UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 10, Page 7
November 5, 1992
In the news
The greening of Dover
Even though a lot of research has been done on The Green (in
Dover), very little is known about the area's Victorian period. During
the next year a local graduate student is hoping to change all that.
Allison Wehr-Elterich, 26, of Dover, recently received a grant
from the Delaware Heritage Commission. The James T. McKinstry Scholar
Award provides funds to graduate students so they can continue their
research into Delaware history.
Elterich is currently completing work on her master's degree with
the Center for Historical Preservation and Engineering at the
University of Delaware. Her thesis, due next May, is entitled "The
Physical and Functional Transformations of the Dover Green: The
Historical Context of 1850 to 1890."
"The Green wasn't always the residential and law center that it
is today. It used to be a marketplace," she said. "Pigs ran around
there and there was a whipping post in front of the state house."
Around 1850, it suddenly became residential. The grass was fenced off
and croquet was not allowed....
"I'm really interested in the people, not just the architecture.
I want to be able to say why it changed. I want to find personal
diaries, personal accounts and newspapers," she said....
The end result...Elterich hopes, will be something that a lot of
people can use, not just historians. Perhaps, she said, the
information could be used to write a self-guided tour brochure for The
Green....It could also grow into a book.
"Woman receives grant to study Green's forgotten Victorian heritage"
The Dover Post
Aug. 12, 1992
Charley and friends
When Mirabeau Lamar Johnson, known to all as Bo, leaves his
small, decidedly odd East Texas hometown (how many hamlets can claim
an infestation of alligators?) he thinks he's setting out on a simple
adventure. We know better.
The Civil War has only recently ended and the terrain into which
17-year-old Bo ventures is unsettled and violent. He has been chosen
to carry a message to his fugitive Uncle Charley.
Mild-mannered Charley, once a school teacher, had in a fit of
profound irritation killed the inept alligator hunter hired by the
town (no loss, the citizens think) and also shot the local butcher--a
more serious matter. But the butcher has recovered, and Charley's
friends want him back.
Bo hasn't gone very far when it becomes clear that Charley is
something far wilder and more wily than a meek scholar on the run.
In "Chasing Uncle Charley," the trail Bo follows, bringing him
ever closer to the mysterious precincts of the Indian Territory, is
clearly the same road that Gilgamesh traveled thousands of years ago
and that every mystic hero has wandered since.
...But it's Cruce Stark's ( professor of English) characters who
make Bo's coming of age in this accomplished first novel linger in the
memory: constantly in motion, ranging across landscapes either bleak
or weirdly beautiful, tangled in a variety of violent alliances,
speaking a wonderful laconic, droll prose, they are believably strange
and surprising.
Richard E. Nicholls
The New York Times Book Review
Chasing Uncle Charley
By Cruce Stark
Southern Methodist University Press
$17.95
Changes at Du Pont
(The Du Pont Co.) has always been different from other
corporations. Bigger than life, self-assured, wise beyond ordinary
standards, it could afford to be open, friendly and yes,
paternalistic-especially on home turf.
That has changed.
Not only is extensive reorganization under way in every
department, there is a new approach to the way Du Pont operates its
business. That has spread to significantly alter the Du Pont-based
"corporate culture" that has long dominated life in Delaware. Even the
company's ties with its home state are considered by many to be in
jeapordy.
John Stapleford, director of the Bureau of Economic Research at
the University of Delaware, estimates that the company, directly or
indirectly, accounts for 30 percent of the employment and 40 percent
of the total wages paid and spent in the state. The indirect
contribution is the so called "multiplier effect" of the Du Pont wages
and corporate purchases of goods and services being spent and re-spent
in the area.
Based on employment projections and the fact that the average Du
Pont salary is about $50,000 a year, he expects "a modest decline" in
the company-related contribution to the state economy for at least the
next two to two-and-one-half years.
University economist Eleanor Craig (associate professor of
economics) based an economic-impact study commissioned by the city of
Wilmington on assumptions that every 1,000 Du Pont jobs sustain 7.6
restaurants, 14.4 retail establishments other than department stores
and such major outlets and 970 outside jobs.
...Even though there are some differences in interpreting what is
happening, outside observers in Delaware broadly support Du Pont's
basic intent of maintaining international competitiveness.
..."Every American company has to become more responsive to
international factors. Those that refuse to do so will be in serious
trouble," says Carol E. Hoffecker, associate provost for graduate
studies at the University of Delaware and a Delaware historian.
...Hoffecker, whose 1977 book is considered the current
definitive popular history of the state, says a changing Du Pont is
consistent with an historic truism: "The only constant you can be sure
of is that, when you think you've reached a point of stability, things
will change."
In the context of Delaware industrial history, the curent
situation is vaguely like what began to happen when the Du Pont
cousins got together 90 years ago. "In 1900 if you mentioned
Wilmington, you thought of railroad equipment, shipyards and leather
tanning. Du Pont was just a firm in a remote spot of town that you
sometimes heard from- literally in some cases-once in a while," she
says.
"...Du Pont will be around for a long time and will continue to
be a dominant force in the (state). They have a good location here and
aren't going to give that up. And I don't think they'll back off their
community commitment as long as they're here," Hoffecker says.
"What's different is that Du Pont no longer will be the only kid
on the block and that could end up being a good thing."
"The New Du Pont"
Delaware Today
September 1992