Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section093/Hugh McCrae

Overview

Hugh McCrae was interviewed in Wilmington, North Carolina by the Federal Writer’s project between the years of 1936 and 1940. During the time of the interview, McCrae was 63 years old.

Biography[edit | edit source]

Early life

Hugh McCrae was born in 1865 in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1867, at two years old, McCrae moved into a house built by his father on Market St., Wilmington NC. At 63 years of age, he still lived in this house.

Family Life

Wilmington Riverfront

McCrae's family was originally from Scotland. His great grandfather Alexander McCrae migrated to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1770. McRae's grandfather Alexander McCrae II was an engineer, railroad builder, Confederate army general, and the president of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. Alexander II had nine sons. Four of them were engineers, and the rest joined the Confederacy to fight. McCrae became an engineer. McCrae's brother Donald was a captain in the U.S Army for the Spanish war. McCrae's son, Nelson, who graduated with an engineering degree from the same school as his father, also was part of the flying service for the U.S Army during the Great War. Edwin Bjorkman, who interviewed McCrae as part of the Federal Writers Project, summarized the McCrae's work: "They turn instinctively to engineering and fighting."

Education and career

In 1885, McCrae graduated as an engineer from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spent his life trying to give back to society. According to his interviewer, he takes pride in himself and the work he does. Using his own money, he spent an estimated total of $1,000,000 to create the McCrae colonies, a utopian-like settlement that started off small but eventually held over 300 families and gave people good, affordable farmland and a chance to make a steady income. He sold the property at $12/acre to farmers, and then it was theirs to farm as they pleased, no expectations from him or hidden fees. McCrae was seen by his peers as "Wilmington’s most constructive citizen" because he used his engineering degree to engineer utopian colonies.

Social Influence

McCrae was a powerful force in his community. His peers listened to him, the families in his colonies respected him. He was a chairman of the Associated Southern Committees on Rural Development, which worked to improved the living conditions of Southerners.

In 1898, McCrae took chief command of the Wilmington Race Riot. The riot comprised of white Southern Democrats rushing downtown, burning down a newspaper office that hired a black author, killing many African Americans, and chasing others out of town. McCrae and the other rioters saw the act as a way to "rid (Wilmington) of a dominance of (African Americans) and selfish white politicians that had lasted for thirty years." The democrats were unhappy the Populist party and African Americans were gaining power. And like his family, McCrae was an engineer and fighter. McCrae and the rioters were not punished for the murders. Instead, McCrae had a public park named after him to honor his actions. He had great social power, and the people holding the majority of political power in Wilmington saw his act as good.

Social Context

Agricultural development and land ownership in the South during the 1930s

In the American South, there were many programs working to further rural development. One of these programs was the Associated Southern Committees on Rural Development. These committees were made up of southern leaders in agriculture, economics, and politics. To encourage rural development, the organization sponsored a bill in congress that would, "under federal supervision and with federal backing, ... an experimental agricultural community of not less than 200 families in each one of ten southern states." This program was built upon the examples of colonies in the South like the McCrae colonies. Congress was asked to provide $12,000,000 to run the project. The organization planned to expand the project to include more colonies if the first ones were successful. Another program trying to further rural development was the New Deal. "... (The) New Deal had decisively turned its gaze toward the U.S. countryside, beginning an unprecedented campaign of resettlement, tenancy reform, and rural social engineering.” President Franklin D Roosevelt started the New Deal to foster programs that help Americans struggling during the Great Depression. “Many farmers received less for their crops than it cost to produce them... (and) to add to farmers’ woes, constant cultivation of cotton and tobacco had damaged soil, robbing it of nutrients need for crops to grow well.” Farming had been a reliable job for many Southerners, but because of the Great Depression and poor cultivation methods, many farmers were struggling. That is why it was so important for programs like the agricultural colonies and the New Deal were so important.

Wilmington Race Riot of 1898

Wilmington Race Riot of 1898

Southern democrats were not happy with the new freedoms and political power African Americans got from the 15th Amendment. They were especially unsettled by the gaining political power of the Populist-Republican coalition. On the front of protected white women from black men, on 10 November 1898, white democrats burned down a newspaper office where a black newspaperman published a controversial article about interracial couples. Many African Americans fled Wilmington. Two thousand white democrats rushed into downtown and murdered an estimated twenty African Americans. For a long time, the Wilmington community did not recognize the tragedy. Instead, some of the white leaders were honored by having parks, buildings and streets named after them. "A plaque in Hugh MacRae Park commemorated him as a ‘kindly and gracious son of the old South.’ There was no mention of his murderous role in 1898, the root of the real estate, power, and wealth his family still maintains in Wilmington today." The leaders of the riot were not punished but instead benefited from their role.

References

Bjorkman, Edwin. "Hugh McCrae, Builder of Human Happiness, A Study in Agricultural Engineering." Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, (1936-1940) Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Olsson, Tore C. “Sharecroppers and Campesinos: The American South, Mexico, and the Transnational Politics of Land Reform in the Radical 1930s.” The Journal of Southern History 81, no. 3 (2015): 607–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43918401.

Bishop, RoAnn. “Agriculture in North Carolina during the Great Depression.” Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History. 2010. Accessed October 11, 2022. https://www.ncpedia.org/agriculture/great-depression.

Kirshenbaum, Andrea Meryl. ""The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina" :Gender, White Supremacy, and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898" Southern Cultures; Chapel Hill Vol. 4, Iss. 3, (1998): 6.

Loewen, James W. "Democracy Betrayed The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy (review)" Southern Cultures, Vol. 6, no.6 (2000): 90-93

Krause, Lauren "A History of Hatred and Love in Wilmington, North Carolina" Shenandoah, Vol. 69, no. 2. (2020)

Wilmington, N.C. race riot, 1898: The wrecked "Record" building and group of vigilantes. November 26, 1898. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilmington_vigilantes.tif

State Archives of North Carolina. Wilmington, North Carolina PhC.184 Massengill Postcards. September 29, 2011. File:Riverfront, Wilmington 001 (21955095638).jpg