Staff Pick Round-Up, 4!

Hello, readers! We’re back with another Staff Pick Round-Up! With 2024 off to a flying start, it’s sometimes hard to find that extra bit of reading time, but I recommend making it a priority. Let’s discover what my coworkers are reading in their downtime, and you may find a title or two for inspiration!  Jason, …

Titanic

 Hello, readers! This year, April 15th marks the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It is hard to believe it has been that long since the largest ship of its day struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic and sank, taking with her over 1500 lives.  The story of that …

NC Women: Harriet Jacobs and slave women

Welcome back. Last month, in the inaugural blog of this series on women in North Carolina, NC Women: Edenton Tea Party, we learned about Penelope Barker and the women of Edenton during the Revolutionary War. The first recorded civil disobedience of women in the new world, right here in our backyard. We have seen that …

Human Rights – From “Conception” to “Realization”

Hey y’all, this is Savannah from the Macon County Public Library.   You heard about several holidays in the last blog but for this blog, we are going to talk about human rights and Human Rights Day which was on December 10. Now, as a semi-trained history geek, my “historian” mind went all over the place …

The United States in the Great War

It was the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month one hundred years ago when guns fell silence.   The combat phase of the Great War was over.  The Allies, including Great Britain, France, and the United States were victorious over the Central Powers: Germany and its allies. The United States joined the …

Hike with Pride this month!

June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month as well as Great Outdoors Month and so this blog will be about both! LGBTQIA+ is an acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and the plus is for gender fluid people - people whose gender identity changes over time or per situation. Queer is a …

The Rise of the Verse Novel: Celebrating National Poetry Month

I loved poetry as a child. I read a lot of it, memorized some favorite poems, and tried to write my own (very badly, I must say). As I grew up, I wandered away from poetry for the most part, with a few notable exceptions -- John Donne and W. B. Yeats in particular. In …

“I’ve been to the mountaintop!”

Today (April 4, 2018) is the fifty year anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march with striking city garbage workers.  The march had originally been scheduled for March 22,1968, but Mother Nature had dumped eighteen inches of snow on the city, so …

Women’s Rights: from A Vindication of the Women’s Rights, to the Women’s March and #metoo Movement

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”   19th Amendment to the Constitution, passed on May 21st, 1919 and ratified on August 18th, 1920. …

“Riders on the Storm,” Vietnam, Pt. 4

When Richard Nixon was elected as President of the United States in November 1968, Lyndon Johnson's administration had started talks with representatives of the Communist government of North Vietnam six months before, but when they attempted to get the South Vietnamese and the Viet Cong to join the discussions, the talks broke down.   The Tét …