Hugh MacRae

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Hugh MacRae (30 March 1865[1]–1951[2]) was a North Carolinan co-conspirator in the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 and businessman.

Early life[]

MacRae was born in 1865 to a Scottish and English family in Carbonton, North Carolina; his grandfather was General Alexander MacRae, his father Donald MacRae, and his mother Julia Norton MacRae.[1] His grandfather and father were businessmen: Alexander had established a railroad and held offices at the city and county levels, while Donald served as a consular official for the British government in Wilmington and invested in various companies. MacRae graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1885, thereafter moving to western North Carolina to be a mining engineer.[3]

Business[]

In 1890, MacRae established the Linville Improvement Company, a tourist enterprise for Linville.[4] Following the death of his father in 1892, he took control of a Wilmington cotton business, investing considerably in the city's infrastructure.[5]

Between 1905 and 1912, after reading a book on the topic of small-scale farming, MacRae established through one of his companies six farm colonies in the southeast portion of the state. The methods for these farms were intensive and small in scale; intended to be frugal, MacRae purposely settled them with European migrants (themselves recruited by MacRae's employees in Europe), thinking they were more capable than both the resident white and black farmers.[6] MacRae was very pleased with the results of his experiment. He said that for the farmers, "superabundance of food was their main trouble", and suggested to occupy and put to "proper use" the remaining fertile, unused land in the United States.[7] He believed that his advocacy for white immigration would solve "the race problem of the South".[8]

Wilmington insurrection[]

MacRae was a member of the Secret Nine, an influential group of Democratic residents in Wilmington, who worked closely with the state's white supremacy movement.[9] While he tempered some of the more radical white Democrats, he helped coordinate the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 in the wake of a municipal election;[A] worried that the white vote was being diluted, at least a dozen people were killed, and Democrats were placed in office—MacRae became a city alderman.[11]

Death and legacy[]

He died in 1951. His hope that small-scale farming would transform the agricultural South never took hold, though newspapers at the time of his death said he had a considerable impact on farming practices.[12]

He donated land to the county of New Hanover for the development of a park in his name, to be used by its white residents.[2] Hugh MacRae park, as it was known, had its name changed to Long Leaf Park in 2020.[13]

Notes[]

  1. ^ MacRae helped "hatch the violence and coup in Wilmington".[10]

References[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Corey 1957, p. 5.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Steelman 2015.
  3. ^ Lowery 2013, pp. 288–289.
  4. ^ Lowery 2013, p. 289; Swanson 2008, p. 37.
  5. ^ Lowery 2013, p. 289.
  6. ^ Ainsley 1985, p. 61.
  7. ^ MacRae 1916, p. 283.
  8. ^ Lowery 2016, p. 38.
  9. ^ Lowery 2013, p. 295.
  10. ^ Tyson 2006, p. 8.
  11. ^ Manget 2012, pp. 39–40.
  12. ^ Lowery 2013, p. 323.
  13. ^ Weller 2020.

Bibliography[]

  • Ainsley, W. Frank (March 1985). ""Own a Home in North Carolina": Image and Reality in Ethnic European Colonies". Journal of Cultural Geography. 5 (2): 61–69. doi:10.1080/08873638509478549.
  • Corey, John Faris (1957). The Colonization and Contributions of Emmigrants Brought to Southeastern North Carolina by Hugh MacRae (MA). Appalachian State Teachers College.
  • Lowery, J. Vincent (2013). "The Transatlantic Dreams of the Port City Prophet: The Rural Reform Campaign of Hugh MacRae". The North Carolina Historical Review. 90 (3): 288–324. ISSN 0029-2494.
  • Lowery, J. Vincent (2016). ""Another Species of Race Discord": Race, Desirability, and the North Carolina Immigration Movement of the Early Twentieth Century". Journal of American Ethnic History. 35 (2): 32–59. doi:10.5406/jamerethnhist.35.2.0032. ISSN 0278-5927.
  • MacRae, Hugh (January 1916). "Vitalizing the Nation and Conserving Human Units Through the Development of Agricultural Communities". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 63 (1): 278–286. doi:10.1177/000271621606300126.
  • Manget, Thomas Luke (2012). Hugh MacRae and the Idea of Farm City: Race, Class, and Conservation in the New South, 1905–1935 (MA). Western Carolina University.
  • Steelman, Ben (11 July 2015). "Is Hugh MacRae's Legacy too Tainted for Park's Name?". Wilmington Star News. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  • Swanson, Drew A. (2008). "Marketing a Mountain: Changing Views of Environment and Landscape on Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina". Appalachian Journal. 36 (1/2): 30–53. ISSN 0090-3779.
  • Tyson, Timothy B. (17 November 2006). "The Ghosts of 1898". The News & Observer. Section H.
  • Weller, Frances (14 July 2020). "Hugh MacRae Park name change to take place immediately, signs removed". WECT. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
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