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New Yearbooks from Wayne County Public Library

cartoons

Daredevil [1953], page 57

cartoons2

Daredevil [1953], page 60

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DigitalNC is happy to offer two new yearbooks from the Wayne County Public Library. The yearbooks are from Eureka High School, located in Eureka, NC, which had a population of about 200 people at the 2010 census. These yearbooks offer a nice look into the life of a small community school during the 1950’s. Although it is described as a high school, both yearbooks feature 1st-12th grade classes. Yearbooks like these could be excellent resources for genealogy research, especially about this small community.

pig

Eu-Re-Hi-Ke Daze [1952], page 60

You can view both yearbooks at the links below:

You can also view all of the yearbooks from Wayne County Public Library here.

To learn more about the Wayne County Public Library by visiting their contributor page or their website.


The Coastland Times Issues from 1962 to 1966 Now Available on DigitalNC!

Header for The Coastland Times newspaper. It reads: The Coastland Times: with which is combined The Pilot and Herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. Published weekly in the interest of the Walter Raleigh Coastland of North Carolina.
The Coastland Times, May 25, 1962.

Thanks to our partner, Dare County Library, new issues of The Coastland Times are now available on our website. These issues range from 1962 to 1966. Popular topics in these issues include environmental protection of the coast, the building of bridges and roads, and the area’s popular theater scene.

In 1955, Betty MacDonald published a humorous memoir titled Onions in the Stew. The book recounts MacDonald’s move to Washington State with her two preteen daughters as a divorced working mother and their adaption to living in Washington State from 1942 to 1954. After meeting and marrying her second husband, the family settles for living on the fringe of the Western wilderness on Vashon Island in Puget Sound after being unable to find a home in Seattle or its suburbs. City folks at heart, the MacDonald family hilariously deals with adapting to life in the country.

In April 1962, the Manteo High School Senior Class performed an adaption of Onions in the Stew to a packed house. The class was under the direction of Mrs. Ida Edwards and Miss Mabel Jean Basnight. Credit for the play’s success was given to Miss Della Basnight (pictured left) for her skill in acting as the mother of two.

To view more issues of The Coastland Times, please visit the newspaper’s title page linked here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please view our North Carolina Newspapers collection linked here.

To learn more about the Dare County Library, please visit their website linked here.


An Unexpected Senator’s Column in “The Coastland Times”

Two adults wearing suits shaking hands.  On the left is Bobby Franklin; on the right is former Senator Sam Erwin.
Bobby Franklin (left) shaking hands with Senator Sam Ervin (right).

More issues of The Coastland Times from Manteo, N.C. are now available in our Newspapers of North Carolina collection thanks to our partner, the Dare County Library. These issues span from September 1963 to August 1964 and touch on many regional events of the coast.

A cartoon of Senator Sam Erwin's bust in front of the capitol building. Next to it are the words, "Senator Sam Erwin Says."

Within this span of issues is a column published by former U.S. Senator Samuel J. Ervin Jr. called “Senator Sam Ervin Says.” Ervin was from Morganton, N.C., and was known during his political career for opposing civil rights legislation. The Coastland Times was one of many N.C. papers that published Ervin’s column, including The Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.), The Yancy Record (Burnsville, N.C.), The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.), and The Transylvania Times (Brevard, N.C.).

Ervin’s column stands out today for how it differs from contemporary political propaganda. For one thing, it was published in local papers, which tend to focus on local and regional news. For example, one column from the September 13, 1963 issue runs next to a news brief headlined, “Sea Hags Will Meet,” referring to a local fishing club.

Another notable quality of Ervin’s column is that it is… relatively boring. Rather than employing inflammatory language or focusing on hot-button issues, Ervin tends to give technical overviews of the mechanisms of the Senate. In the column published on October 18, 1963, the Senator references a “controversial Foreign Aid Bill” and then writes, “Present prospects are that there may be no action taken by the Senate as a whole on the tax bill. There is a growing feeling that action on the tax measure should be postponed until after the President’s Budget message to Congress the first of the year.” Even though it is presumably written for a general audience, Ervin often chooses to use technical language and focus on bureaucratic details rather than argue for a bigger picture or stance.

