A partial view of a list of ordinances for the city of Lawndale, NC, enacted in 1907.
Today we’re pleased to share a new batch of materials from the Lawndale Historical Society, located in Cleveland County North Carolina. Included are a variety of business records and ephemera related to the Cleveland Mill and Power Company, a hotel register, some town government records, and early twentieth century yearbooks/catalogs from Piedmont High School.
The Cleveland Mill and Power Company was founded around 1873 in Lawndale. The records in this most recent batch include the following:
Clipping from an article written by John F. Schenck entitled “The Menace of Washington to American Industry,” published in a 1936 issue of Carolina Magazine.
John F. Schenck Sr. ran the Cleveland Mill and Power Company, was Mayor of Lawndale, and an all around influential white figure in the community. Textiles were in his blood, so to speak. His great-grandfather and grandfather both founded cotton mills. The scrapbook in this most recent batch is part diary and part manifesto – it contains many typewritten pages of his personal views on the current state of the textile industry, particularly in relation to what he saw as overreaching government regulations from the time period before, during, and after the U. S. Great Depression. There are also clippings and other ephemera.
There are a few other volumes related to town history from the same time period. The Lawndale Hotel Register has signatures dated from 1901-1910. The hotel guest’s place of origin is also included. The Town of Lawndale Minutes and Records from 1903-1925 includes town council minutes, election results, and copies of ordinances like the one at right.
There are also early volumes from Piedmont High School, dating 1905-1926. They’re a bit of a hybrid between catalogs and yearbooks, like many schools published in that time period, and they show both information about the classes offered and the students who attended.
The Piedmont High School Emersonian Literary Society, pictured in the 1925-1926 catalog.
You can view other items related to Lawndale and the Cleveland Mill on the Lawndale Historical Society’s contributor page. These materials have been shared in part thanks to a partnership with the State Archives of North Carolina sponsored by the State Historical Records Advisory Board.
DigitalNC partner Cleveland County Memorial Library provided us with a rich collection of documents, photographs, and yearbooks related to the history of Black citizens in the area. Much of the collection focuses on Black schools that were established during the era of Jim Crow and segregation. These schools were created out of necessity but did not survive integration, leaving their history vulnerable. Fortunately people like Ezra A. Bridges, a longtime educator and community activist, made it a priority to preserve items related to the Black experience in Cleveland County.
Biographical Information on Ezra A. Bridges.
Ezra A. Bridges at groundbreaking.
A few highlights from the collection are the yearbooks, various histories of schools in the area, and photographs of students and educators. There is a lot more in this important collection of materials that stress and celebrate Black citizens of Cleveland County and their relentless pursuit of education and proper representation. To see more from Cleveland County Memorial Library visit their contributor page.
Educator and her students.
A page from Ezra Bridges’ Cleveland County scrapbook
A page from Ezra Bridges’ Cleveland County scrapbook
A new batch of 3 scrapbooks from the Cleveland County Memorial Library are now online at DigitalNC. The scrapbooks, at least one of which was compiled by longtime Cleveland County educator, Ezra Bridges, document various aspects of life in Shelby, NC and the larger Cleveland County area during the second half of the 20th century. Most of the materials within relate to activities concerning both the public school system and the African American community in Cleveland County. The scrapbooks’ pages hold a wide range of items ranging from newspaper clippings, to correspondence, to funeral programs, to postcards, to photos, and more.
To learn more about our partner, Cleveland County Memorial Library, please visit their DigitalNC partner page or take a look at their website.
Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in Shelby, North Carolina, speaking at the Service With A Thought Toward Others (SWATTO) Club’s 25th anniversary celebration in 1991 as seen in a clipping from The Shelby Star.
Photograph of Ezra Agnes Bridges
Three scrapbooks, courtesy of our newest partner, Cleveland County Memorial Library, are now available on DigitalNC. These scrapbooks cover large ranges of time, from 1928 through 1999, and focus on the Bridges family along with the African American community in Shelby, North Carolina.
Included are many different materials such a labeled family photographs, news clippings, letters, greeting cards, obituaries, funeral program, and event fliers. While many of these materials are specific to the Bridges family in North Carolina, there are also more general articles and news clippings that ran in local and national news outlets. To take a look at the scrapbooks, visit the links below:
To Learn more about our partner, Cleveland County Memorial Library, please visit their DigitalNC partner page or take a look at their website.
Above images: The Heritage of Cleveland County Vol. I, page 2 and 3
Thanks to our partner Mauney Memorial Library, genealogy history from Cleveland County is now available on DigitalNC.
