Thursday, March 15, 1962
The Rocky Road Os A Dedicated Historian
Few Are Content
With Plain Facts
By ROY THOMPSON
® Journal and Sentinel
Dr. Hugh Taimage Lefler has
been accused of being pro-Angli
can. pro Democratic party. anti-
Quaker and even anti-North Caro
lina
But when word came that one
of his history books had been
considered too sexy in Levittown,
Pa., Dr. U*fler was flabbergasted.
After a moment’s thought, how
ever, the University of North
Carolina history professor just
chuckled and said. ' This is where
I came in I’ve been in this fight
before.”
Life in the historian’s ivory
tower can be livelier thon outsid
ers would ever dream
Take the Levittow'n controversy
for example:
One of the 19 books written, ed
ited or co-edited by Lefler;had
attracted the attention of a school
▼ teacher there Although the book
was not school issue, the teacher
had asked his students to buy it,
and they had.
One- small section of the book
w was devoted to the early Ameri
can custom of bundling. The head
of the department of social studies
happened to read this section late
last year. He didn't like the sec
tion. and he tore the offending
pages out of the books.
Later, the school board banned
the book The NEW YORK
TIMES told the story and Lefler
was involved in another contro
versy.
He still doesn’t see what the
excitement is all about, but his
only complaint at the moment is
that the department head in
tearing pages out of privately
owned books was probably
overstepping his authority.
Even this, however , Lefler says
with a smile.
AN OLD STORY TO HIM
He’s been in this fight before.
It all has t<j do, Leller says,
with the six major problems that
eonfront any professional histor
ian "The Six Ps,” Lefler calls
them:
"Pride, prejudice, patriotism.
1
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provincialism, politics, and pres
sure groups.”
Before meeting his problems,
meet the man,
Hugh Lefler is a native of Cool
eemee. Davie County, North Caro
lina —a fact often overlooked
when critics find fault with his
comments on state history
His education began in the pub
lic schools of North Carolina and
was uneventful. Then Lefler be
came something of a scholastic
jinx.
He attended Weaver Junior Col
lege in Weaverville. 11 closed soon
after he left it.
He took his bachelor’s and mas
ter's degrees at Trinity, which
soon changed its name to Duke
He got his doctorate at the Uni
versity- of Pennsylvania, and,
since this is the only institution
that has survived his attendance,
he considers it his alma mater
lefler is a balding man with
heavy black brows that are a
trademark of the family
He's something of a novelty in
his field, for Lefler is both highly
respected by other historians and
adored by a majority of the
15,000 to 10.000 students who have
passed through his classes dur
ing a HO vear teaching career
All North Carolina grade school
students are eventually exposed
to a course in the history of their
state
The text is Lefler's
A few of them continue their
study in college. The text, once
more, is Lefler’s “North Caro
lina: The History of a Southern
State ”
This one-which he wrote with
a colleague, the late Dr Albert
Ray Newsome is the, only North
Carolina history book available
for the college-level student, Lef
ler likes to describe it as "the
best the sorriest and the only
one.”
He is busy at the moment
bringing this book up to date By
the time the new edition comes
out in the spring of 1963, it will
cover the state's history up to last
November's txind election Ixjfler
says this is his ‘ swan song” in
wilting state history •
This book is generally regarded
Les lerisms
Most college students find it difficult to re
member what their professors said in class.
Ur. Hugh Taimage Lefler "has away of saying
things unforgettably.
A few samples from a recent lecture to his
noon class on North Carolina history:
‘‘Dollar bills used to be larger than they are
now. I guess they’re making them smaller now
because they don’t buy as much."
★ ★ ★
“The most miserable failures in public life
have been the college professors of history and
political science who have gotten into it.”
*' ★ *
In the period around 1880 “if a man ran for
public office and he was educated, it. was held a
gainst him. I'm not so sure that it’s not true to
day.”
*' * *
"federal aid started North Carolina's public
schools. 1 don’t like to say that because 1 don't
believe in federal aid to education.”
★ it it
In ISI7, the state’s tax revenue was $5)8,000.
Lefler said, "It makes me drool at the mouth to
think that people ever paid so little in taxes.”
* * *
At about that time, “North Carolina was ig
norant and proud of its ignorance.”
* * *
“No other country in the world is s<> niggard
ly in paying public .-’officials as the United States
of America , . . The president of a small cotton
mill makes more money than the governor of
North Carolina does. I don’t know a governor in
inv lifetime who’s broken even on the job.”
as a must for aspiring politicians
of the state There's a copy in
Gov Terry Sanford's office and in
just about every other office in
the state capitol building in Ral
eigh.
Nine out of TO arguments over
stale history in North Carolina
probably end in a quotation that
begins:
"Ls-Her says .
But take a look at the man in
class:
He strides into his large class
room <il has to tie big to accom
modate the crowdl with the last
echoing peals of the bell, pulls his
jacket off and starts talking.
It's not just a lecture when Lef
ler is talking He- has a face that
can shift from a smile to a frown
to an impish w ink and into a deep
scowl ol indignation with the
swiftness of thought.
His talk keeps pace with his ex
pressions you need shorthand
training to keep satisfactory notes
in a Lefler course.
Hi glasses are popiied on when
he reads bul disappear when he's
ready to face his class again.
A course under I.eflcr is a rev
elation to students who come to
him with the opinion that history
is dry stuff.
