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Home / What's Going On / Press Releases / 6-30-2006
The Carolina Mountains: Photography of Margaret Morley
“To come from the turmoil of city life to these mountains is like taking a journey back into the history of the past.”
— Margaret Morley
In the 1890s New Englander Margaret Morley visited western North Carolina’s mountains and fell in love with the land and its people. The visit so inspired her that she moved to Tryon, south of Asheville, by the end of the decade. The well-known biologist, writer, illustrator and educator spent the next 12 years exploring the region and recording scenes of everyday life in captivating photographs and delightful prose.
The Man with the Hoe
With pen and camera, Morley traveled throughout the lofty land, observing its natural wonders and befriending the mountain people. In 1913 Houghton Mifflin published her impressions in The Carolina Mountains, which was an immediate success. Still considered one of the best books about the region, it has recently been reprinted by Land of the Sky Books. Today, Morley’s words and images provide an intimate look at a way of life that has vanished in the high country.
A year after her book’s publication, Morley donated 244 of her original photographs to the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. On Tuesday, July 11, the museum will open an exhibit, titled The Carolina Mountains: Photography of Margaret Morley, featuring more than 50 prints made from photographs in this collection. Many of the images will be on view for the first time.
This exhibit reflects great legacies — the legacy of Margaret Morley’s talent and genius, the museum’s legacy of stewardship for caring for the photographs these many decades, and the legacy of creativity of current museum staff members who envisioned and produced this exhibit,” says Elizabeth F. Buford, director, N.C. Museum of History and Division of State History Museums.
Getting Larnin!
Morley’s book captured the land and the primitive ways of mountaineers, just as railroads, industry, tourists and home missionaries were introducing change. The worldly woman traveled on horseback and by foot to reach remote areas that were otherwise inaccessible. Here, she became friends with the mountain people, who often invited her to stay in their homes. In fact, Morley so gained their trust that she was even allowed to photograph a moonshine still.
Her compelling images in the exhibit reveal glimpses of life around the turn of the 20th century, such as children in a one-room “book-larnin” school, a farmer cutting sorghum, and a sunbonneted woman washing clothes by a stream. Engaging prose from The Carolina Mountains will accompany each photograph. Like azaleas bursting into bloom across a mountainside, Morley’s vivid descriptions bring to life the colors, sights and smells of the high country. For example, she describes the Blue Ridge Mountains as follows.
Going Home
The Blue Ridge! . . . This battlement of heaven was not named by accident. It was named Blue because there was no other name for it. It is blue; tremendously, thrillingly blue; tenderly, evasively blue.”
A dozen exhibit artifacts from the bygone era will reflect the hard work and self-sufficiency of mountain residents. A few items are foreign to today’s vocabulary, such as a battling board (a wooden paddle used to loosen dust and dirt from laundry before washing) and a bee gum (a beehive made from the trunk of a sweet gum or a sour gum tree). Other artifacts include a 1904 copy of a children’s book by Morley, a molasses jug (often used for moonshine), a cast-iron wash kettle, and Seroco and Kodak cameras similar to the ones Morley or her contemporaries may have used.
The new exhibit conveys Morley’s admiration for the mountaineers, whom she called “the most hospitable of created beings.” A fiercely independent woman herself, she marveled at how they lived close to the land, worked hard, and valued family and friends.
Plan to see The Carolina Mountains: Photography of Margaret Morley, and rediscover the allure of western North Carolina and “heights so divinely blue that you seem about to enter some dream world through their magical portals.”
For more information, call 919-807-7900. The Carolina Mountains will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY: MARGARET MORLEY
Morley’s introduction to western North Carolina most likely began when she accompanied Amelia Watson, a notable watercolor artist and close friend, to Tryon. They visited Watson’s patron, Broadway playwright and actor William Gillette, known for his role as Sherlock Holmes. Gillette had a winter home in the mountain community.
Morley was born in Montrose, Iowa, in 1858, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from New York City Normal College (now Hunter College) and pursued graduate studies in biology in Chicago and Massachusetts. The educator taught school in the Midwest and lectured in Boston. At the time, few satisfactory textbooks existed about nature and biology, so she wrote her own. Her 19 books for children became widely popular, and many were used as school texts. Morley died on Dec. 12, 1923.
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