You can read more of Ervin’s unexpected (by contemporary standards) columns and more of The Coastland Times in this latest batch of issues. You can also browse all of our digital newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from the Dare County Library, visit their partner page and their website.


Cape Hatteras School Student Magazines Now Available on DigitalNC

Cover page of the Sea Chest magazine in Red writing with blue art of a figure walking towards a boat.

Sea Chest, 1976 Special Bicentennial Edition

A new batch of 23 publications of the school magazine from Cape Hatteras School (now Cape Hatteras Secondary School) dating back from 1973 to 2000 has been digitized and made available on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Dare County Library.

 
The Sea Chest is a magazine written by students at Cape Hatteras School . While learning about journalism and everyday skills, the students use the publication as a way to document and preserve North Carolina coast culture. They would do this through their articles, interviews with community members, and photographs.
 
To learn more about the Dare County Library, you can find more information by visiting their partner page or taking a look at their website.

Newest Partner Challenges Our Scanning Abilities with 1934 Lake Mattamuskeet Map

While we are no strangers to digitizing large objects here at DigitalNC, our newest partner, the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, gave us quite the scanning challenge with their 1934 Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map! Measuring in at 6ft 4in by 3ft 9in, the map was over a foot longer than our largest scanning table. Since it was impossible for us to scan the whole map in one shot, we had to utilize our Phase One camera and its removable table top to scan the map in parts using a horizontal scrolling type technique.

A portion of the map was set up on the table top with small weights carefully applied to hold the map in place and edges down while library carts and people supported the parts of the map off the table. Once a portion was scanned, the weights would be removed, the map shifted for the next portion (with overlap), and weights reapplied. This process was repeated over 30 times. Afterwards, the scanned images were pieced together to create an impressive full digital image of the map which shows the boundary of the lake and parcels of land along with individual parcel owner names, dates the land was acquired, and parcel acreage. A more detailed version of the map can be viewed here on DigitalNC.

Lake Mattamuskeet is recognized as North Carolina’s largest natural freshwater lake—stretching 18 miles long, seven miles wide, and averaging only two to three feet deep. While the lake may be shallow, its history is certainly not. The following paragraphs provide some information about the lake’s ancient and more recent past, but detailing its full history is beyond the scope of this blog post. If you are interested in learning more, please visit the resources that are linked at the end of this post.

At least 800 years before England’s 1584 expedition arrived at Roanoke Island, the coastal region of the state was occupied by several small Native American tribes, including the Algonquian-speaking Machapunga (also known as the Mattamuskeet or Marimiskeet American Indians). The Machapunga were a small tribe of the Algonquin language living in the Pungo River area who migrated south from the Algonquin peoples of the Powhatan Confederacy.

At that time, the Mattamuskeet were known as skillful watermen who made their boats and nets of size interlocks for herring, drum, shad, netting needles, and floats. In addition to their work on the water, they hunted; trapped; gathered berries, nuts, and fruit; and farmed. They grew plants such as corn, beans, pumpkins, goosefoot, sunflowers, knotweed, and squash. The women of the Machapunga are specifically noted as being fierce warriors. Today, the genealogical descendants from the original historic Mattamuskeet Indians of Hyde County, along with the original historic Roanoke-Hatteras (Croatan) Indians of Dare County comprise the Alogonquian Indians of North Carolina.

In 1934, the Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map was created—showing parcel boundaries along with providing the name of the parcel’s owner, the acreage, and the date it was acquired. Some names present on the map, such as Collins, Barber, Chance, Clayton, and Bryant, can trace their American Indian heritage back to the Mattamuskeet. The same year the map was published, the lake was acquired by the United States Government and the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge was established. This was likely a result of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies that helped provide jobs and relief to citizens during the Great Depression. Today, the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge (which includes the lake and surrounding area) remains federally protected and supports “large numbers of wintering waterfowl, as well as a variety of breeding songbirds, mammals such as black bear and bobcat, and other wildlife.”

