Business and Industry

"Is Anything Free?: Debates Regarding Internal Improvements in Antebellum North Carolina" Commentary

Some things never change.  The particulars may do so, yet the essence remains.  Modern-day political ideas in North Carolina, for example, are rooted in the state’s past.  One example is public-funded roads.

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Brad's Drink: A New Bern Beverage Enjoyed Across the World Commentary

Businessmen want to make profits, to be sure, but they understand that to do so, they must satisfy customers.  In the end, everyone involved in the transaction is pleased.  Caleb Bradham, inventor of Pepsi-Cola, provides a perfect example. 

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Limits of Liberalism Commentary

North Carolina's conservatism in the 1930s contradicts the state's progressive image, or rather, the myth of its progressivism, born of developments before and after the 1930s.  The conservative opposition to the New Deal created momentum for a postwar conservatism and a viable two-party competition in the state.  Genuine liberalism, New Deal or otherwise, one could argue, has yet to capture the Tar Heel state.

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Works Progress Administration (WPA): One Failure to End the Great Depression Commentary

This major public works program represented one failure of the New Deal to end the Great Depression. The WPA spent over $60 million in North Carolina, but critics charged that relief weakened the work ethic. North Carolina farmers and industrialists resented the competition for labor; the unemployed could work for the WPA rather than in the fields and factories. Conservatives also fought power shifting from the state and local levels to Washington, D.C.  Despite the WPA's existence, the Great Depression worsened by the late 1930s.  But by the early 1940s, market forces and wartime demand had rejuvenated the economy.

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