Diane Flynt (Founder, Foggy Ridge Cider, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
October 22, 2024
When you think “apples” do you conjure an image of the South? For over 300 years Black, white, and Indigenous Southerners cultivated apples from Mississippi to Virginia.
Learning about how a simple agricultural ingredient provides a lens on a region offers an indelible lesson in the value of deep inquiry. This webinar includes vivid stories that bring the varied tale of Southern apples to life, for instance: the Albemarle Pippin, a Northern apple that moved South, changed its name, and found fame in Victorian England. The aristocratic Belgian that moved to a concrete house in central Georgia and altered the landscape of the South through a nursery that is now home to the Augusta National Golf Course. You may be surprised to learn that Southern apples traveled westward on the Oregon Trail carried by a Quaker nurseryman from North Carolina who helped found the Northwest apple industry. Small farmers, plantation owners, and multiple Presidents influenced Southern orchards. Apples were entwined with slavery and the theft of Indigenous land. And as a lesson in how quickly our environments can alter, you will learn how, in less than the lifetime of a tree, Southerners lost their rich apple culture.
This session addresses archival research and the importance of searching for the voices of those not represented in archives.
Subjects
History / Education Studies / American History / American South / Farming / Food / Agriculture / Archives / Primary Sources /
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