Ideas Have Consequences was a 1948 book by conservative intellectual Richard M. Weaver. Weaver, an English professor at the University of Chicago, argued that culture, society, and truth itself were disintegrating in the modern age. His book was a tremendous influence in the history of American conservatism.
Although many are aware that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, heightened tensions between the North and the South, some historians argue that Hinton R. Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It played a more significant role in starting the American Civil War. According to historian George M. Fredrickson, it can be argued convincingly that Helper’s 1857 publication was “the most important single book, in terms of its political impact, that has ever been published in the United States.”
The “best-known, nineteenth-century African-American woman’s autobiography” is how historian Nell Irvin Painter describes Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself (1861). The Tar Heel’s work is also noteworthy because Jacobs penned the words, unlike other slave autobiographies, including Sojourner Truth’s, which were dictated.
Formed in 1788 from Rowan County, Iredell County was named after Justice James Iredell. Some notable attractions and historic sites in Iredell include Fort Dobbs, Race City USA, and the western-themed campgrounds of Love Valley. Lake Norman, one of the largest man-made lakes in the nation, covers over 500 miles in Iredell County.
In 1827, Iredell became the twenty-third governor of North Carolina but resigned a year later to fill the North Carolina Senate seat vacated by Nathaniel Macon. Although Iredell relayed the importance of improved roads and waterways during his administration, he led North Carolina when the state’s finances were meager and insufficient for one with visions of implementing internal improvement plans.
James Iredell (1751-1799) was a leader of the North Carolina Federalists during the state ratification debates of the federal Constitution. Following ratification, President George Washington appointed the North Carolinian to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until his death in 1799. His best-known opinion is his dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) that provided the basis for the subsequent adoption of the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In 1901 the Virginia Iron and Bridge Company of Roanoke received a contract to build a three-span iron bridge across the river in Franklinville at Island Ford. The bridge was more than 350 feet long, and spanned the Deep River in five sections.