Material Culture

1898

Industrialist and philanthropist Julian Shakespeare Carr of Chapel Hill and Durham manufactured tobacco products, including those under the "Bull Durham" trademark. By 1884, Carr and his partner, William T. Blackwell, had built the largest smoking-tobacco factory in the world in Durham. Carr also owned several hosiery mills. Durham Hosiery Mills was once the world’s largest hosiery mill and the only mill in the country staffed entirely by African Americans. Two of these mills were located in Carrboro. In fact, the town of Carrboro was named in Carr's honor after he agreed to share electricity from his mills with local residents. He was an enthusiastic supporter of education, and also provided funds to have Trinity College relocated to Durham (now Duke University). Carr was a delegate to many Democratic conventions, and his picture appears here in a souvenir badge from 1898. "North Carolina Redeemed" refers to the effort by Democrats to break the Republican-Populist coalition primarily made up of white and African American farmers. In 1900 Carr made an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate.

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