Close to the Land

North Carolinians of the nineteenth century dwelt in an agrarian world. Close to the Land details the lives of antebellum Carolinians from the tobacco field to the grist mill, the courthouse to the schoolyard, and the camp-meeting arbor to the slave-quarter stoop. It is the third volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina, a pioneering series that uses historic places as windows to the past.

The farm, whether of ten acres or ten thousand, was the basic unit of economic production and social organization in antebellum North Carolina. The Tar Heel town, whether port city or back-country village, was intrinsically tied to agriculture. Even budding industry and improved transportation facilities were essentially the outgrowth of efforts to process agricultural products and to reach markets efficiently. Although war and industrial expansion were to revolutionize society and transform the economy, the state's continued commitment to agriculture linked North Carolina with its rural traditions.

Sites used to illuminate life in this period include slave dwellings, a coastal manor house, a piedmont farmstead, a restored theater, a female academy, an early gold mine, a rural temperance/ literary society, and a Civil War battleground.

Each volume in The Way We Lived in North Carolina examines the social history of an era, weaving interpretation around dozens of historic sites and the lives of ordinary people who lived and worked nearby. The series is based on the premise that the past can be most fully understood through the joint experience of reading history and visiting historic places. These volumes will appeal to all who are interested in North Carolina history, historic preservation, and social history.