Submitted to the Daily Reflector November, 2006

     The new Encyclopedia of North Carolina is the first single-volume reference work on the unique history and culture of the state.  Fifteen years in the making, it contains over 2,000 entries and nearly 400 illustrations and maps.  Larger articles survey topics such as public education, infectious diseases, or basketball, while smaller ones identify such things as doodlebugs, Old Quawk’s Day, or Tomato Clubs.  The idea behind the encyclopedia was to create a “comprehensive reference work designed to capture the distinctive historical and cultural personality of the Tar Heel State.”

     New to the North Carolina Collection at the East Carolina University’s main library, the encyclopedia is the third title in a series of historical reference books.  The previous two are also available in the North Carolina Collection.  They are The North Carolina Gazetteer and The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.  All three are written or edited by internationally noted historian William S. Powell, who has been responsible for a number of titles pertaining to our state.  Born in 1919 in Johnston County, Powell began his study of things historical when he was growing up, with the stories he heard in his family, especially from his grandmother.  These were stories that went back in time to the seventeenth century.  Powell studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; served in the U. S. Army during World War II; became a researcher at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History; and then taught at Chapel Hill for over thirty years.

     Powell says that people outside the state are often envious because North Carolinians know so much about their history.  “People take pride in thinking about and talking about North Carolina,” he told an interviewer for the magazine North Carolina.  Ever since his first research job, he had noticed the need for a handbook that would respond to the many questions he was called upon to answer.  In the 1980s, Powell began to work seriously on filling this need, and so the new encyclopedia was born.  

     Entries in the new encyclopedia include events, institutions, cultural forces, places, publications, groups of people, and special Carolina names, sayings, or slants on things, like the “Branchhead Boys,” who formed the base of support for Governor W. Kerr Scott.  Most entries refer readers to a few additional and easily available resources, for those who want to know more.  Maps include Indian trading paths, Civil War battles, and military installations during World War II, among others.  From the “Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company,” chartered in 1892, to the “Z. Reynolds Smith Reynolds Foundation,” one of the 100 largest philanthropic organizations in the country, the Encyclopedia of North Carolina is a valuable new resource.  

     Other Powell books available in the North Carolina Collection include The Regulator Movement in North Carolina: A Documentary History; North Carolina Through Four Centuries; and North Carolina Fiction, 1734-1957: An Annotated Bibliography.

     Area residents and visitors, as well as members of the university community, are welcome to use the North Carolina Collection on the third floor of Joyner Library.  For more information, call 252-328-6601 or view the collection’s website at http://www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.cfm.

Nancy P. Shires is a reference librarian in the North Carolina Collection