When Jon Elliston opened his “Asheville in 1915″ talk at Pack Library last month, dressed as an early 1900’s ‘newsie’ with a newspaper delivery bag slung over his shoulder, calling out the news headlines of the day while passing out copies of the front page of a 1915 Asheville Citizen, the audience was immediately enthralled. It was definitely a dramatic kick-off for the the brown bag lunch series, Hungry for History.
A few interesting tidbits from the talk:
The then Asheville Board of Trade spoke of 1915 Asheville as a “modern city, cosmopolitan in its make-up, progressive, liberal, and given to hospitality.”
While prohibition reigned supreme in North Carolina (but not yet in the rest of the country), Ashevillians still found a way to drink.
When it came to crime, child labor was prevalent alongside petty thefts (chicken stealing was popular) and train hopping, which often left people with missing limbs.
A newspaper editorialist thought women had no interest in bothering with politics, and if they voted, they’d just vote the same as their husbands (despite the fact that the Asheville Suffragist League had been organized in 1894, the first in the state.)
If you missed Elliston’s talk, you can find out all about it here.
Find out about future talks in the Hungry for History series here.
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