"Own a Home in North Carolina": Image and Reality in Ethnic European Colonies

Abstract

Between 1905 and 1912, six planned farm colonies were developed in southeastern North Carolina. The dream of Wilmington utilities magnate Hugh MacRae, the colonies were visualized as an experiment in "human engineering" to create a "back to the land" movement as a remedy to the economic ills of the rural South. The six communities (Castle Haynes, Marathon, St. Helena, Van Eeden, New Berlin and Artesia) were anomalies in the rural South in that they were miniature "melting pots" for the flood of European immigrants who flocked to America in the early 1900s. Through the use of documentary photographs, promotional propaganda brochures and oral histories, the material culture of the colonies is explored and analyzed. The images of the spatial patterns and house types that were created in the minds of the potential colonists by the promotional literature are contrasted with the stark realities of the landscapes that confronted the settlers upon arrival.