Map title and associated information. United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Biologial Survey. Jay. N. Darling. Chief.
Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map. 
New Holland Corporation Tr[?].
(3)
Hyde County. North Carolina.
R.C.F. Surveyor. 
1934.
Scale 1:15,840
[Bar for scale]

To learn more about the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, please visit their website linked here.

To view more maps of North Carolina on DigitalNC, click the following link.

History and information about Lake Mattamuskeet was found using the Lake Mattamuskeet and Mattamuskeet Indians NCpedia entries.

Information about the Algonquian Indians of North Carolina was found on their website linked here and the National Park Service’s page “The Carolina Algonquian.”


Eight Decades of Roanoke’s “The Lost Colony” Programs Feature Some Familiar Faces

A collage of covers of the Lost Colony souvenir programs

Many North Carolinians are familiar with the story of the lost colony, a group of English colonists brought to modern-day North Carolina by Sir Walter Raleigh who mysteriously vanished. Perhaps fewer are familiar with the symphonic drama The Lost Colony, which has been performed in Manteo, N.C. since 1937. Thanks to our partnerships with Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill and the Roanoke Island Historical Association, we now have the souvenir programs (1937-2019) available on our site.

The Lost Colony, written by Paul Green, has been a cultural touchstone of the Outer Banks since the late thirties; several of our digitized newspapers from the area make references to it (you can read one blog post about The Nags Tale and another about The Dare County Times). Some sources say it is the longest running symphonic drama in the country.

A black-and-white headshot of actor Andy Griffith.A black-and-white headshot of Barbara Edwards Griffith.Of the many notable figures who have participated in the annual play season, one of the most recognizable and beloved is actor Andy Griffith. Griffith was born in Mount Airy, N.C. and acted in The Lost Colony for seven seasons (1947-1953), starring as Sir Walter Raleigh for the later five. He may have been the subject of one of the souvenir program’s best covers (1952), which is reused as a dedication to him in 2013 just after he died. In fact, Griffith is buried on Roanoke Island.

What makes these souvenir programs even more interesting is that Griffith’s first wife, Barbara Edwards, was also in a starring role of The Lost Colony for several years. She played Eleanor Dare, mother of Virginia Dare (famously said to be the first English child born in the Americas). Edwards Griffith was the first native North Carolinian to play the female lead and was “the most successful actress to portray the difficult role” thanks to her “excellent voice and splendid acting ability,” according to the 1953 program.

The two were married in 1949, one of the years when they co-starred in the play. They also both seem to have left the production at the same time after the 1953 season. Afterwards, they adopted two children and stayed together until 1972. During their relationship, in 1964, Edwards Griffith apparently appeared in one episode of The Andy Griffith Show as the character Sharon.

You can see the full collection of The Lost Colony souvenir programs here. To learn more about the Roanoke Island Historical Association, you can visit their partner page and their website.


Additional Issues of The Roanoke News Now Available

Header for The Roanoke News. It reads: The Roanoke News. Established in 1866--Serving Halifax and North [H]ampton counties.

Thanks to funding from the State Library of North Carolina’s LSTA Grant and our partner, Halifax County Library System, new issues of The Roanoke News from 1923 to 1944 are now available on our website. This expands our current holding of the paper from 1878 to 1944. The paper, published weekly, primarily features articles on local, North Carolina news such as the completion of the Wright Memorial Bridge.

