Viewing entries posted in April 2014

Ledgers and Other Items now Online from Montgomery and Stanly Counties

The Stanly County Museum and Montgomery County Public Library recently asked us to add some items they digitized to DigitalNC. There are a range of items, from late 18th century business documents in the Forrest Family Manuscript Collection to ledgers from stores in Montgomery County, to this striking panoramic photograph of Lillian Mill.

Lillian Mill Panoramic Photograph

Here’s a list of the other items. You can also view everything from Stanly County Museum or Montgomery County Public Library.

Fairview Memorial Park Brochure
Forrest Family Manuscript Collection
Norwood Elementary School Signature Book of Ronnie Melton

Images
East Main Street, Albemarle, NC
Farmers and Planters Hotel, South Third Street, Albemarle, NC
John Odom Ross
Panoramic View of Lillian Mill and Group Portrait
Stanly County Public Library
Sid Austin House
Miller Family Bible Page

Ledgers
John B. and H. Martin’s Rocky Springs Store Ledger or Day Book
Blacksmith’s Ledger
Ledger of a Store on the Little River, Montgomery County, NC [1829-1830]
Ledger of a Store on the Little River, Montgomery County, NC [1831-1838]
Stanly County School Ledger for District 47


Yearbooks from Benson Museum of Local History now online

Cartoon of students in a car

Yearbooks from two schools in Benson, North Carolina are now available online on DigitalNC.  The yearbooks are from two different high schools, Benson High School’s The Tatler, covering 1928-1964, and Meadow High School’s Tuscarora, covering 1941-1969.

Cartoon for campaigning students from the 1958 "Tatler"

The yearbooks were made available by the Benson Museum of Local History.  To view more North Carolina Yearbooks, view our site here.




Changes Coming to the North Carolina Newspapers Collection in 2014

Big changes are coming to the North Carolina Newspapers collection on DigitalNC. We are hard at work on migrating the papers to new software that will provide a more reliable and user-friendly way for everyone to search and browse our growing collection of historic North Carolina papers online.

Over the past couple of years we have heard from many users who expressed frustration with our newspaper collection. There have been regular reports of images not appearing, pages loading slowly, and especially inconsistent keyword highlighting in search results. We have explored several alternatives for presenting the papers online and have talked with colleagues at newspaper collections at libraries around the country. We wanted to make sure that we chose an alternative presentation that could handle a lot of content (we have over 200,000 pages online now and that number is rapidly growing) and make the content available in a quick and easy-to-use online interface.

Beginning this summer, we will begin presenting our collection of historic newspapers using the Library of Congress Newspaper Viewer. This software, developed by the Library of Congress, is used for their Chronicling America collection of historic papers and is also being used by the Historic Oregon Newspapers project and a few others around the country.

We will make every effort to make this transition as smooth as possible. The address for the main page for each newspaper title (for example: http://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/courier-asheboro-nc/) will remain the same, but URLs for specific newspaper issues and pages will change. And for those users who have not used Chronicling America, it will take a little getting used to the new interface. However, we would not go through all this effort unless we were certain that it would result in a better overall experience for our users. Newspapers make up the largest collection on DigitalNC and we are committed to continuing to provide access to these fascinating and important materials. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at digitalnc@unc.edu at any time with any questions or concerns.

 


“The Debate over the Sweatiest Professor” – April Fool’s Day in NC Newspapers

April Fool’s Day is upon us.  (We thought Google Chrome’s support for emoji translation could be really useful for transcribing some of our newspapers!)  These days it seems April Fool’s is mostly played out online, with websites jockeying for the best prank.  Taking a look through DigitalNC’s Newspaper Collection shows that pulling pranks on April Fool’s via [print] media is nothing new.

WilsonAdvanceAprilFoolsAdvice

The oldest reference found to April Fool’s Day in the newspapers is from The Wilson Advance in 1897, which reminded its readers which day it was and to be on the alert for pranksters.  The small news item gives a glimpse of what April Fool’s jokes entailed in the late 1890s. (for context, $10 in 1897 would equal approximately $268 today)

BrevardCollege_AprilFools

Starting with the 1937 April Fool’s Day issue of the Clarion from Brevard College, which is the first appearance of an April Fool’s themed paper in NC Newspapers,  it appears that special April Fool’s Day editions of student newspapers were popular across North Carolina, as they remain today if you browse through some campus newspapers online.  Some of the funnier news headers we found included a color by number of Elon’s Pendlelum in  1999 and the 1991 Goofordian [regularly the Guilfordian] from Guilford College, which also noted that you can read all about the debate over the sweatiest professor on page 2.

ElonAprilFools1999

GoofordianAprilFools_1991

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, visit the North Carolina Newspapers collection and to view specifically more papers from April 1 through the years, check out the “Today in North Carolina History” section on the right side of the page.


DigitalNC Blog Header Image

About

This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.

Social Media Policy

Search the Blog

Archives

Subscribe

Email subscribers can choose to receive a daily, weekly, or monthly email digest of news and features from the blog.

Newsletter Frequency
RSS Feed