Created by the Cleveland County Historical Association and Museum, these volumes document the histories of families and institutions that might have otherwise been lost with the passing of older citizens. County citizens, churches, schools, civic clubs, and other entities were invited to submit stories and material for publication. The volumes include helpful indexes for easy searching and are also full-text searchable, making genealogy research faster and more efficient. This could also be useful resource for teachers working with North Carolina or Cleveland County history.
The first volume is linked below:
To learn more about Mauney Memorial Library please visit the contributor page or the home page. To access more great resources for genealogy and family research, please visit the North Carolina Memory Collection, which contains many items that are also full-text searchable.
Edited December 13, 2016 – At the request of the contributing institution, Cleveland County Heritage Vol. II has been removed from our website at this time. We hope in the future to have it available to the public.
Thanks to our partner, Rowan Public Library, a batch containing 36 yearbooks from Woodleaf High School, Cleveland High School, and Mount Ulla High School are now available on our website. These yearbooks range from 1942 to 1959.
Snapshots from The Keepsake, 1958.
To learn more about the Rowan Public Library, please visit their website.
For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.
Cleveland County Technical Institute Campus, 1973
Academic bulletins and course catalogs from our partner Cleveland Community College have been added to DigitalNC. In addition to course listings, the student handbooks outline the history, courses of study, accreditations, and core policies of the institution.
Cover of the 1973-1975 Cleveland County Technical Institute General Catalog
Cleveland Community College was originally established in 1965 as a unit of Gaston College under the name Cleveland County Indusrial and Adult Education Center. In 1967, it became a unit of the North Carolina Community Colleges and the name was changed to Cleveland County Technical Institute to reflect a new focus on technical education. In 1980, the institution was renamed again; it was known as Cleveland Technical College from 1980 to 1988 when its name was officially changed to its current form.
General catalogs, academic bulletins, and student handbooks from three incarnations of the institution–Cleveland County Technical Institute, Cleveland Technical College, and Cleveland Community College–can be found in this batch of campus publications; these publications range in date from 1973 to 2002. Additional student handbooks from 2003 to the present can be found on the Cleveland Community College website.
Senior Trip, from Glendale High School’s 1962 The Glen-Cedo Yearbook.
The Johnston County Heritage Center has shared more yearbooks from the 1950s and 1960s through DigitalNC. The schools represented in this latest batch are:
There are now 240 yearbooks and campus publications from Johnston County available on DigitalNC, and over 170 of those were contributed by the Johnston County Heritage Center.
Students at Richard B. Harrison High School on their way to class in 1966.
Thanks to our new partner, the Johnston County Heritage Center, 146 Johnston County yearbooks from 16 different high schools are now on DigitalNC. Many of the high schools were closed when Johnston County consolidated and integrated the school system in the 1960s, including three African American schools.
Planning the cover of Smithfield High School’s newspaper, 1964
The high schools include:
1925 Selma High School girls basketball team
To view more high school yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s North Carolina Yearbooks collection.
Thanks to our partner Cleveland County Memorial Library and support from the North Caroliniana Society, issues of The Shelby Daily Star from 1923 to 1936 and 1945 are now available on our website.
Originally named the Shelby Review, the newspaper has provided Shelby, North Carolina with local and national news since 1894. Since its first issue, the paper has gone through several name changes. In the late 1890s, the name was changed to the Cleveland Star, which it remained until 1936 when it was then changed to The Shelby Daily Star. After nearly 50 years, the paper was renamed to The Shelby Star in 1984. In 1998, the paper was renamed a final time to The Star, which it still goes by today.
New York City’s Time Square VE Day Celebration, May 7, 1945.
Two particularly interesting articles from this paper come from 1945 on Victory in Europe (May 8) and Victory Over Japan (August 15) Day. Instead of just providing information on the celebrations of the end of the war in large cities such as New York City, these articles provide the reader with a unique and interesting look into how small towns such as Shelby celebrated VE and VJ Day.
As the May 8th article mentions, Victory in Europe Day was “celebrated calmly and prayerfully in Shelby,” with no “boisterous noise-making like that which marked the close of World War I.” Many people in the town congregated in churches and auditoriums to sing and pray.
The Victory Over Japan Day article on August 15 presents a different scene in the Town of Shelby. After Japan’s surrender was announced, the courthouse square in Shelby, “was a rootin’ tootin’, yelling, laughing, crying mixture of hilariously happy folk and overloaded automobiles. […] The celebration continued far into the night, and business was at a standstill today with stores, banks, and public buildings closed. Most industrial plants closed down last night soon after the victory signal was received.” Other articles discussing the war and the effects it had on the town can be found in the 1945 issues of the newspaper.
To learn more about the Cleveland County Memorial Library, please visit their website.
To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please visit our newspapers collection.