"Students,'' ladler says, "don’t
want to lie bored ”
He doesn’t bore them
He gives them the skeleton on
which history is built—the names,
dales and plates which have plag
ued history students since long
liefore the founding of the l/jst
Colony.
Hut Lefler sugar-coats his pills
of history with frequent detours
down the byways of history.
"Kisenhower. Adlai Stevenson
and Allien Barkley all have com
mon ancestors in Rowan Coun
ty "
"We’ve named one of the build
ings on this campus for one of the
worst enemies this university ever
had.’’
"The story on Thomas Hart
Benton is that he stole money
from the literary society here and
was kicked out of the university.
That’s not true, lie stole from his
roommate."
(’HOK E BETWEEN EXTREMES
Speaking ol the early history of
the state he said, "We had Little
Government then Now we have
Big Government. Government
doe* everything. I don’t know
which of the extremes is worse ."
Then, with a grin, he said,
"That's my sermon for today.”
I.eflcr enjoys lecturing Some
thing he said about it may explain
his zest for it:
*T can say things in class 1
wouldn't nut into print. You can
always deny what, you've said
orally,”
Writing h'story is quite a dif
ferent matter
Wo r ld history is difficult. Na
tional history is more so. City,
county and church histories are
worst of all, Lefler soys.
Whatever the field, one major
problem lies m finding time for
the writing. Lefler’* production
haa been prodigious, and aoms
UNC’s Hugh Taimage Lefler
lime wondered, how a man with a
full teaching load ever found time
t 0 do so much writing.
.Lefler said T don’t know
looking baek on it -how I did it
either. I've just worked all the
time Nights, a ltd vacations A
great deal of the time in sum
mers:”
Recently, plagued by poor
health, he’s had to cut out the
night work.
He says he has no regular writ
ing schedule and has just turned
to the typewriter when lie had
some spare time.
It’s surprising, Lefler said, how
much a man can gel done iusi
using the hits and pieces of time
he has available day in and day
out.
ft
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1 ■
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I ssi
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Bodes By Hugh Lefler
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
On the subject of his specialty
state history— Lefler said
There are certain inherited
ideas or beliefs in the history of
every state that all loyal and
patriotic citizens are supposed to
accept without question "
A state's heritage often in
cludes "a combination of fact and
fancy with an occasional myth
thrown in for good measure
There seems to have been a
strong determination on the part
of certain individuals and groups
to perpetuate the factual errors
and false interpretations that they
have been brought up on.
"The truth is that people be
lieve what they want to believe,
, ml the state historian is going to
f nd it difficult, if not impossible,
to make people unlearn what they
have heard from infancy. Why
not ’ In countless articles in news
papers and popular magazines, on
radio and television programs and
in the speeches of politicians and
others, the citizen of the state
reads, sees and hears so many
■facts' atxiut his state which are
not facts at all.
HE WANTS JUST THE FACTS
“The average person in North
Carolina believes anybody else
before he believes the professional
historian.”
"If you question these things,
you get a reputation for debunk
ing."
Lefler's interest is not in de
bunking history. He just wants to
set it straight.
The best example for Tar Heels,
he "says, is the Mecklenburg De
claration of Independence.
The state flag has on it the date
May 20. 1775 On that date, ac
cording to legend or history 'de
pending on your |voint of view),
the citizens of Mecklenburg Coun
tv declared themselves free of
English rule. The story has been
cherished by Tar Heels for nearly
two centuries
Lefler grinned and said, "You
can get in some trouble with
Charlotte here, Bud."
Leller won't say that it didn't
happen that way, but he does
say that "no professional historian
living or dead” has ever given
the Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence the historians' seal
of approval.
Sound like a lot of fuss over
very little?
Less than 20 years ago, the
North Carolina Legislature con
sidered a bill which would have
made it a crime to use any book
in the public schools of North
Carolina which denied the legiti
macy of Mecklenburg’s own
Fourth of July. The bill was de
feated but the sentiment for it
was strong.
Lefler and Newsome knew all
this when they began to write
their college level history. So
what did they do?
Lefler smiled ami said, "We
hedged on it a little. We gave
both sides—or tried to ”
While this is the best-known
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He Learned To Dodge The Slings And Arrows
point of friction between the pro
fessional historians and the myth
perpetuators, there are many
others . . .
Descendants of Tar Heels with
tarnished reputations, for exam
ple. are continually demanding
that historians speak nothing but
good of the dead.
lefler's point of view: “The
fact that they're dead has nothing
to do with whether they were hon
est or dishonest when they were
living.”
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Then there are “patriotic soc
ieties” with "their own ideas
about history" that "occasionally
insist that these ideas be pre
sented in the . . books ancl in
the classroom "
And "politicians may applaud
the historian who refers to cor
ruption in the opposition's iwirty,"
but they may give trouble to "the
state historian who suggests that
there hud boon a governor of the
dominant party who mishandled
stale funds."
Page 1-B
One of the touchiest problems,
Lefler said, is the problem of
writing about desegregation in the
public schools of the South.
/X North Carolina historian who
includes “a mere factual state
ment about the Pearsall Plan,”
Lefler said, will fee branded an
integratiomst by the Patriots of
North Carolina—and a segrega
tionist by the NAACP.
For the historian who writes
books and ho|H‘s to sell them, the
big market is with publishers of
(Continued on Page 3-B)