe, Nicholson and Cochran formed a group of American women pilots who assisted the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) by delivering planes from factories to various RAF bases, transporting service personnel, and performing air ambulance duties. By fall of 1942, Nicholson was in England ferrying British planes. She flew her operations without benefit of radios or maps so they would not fall into enemy hands in case she, or her fellow ATA pilots, was shot down.

Nicholson was asked to make a speech for The North Carolina College for Women's fiftieth year celebration. She was in England at the time, but her speech on women in aviation was read by her mother. The speech foretold a greater involvement of women in aviation and the military. She wrote, "[It] is not too much to imagine that women will be given an even greater part in protecting the freedoms of our Democracy. And if they are called upon to give this service, the women of America will not be found wanting." In May of 1943, Nicholson's plane crashed in flames in Worcestershire County, England, after an oil leak caused the engine to freeze and the propeller to fly off mid-flight. Even though she never took her flight skills to the battlefield, she cleared a path for the over 600 women pilots who currently fight in combat zones for the United States military.