The Brief – July
JULY 2021 CONTENT Spinning Tales The Forum, featuring Corporate Psychologist and Executive Coach Becky Winkler, PhD 5 Questions with Historian Tom Hanchett A Word JULY 2021 Spinning Tales The potency of stories is a theme threaded through this July at The Charlotte Center. As a start-up nonprofit organization—seven months into our operations—we have committed to assessing and refining our brand identity, communication and marketing. Our team and consultants have engaged in planning retreats and extended discussions to develop a compelling case and bring greater clarity to our mission and messages. Stories matter in organizations.
At The Forum this week, featured speaker Becky Winkler, PhD, is set to engage with audience members on the power of personal narrative. We each have an inner story we tell ourselves about ourselves. That story can block or propel our success on the job and in our lives. Stories matter for individuals.
In this edition’s “5 Questions” interview, historian Tom Hanchett, PhD, shares thoughts on how storytelling shapes history. Stories matter in history. In many ways, we all are constantly spinning tales—consciously and unconsciously. We craft versions of the truth for various reasons. Often our stories are meant to convince ourselves or persuade others of something as a means to gaining perceived advantages or avoiding responsibilities and consequences.
Are the stories you choose to tell feeding or starving your personal growth and possibilities? How does that influence your civic imagination and our community’s possibilities?
“If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.”
— Ben Okri, Nigerian poet and novelist Register Now for The Forum Tonight! 
LIMITED SEATING Stay Tuned! We've got something to SHOUT! about! The Charlotte Center + Charlotte SHOUT! Look out for details soon! 5 Questions • Tom Hanchett, PhD An interview with the Charlotte historian and go-to foodie
BY VALAIDA FULLWOOD
Community historian Dr. Tom Hanchett earned degrees at Cornell, University of Chicago and UNC Chapel Hill. He retired after 16 years as staff historian with Levine Museum of the New South. His book about Charlotte history, entitled Sorting Out the New South City, is just out in a new Second Edition from UNC Press. Hanchett is currently at work on a history of affordable housing in Charlotte and he writes a monthly column, "Building History” for Charlotte Magazine.
I’m curious, what was your path to becoming a historian?
My dad was a history professor at Hollins College in Virginia. When we were growing up there wasn’t a lot to do in rural Virginia, so he and my mom would load us into a 1960s Rambler American sedan, and we would go driving in the country. My job was to look for lost houses. Back then there were a lot of old log houses and things like that in the landscape. To keep the kid in the backseat quiet and occupied, they’d say, “Go look for lost houses!” And it’s still what I’m doing.
Is there a specific period of time or facet of history that interests you most and why?
Well, part of what my parents instilled in me was to look sharp at what is right around you and that history is right around you. So, as I’ve grown as a historian, I’ve always been interested in whatever was close at hand.
My dad got a job in upstate New York in little Victorian town, called Courtland, that kind of went to sleep when the 20th century started, which meant it was just full of Victoria architecture, streetcar suburbs and things like that. And so that was an early interest—both architecture and urban development. I went to Cornell and got an undergraduate degree in urban history with a minor in architecture. I then went into the historic preservation field while working at the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, where there was a lot of Victorian architecture. And then did a master’s at the University of Chicago.
Coming out of the master’s I was looking for a job. The longest job I could find in historic preservation in 1981 was in a place called Charlotte. Other jobs were for 12 months, but the assignment was for 14 months. I had never been to Charlotte and at the time didn’t know anything about Charlotte. They talk about the “CH factor” and I was guilty of that confusion. I figured, “Hmm, Charlotte, that beautiful seaport city on the coast of South Carolina where for some reason they have the University of Virginia.” I learned it wasn’t Charleston. It wasn’t Charlottesville. And it wasn’t a Victorian town.
When I got to Charlotte, I looked around to see what there was. There’s a lot of fascinating early 20th century history. There’s the Olmsted brothers and John Nolen, who had developed suburbs here. I also got interested in African American history, which there had been almost none of in the little communities I’d grown up in previously.
It feels as if we’re in the midst of a significant, defining period for our country right now. What are your thoughts?
Oh, we’re always making history. But, indeed, it feels like a time when there are very distinct opposing views on almost everything we should do moving forward. As a historian I am better at looking back than I am at the present or future.
History is what gives us the playing field that we walk into. In fact, Amanda Gorman, the amazing poet at President Biden’s inauguration, described it as, “a past we step into.” The direction of that past and exactly where we are is very contested because how you understand how we got here shapes the range of next steps.
Everyone in the United States wants this to be a better place but debating where we are and how we got to where we are has become quite contentious.
What’s your “happy place” and why?
I love eating and discovered a long time ago that if I called it “research” I felt better about it.
Charlotte is rich in international cultures today. Not just cultures from around the globe but also cultures transplanted from other parts of the U.S. Almost all of these folks bring along food. They have grocery stores, bakeries and restaurants. Exploring these worlds, such places are usually very welcoming. The essence of a restaurant is hospitality.
I’m a shy guy. My parents were Midwesterners who did not believe in putting yourself out there. I gradually learned that if I go to diverse restaurants, particularly ones where there aren’t a lot of people who look like me, by large, I’m welcome and I learn something about my community.
You’re masterful at storytelling and how you bring history alive. What are your thoughts on the relationship storytelling and history.
History is a story. It is the story we tell ourselves about how we got here. That’s a short sentence: How we got here. But who is “we”? Who are we talking about? And where is “here”? “Here” keeps changing, because we keep rolling out more present which turns into the past.
What historians do is draw upon the billions of facts that are sitting back there in our history and try to find patterns. Patterns that connect points in time, that’s another way of saying story. Follow Historian Tom Hanchett!
Find his writings on history, architecture and food at www.HistorySouth.org Twitter @HistorySouth | Facebook @TomHanchett About The Charlotte Center WHERE THE CURIOUS ENGAGE FOR GOOD.
A poem by Mary Oliver:
Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. gratitude to our sponsors 
The Charlotte Center operates with support from financial donors and generous sponsors such as those listed above and you. A WORD 
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
HANNAH ARENDT German American political theorist 
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