Prior to 1931, individuals looking to visit North Carolina’s Outer Banks, or those wishing to visit Dare’s county seat in Manteo, would have had a rather long trip ahead of them. In 1921, the General Assembly passed a $50 million bond issue that was to be used for improving and paving roads that would connect county seats. In addition to these new roads, several concrete bridges were constructed that shortened the distance between places significantly. One of the bridges constructed under the bond was the Wright Memorial Bridge. In April of 1931, the Wright Memorial Bridge was finally opened to the public after 10 years of construction. The bridge spans the entire three mile width across Currituck Sound, connecting Point Harbor to the Outer Banks. The bridge still enjoys heavy usage almost 100 years later.

To learn more about the Halifax County Library System, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.


We Want to Come to You! New On Location Digitization Service Begins

On Location Digitization Services icon with young boy riding in a toy car

Logo image courtesy the Braswell Memorial Library! “Ricky in Toy Car” 

Have you been interested in working with the Digital Heritage Center but find it difficult to get to Chapel Hill, or have concerns about having your materials off site? We want to come to you! We’ll be working with two or three cultural heritage institutions over the next nine months to try out on-location scanning.  If you’d like to nominate your institution, read on and use the nomination form linked at the end of this post.

What We Do

Here’s what nominated institutions will receive as part of this process.

  • We will bring our scanners, computers, and staff to your institution to digitize and describe materials from your collections. We would be there for one full weekday, at a minimum.
  • We’ll host the scanned images and associated metadata on DigitalNC.org, and give you copies of the original scans to use in any non-profit context.
  • Optionally, we can do a presentation for staff and/or the public related to any of the following topics:
    • The Digital Heritage Center’s services (for staff at your institution and/or other local cultural heritage institutions)
    • A demonstration of what we’re doing while we’re there (for staff at your institution)
    • The variety of resources you can find on DigitalNC.org and other fantastic digital collections in North Carolina (staff or the public)

What We’ll Need from Partners We Visit

If you’re chosen, we’d need:

  • At least one conference call before arrival to clarify expectations, work with you on scheduling, and talk through the materials you’d like scanned.
  • Description and a light inventory of the items we’ll be scanning, if there isn’t one already available.
  • Some assembly and preparation of the materials you’ve chosen. This might include physically pulling all of the content together before we arrive and removing staples if the materials are stapled at the top corners.
  • A designated staff contact regularly available to ask questions regarding what we’re scanning while we’re there, and to help with logistics like getting equipment in and out of the building, etc.
  • An indoor location that has:
    • at least two power outlets,
    • internet connectivity,
    • a work area large enough for 2 scanners and 4 laptops as well as extra room for materials handling,
    • seating for four people, and
    • is away from the public so we can get the most scanning accomplished in our limited time (ideal but not required).

Additional Guidance for Nominations

  • We’ll be giving priority to nominations from institutions furthest from Chapel Hill and to new partners. If you are a prospective partner, please check to make sure you’re eligible.
  • The materials have to be owned by your institution.
  • The materials should cover North Carolina subjects, events, and people.
  • For these on-location sessions, we’re accepting nominations for the following types of items:
    • photographs (prints) and/or postcards
    • looseleaf print materials up to 11×17”
    • bound items may be considered, but in very limited numbers and only if transporting them to Chapel Hill would be impossible
  • Materials can be fragile but should be stable enough to withstand gentle handling and placement on a flatbed scanner.

We’ll review nominations according to the following criteria, so you may want to address these in your nomination form:

Category Point Value
New partner 1
New town 1
New county** 2
Materials document an underrepresented
     community or population
1
Materials are well described/inventoried 5
Majority of materials date from 1945 or earlier        1
Materials are believed to be unique 1

** We have yet to work with any institutions in the following counties: Alexander, Bertie, Bladen, Camden, Caswell, Chowan, Clay, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Graham, Greene, Henderson, Hoke, Jones, Mitchell, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Swain, Tyrrell, Yancey

Use this nomination form to submit!

We’ll start reviewing nominations on September 30 and will notify selected institutions shortly thereafter. If a selected institution ends up not being able to host us, we’ll continue down the list.

We’re excited about trying out this new service. Please contact us with any questions and share this with any institutions you think might be interested.


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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.

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