I knew I wanted to do something involving agricultural history when it came to this soundscape project. I figured the tobacco industry in NC would be a good idea. What I wound up doing was going to Duke Homestead in Durham to get some original sounds... I recorded the sounds of their tobacco field, and the audio presentations of tobacco auctions and a Lucky Strike cigarrette commercial that can be heard in their visitor's center. The pops and shuffles you hear in the field is me rustling and pulling tobacco leaves.
I then drove to the American Tobacco Complex near Durham Bulls Athletic Park to record some ambiance sounds. The ATC was the hub of cigarrette production in Durham in the early 1900s, but today has been made into a series of restaurants and shops.
Finally, I took some song clips from my computer and layered them into the file. The first song you hear is a traditional field holler, that segways into the song "Truckin" by Blind Boy Fuller, a blues singer who performed in the tobacco district in the 1930s and 1940s.
The idea is to show the progression of tobacco from field, to factory, to cigarrette.
Find more music like this on Teaching Digital History
You need to be a member of Teaching Digital History to add comments!
Join Teaching Digital History