About the North Carolina History Project

DURING THE PAST FEW DECADES, academic scholars have minimized the importance of individuals and ideas in history. They have emphasized the role of abstract social and economic forces and have presumed that government must perform an increasing array of societal functions.

This scholarship has led to misunderstanding of many parts of North Carolina’s history. These include how personal wealth is created, the benefits of private property, and the positive influence of religious and free market ideas, to name some examples.

As a result, a vast resource of good ideas and exemplary personalities are forgotten, and possible solutions to current societal problems are overlooked.

The tower of Loray Mill, Gastonia. A 1939 strike affected workers throughout the South. Image is in the public domain.

With the North Carolina History Project, the John Locke Foundation seeks to restore knowledge of such cultural losses and fill a void in historical scholarship. The History Project not only encourages a wide variety of historical questions and the free exchange of ideas, but also presents overlooked or forgotten historical themes.

Such themes include entrepreneurship, problem-solving by the private sector, the importance of individuals and ideas, and the positive role of free markets.

This site also contains three other information sources. It has a separate commentary section, where historians can offer historical interpretations and engage in historical debate. It has an educator’s corner that provides teachers and parents with useful and entertaining educational resources.

But that is not all. North Carolinians can also read the History Project’s articles in the Carolina Journal and other publications. The History Project was founded by Dr. Troy Kickler.

The Biltmore Estate is one of many tourist destinations in Buncombe County. Image by Warren LeMay and licensed under Creative Commons.

Editorial Advisory Board

The following historians offer their expertise to help make NorthCarolinahistory.org an authoritative source of North Carolina history.

Jeff Broadwater

Professor Emeritus of History

Barton College

Professor Broadwater’s publications include Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution (2019), James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of a Nation (2012); George Mason, Forgotten Founder (2006); Adlai Stevenson and American Politics: The Odyssey of a Cold War Liberal (1994); and Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade (1992). He also co-edited, with Troy Kickler, North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders (2019).  

Before coming to Barton, Professor Broadwater was director of the John C. Stennis Oral History Project at Mississippi State University. He holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and a law degree from the University of Arkansas. 

John Hood

President

John W. Pope Foundation

John Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a Raleigh-based grantmaker. He is also the author of 10 books—ranging from economic histories and political biographies to fantasy novels —and teaches at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Since 1986, Hood has written a syndicated column that now runs in the Winston-Salem Journal, Greensboro News & Record, Wilmington Star-News, Triangle Business Journal, and newspapers in 50 other North Carolina communities. He’s also written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Review, Readers’ Digest, the New Republic, and dozens of other newspapers and magazines, and appeared on CNN, Fox News, NBC, and National Public Radio.

Hood chairs the North Carolina Institute of Public Leadership, co-chairs the North Carolina Leadership Forum, and serves as vice-chair of North Carolina Public Radio, State Policy Network, and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He also co-founded the Freedom Conservatism project and formerly led the John Locke Foundation as its president for more than two decades.

Hood received his B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned an M.A. in liberal studies from UNC-Greensboro.

Wilfred M. McClay

Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization

Hillsdale College

Historian Wilfred M. McClay has taught in many universities, including the University of Oklahoma, Tulane, Georgetown, John Hopkins, and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He recently wrote Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, published in 2019. In 1995, the Organization of American Historians named his book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America the best book in American intellectual history that year.

Professor McClay has been a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center,  and a past president of the Philadelphia Society. He is chairman of the board for the National Association of Scholars and a member of the board of the Jack Miller Center. In 2022 he received the coveted Bradley Prize. Currently, he serves on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is planning the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Willis P. Whichard

Attorney and former North Carolina Supreme Court justice

Willis P. Whichard is the only person in North Carolina history who has served in both the North Carolina House of Representatives and the North Carolina Senate and both the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court. He also served as dean and professor of law at Campbell University.

Judge Whichard is the author of A Consequential Life: David Lowry Swain, Nineteenth-Century North Carolina, and Their University, which covers the formative years of the University of North Carolina. He also wrote the biography Justice James Iredell, which presents the life of a leading Federalist in North Carolina who became one of the original justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.  

About the Founder

Dr. Troy L. Kickler

founded the North Carolina History Project and Editor of NorthCarolinaHistory.org.

He holds an M.S. in social studies education from North Carolina A&T State University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee. He has taught at the University of Tennessee, Barton College, and North Carolina State University, and Liberty University. In 2023 he was appointed to the prestigious American Semiquintennial Committee created by the North Carolina General Assembly to observe the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth.

Kickler is author of The King’s Trouble Makers: Edenton’s Role in Creating a Nation and State. He is also co-editor, with Dr. Jeff Broadwater, of North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders. He is also editor of an upcoming research volume Nathaniel Macon: Selected Congressional Speeches and Correspondence.

Some of Kickler’s publications include “Caught in the Crossfire: African American Children and the Ideological Battle for Education in Reconstruction Tennessee,” in Children and Youth During the Civil War Era, James Marten, ed. (New York University Press, 2012,) and “Why The Constitution is Essential,” as part of State Policy Network’s We The People series. He is currently working on a study of Andrew Jackson’s leadership style.

He has been invited to write and has written various forwards and introductions to scholarly works. Such publications include Riot and Resistance in County Norfolk, 1646-1650, The Impact of the English Colonization of Ireland in the Sixteenth Century, and The Federalist Papers: A Reader’s Guide.

He has written articles and reviews for such publications as American Diplomacy, Chronicles, Constituting America, Imaginative Conservative, Independent Review, Journal of Mississippi History, Modern Age, Tennessee Baptist History, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, and The Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians.

Kickler has presented at numerous academic conferences and venues including the American Political Science Association and the First Principles Program of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In addition, he has presented dozens of lectures to civic groups across North Carolina exploring, respectively, the history of North Carolina and the United States and the North Carolina Constitution and United States Constitution.

His commentaries have appeared in major North Carolina newspaper outlets, and he has been interviewed for several North Carolina talk-radio stations and news programs. He also has blogged for History News Network. Directing several educational programs, Kickler was co-creator of the popular A Citizen’s Constitutional Workshop. He also directed the John Locke Foundation’s State of Our Constitution symposia series, a program created to foster state constitutional literacy.

Kickler serves on various boards, including the Scholarly Advisory Board of The Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection, a collaborative project of Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University, and the College Level Advisory Board of Constituting America, an online essay series exploring the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Founding Era.