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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.
Hundreds of new photos, documents and artifacts have been newly digitized at DigitalNC, courtesy of our partners, the Kings Mountain Historical Museum and the Mauney Memorial Library. These digitized materials are part of a joint project between the two institutions, DigitalKM.
Vice President Rockefeller speaking at Kings Mountain High School in 1975 in celebration of the bicentennial.
Included in this batch is nearly 600 images and over 50 historical artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum. These photos include blueprints for the U.S. Post Office at Kings Mountain, photos from the Kings Mountain Centennial parade and celebrations, school and class photos, photographs of military personnel, pictures of local clubs, bands, and sports teams, and much, much more.
Some of the artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum include souvenir programs and other memorabilia from the centennial (100 years), sesquicentennial (150 years), and bicentennial (200 years) anniversaries of the Battle of Kings Mountain. This collection also includes a set of different photographs of military personnel, individuals from Kings Mountain, Trinity Episcopal Church in Kings Mountain, sports teams from the Kings Mountain High School, and much, much more.
A Boeing Flying Fortress, purchased with war bonds bought by Kings Mountain residents during WWII.
Also included are over 125 photos from Mauney Memorial Library and over a dozen historical objects. The photos include class pictures from schools around Kings Mountain, photos of churches around Cleveland County, areas and buildings in Kings Mountain, several aerial views of local schools, and much, much more.
Among these artifacts from Mauney Memorial Library are a collection of research binders by Bonnie Mauney Summers, which contain hand-written notes and charts of genealogical research on 3 branches of the Mauney family and others around Kings Mountain. There is also a binder of monthly meeting minutes taken by the secretary of the Kings Mountain House and Garden Club, dating from 1956-1963. Finally, this collection includes a series of different photographs of areas and people around Kings Mountain, as well as a batch of letters to military personnel sent and received during World War II.
Charles E. Neisler Jr, relaxing in the Davidson College Chemistry Lab, circa 1915.
You can learn more about the Kings Mountain Historical Museum by visiting their contributor page or by visiting their website. To learn more about the Mauney Memorial Library, click here to visit their partner page or click here to visit their website. This collection is part of a joint project to digitize materials related to Kings Mountain history. To learn more, visit the DigitalKM 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 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.
Thanks to our partners at Mauney Memorial Library, DigitalNC is proud to add 1,700 new additions of The Kings Mountain Herald as well as 3 Kings Mountain High School yearbooks. Digitization of the newspapers was funded by Mauney Memorial Library, with hosting provided by DigitalNC.
Distributed from the city of Kings Mountain, the many additions of The Kings Mountain Herald span 1982 – 2015, covering decades of local Cleveland and Gaston county news. Traditional newspaper topics, such as sports, obituaries, and opinion pieces, are continuously explored throughout the years, interspersed in the ’00s with supplements such as “The Great Home Search” and “Medical Matters“. Of note, police reports appear frequently in all decades.
The newest Kings Mountain High School yearbooks, each titled Milestones, come from 1967, 1968, and 1969. They showcase the high school activities of ’60s Kings Mountain teens, including a wide array of clubs.
VICA (Vocational Industrial Club of America) Auto Mechanics club members, Milestones, 1968.
To learn more about The Kings Mountain Herald and see all issues, click here. For more information on Mauney Memorial Library, visit their homepage here, and to view more digitized materials from Kings Mountain and beyond, click here.
