Digital North Carolina

Highlights from the North Carolina
Digital Heritage Center


Groundhog Day 100 Years Ago
This morning I looked through the North Carolina Newspapers collection to see how early I could find a mention of Groundhog Day. The oldest piece I found is this one, from the Sylvan Valley News in Brevard, published on February 5, 1904:

I also liked this piece, from the Winston Sentinel, reprinted in the Mebane Leader on February 9, 1911, with a great reference to "his hogship":

Posted by Nick Graham on February 2, 2012
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A Finer Carolina

From 1952 to 1959 the Carolina Power and Light Company (CP&L) hosted a "Finer Carolina" contest, in which cities and towns in the CP&L service area vied for cash awards by engaging in community improvements. From a history of CP&L I learned that over the seven years the competition was held 4,600 projects were undertaken, including those aimed at "beautifying residential areas, improving cultural opportunities, upgrading municipal facilities, stimulating business, and attracting new industry". 
 
Some materials on DigitalNC are evidence of the participation of North Carolina's communities, such as this 1954 scrapbook from the town of Burgaw documenting their Finer Carolina activities. The year 1954 was a banner year for the contest, according to a front-page article in the February 25, 1954 issue of the Raeford News-Journal. During this year there were 160 entries, including Raeford, N.C., competing for $6,750 in prizes. The Architectural History of Randolph County, N.C., also mentions the Finer Carolina contest, as the city of Asheboro took home the winning prize in 1954, as well as 1955, 1956, and 1958. But perhaps these awards weren't such a boon for Asheboro after all, as the history describes the city's improvement projects as resulting in "the nearly total destruction of the city's nineteenth-century heritage".
Posted by Maggie Dickson on January 25, 2012
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Saint Augustine's at 145

Happy birthday to Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, which is celebrating the 145th anniversary of its founding with full program of Founder's Week activities.

A large collection of student yearbooks from Saint Augustine's are available on DigitalNC, and we've recently added materials from the vertical files at the Harrison Library in Raleigh, which include many documents related to Saint Augustine's College, including programs, pamphlets, and brochures.
Posted by Nick Graham on January 24, 2012
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Pender County Jaycees Scrapbooks Now Online
We've just finished digitizing a dozen scrapbooks from the Pender County Public Library documenting the diverse activities of the Burgaw Jaycees, primarily in the 1950s. The scrapbooks contain photographs, newspaper clippings, and a few documents related to the work of the Jaycees.
I especially like the "For a Finer Carolina" volume, compiled in 1954 in celebration of the town's Diamond Jubilee (the 75th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Burgaw). The scrapbook includes photos from parades, contests, and celebrations and is an interesting look at life in southeastern North Carolina in the mid 20th-century. It also includes this great photo of "Carolina Beach's Famous Whale Float."

Posted by Nick Graham on January 19, 2012
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Rocky Mount Weekly Reporter, 1884
Whenever we start a new digitization project in the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, we like to work with materials that are in the best possible condition, in order to preserve the often fragile original items and to get the highest quality image we can. How, then, did we end up with this?

This is the only known surviving issue of The Weekly Reporter, a newspaper published in Rocky Mount in the 1880s.  This issue was printed on this date in 1884.  These are the best images we could get without having expensive conservation work done on the paper.  Even with all of the fading, folding, torn pages, and stains from old attempts to tape it together, the images capture a fair amount of detail.  If you look closely, you can make out parts of the social column, selections from jokes and stories reprinted from other pages, and some ads for companies and products ranging from the Rocky Mount Iron Works to "Mexican Mustang Liniment."

This paper is in the Local History & Genealogy section of the Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount.
Posted by Nick Graham on January 18, 2012
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This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from institutions across North Carolina.

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