Here we have materials spanning three decades from our partners over at the Granville County Public Library! These additions include issues of the Oxford Public Ledger, a student paper from Henderson High School, and yearbooks from Henderson and Dabney, N.C.!
This map of North Carolina, called “An Outdoor and Tourist Guide to North Carolina,” was probably created to lure visitors to our brand-new parks; the text alongside it reads, “State Parks in North Carolina are still under development, and at present accommodations and facilities are not completed, except at Fort Macon State Park, Carteret County.” It also lists R. Bruce Etheridge as the director of the Department of Conservation and Development (he served from 1933-1949).
A map of an army plot in Granville County from 1943
Another notable addition is this army map, supposedly used to train troops to read French maps during World War II. Although it shows an area of Granville County near Mountain Creek Church, most of the text is in French.
The other maps show different versions of Henderson, N.C. (one from 1882). They also note the major roads and land owners.
Students in the Library Club at Mary Potter High School, 1953
The other two yearbooks are from Bingham School (Mebane, N.C.) from 1908 and Oxford College, 1921. To see our full collection of North Carolina yearbooks, click here. To see all materials from the Granville County Public library, visit their partner page.
Issues from 8 NC student newspapers are now online at DigitalNC! The issues come from several schools in Granville County and cover news topics like sports, facility renovations, and school events, as well as creative works by students and advertisements for local businesses. The recent batch includes the following newspapers:
The Spectator – J.F. Webb High School – Oxford, NC – 26 issues – 1965-1972
The Tattler – Oxford High School – Oxford, NC – 1 issue – 1921
The Owl – Oxford High School – Oxford, NC – 22 issues – 1946-1962
The J.F. Webb High School Spectator, February 26, 1965
The newspapers listed above constitute a new addition to the significant number of Granville County Public Library materials already online at DigitalNC. Visit their DigitalNC partner page here or head to the Granville County Library System website for more information.
A 10th grade typing class in 1967 at the G.C. Shaw High School class in Stovall, N.C.
Several new high school yearbooks from Granville County are now online on DigitalNC, provided by our partner Granville County Public Library. Included are two years of The Hornet by G.C. Hawley High School from 1967 and 1968, the 1967 Pep Pac by Henderson High School, the 1967 Wildcat by J.F. Webb High School, and the 1967 The Pirate by G.C. Shaw High School. The yearbooks contain individual school portraits, group portraits, and photographs of sports, activities and school groups.
A collage of the 1967 senior class officers at G.C. Hawley High School.
DigitalNC is happy to publish seven new additions to one of our staple exhibits, the Frances B. Hays Collection. Contributed by our partner, the Granville County Public Library, the Hays Collection documents the detailed history of Oxford, Granville County, and North Carolina on the whole.
Several interesting highlights from this batch include North Carolina Colleges and Schools, which documents various newspaper clippings and magazine articles about North Carolina’s institutions of higher learning. You will find articles about the organization and history of the University of North Carolina, Duke University, Peace College, Meredith College, and many more.
For any of our users who are familiar with this collection, the Oxford Newspapers and Oxford Newspapers II scrapbooks may be particularly interesting. As many know, all of the 150 Francis B. Hays scrapbooks are also most entirely composed of newspaper clippings; thus these items may be the most “meta” objects in the collection.
All of the scrapbooks highlight interesting news topics and popular information from the mid-twentieth century and are excellent resources for genealogists, historical researchers, or those simply interested in the history of our state.
You can view all of the newest additions to the exhibit below:
To learn more about the Francis B. Hays Collection and to see the other 100+ scrapbooks, please visit the exhibit page. To learn more about the Granville County Public Library, please the contributor page or the home page.
Granville County Public Library has contributed yearbooks and some manuscript volumes to DigitalNC, including the first yearbook on the site from Warren county.
Yearbooks
The Warrentonian [1949] John Graham High School, Warrenton, N.C.
Pep-Pac [1948] [1956] Henderson High School, Henderson, N.C.
Nahiscoan [1954] Nashville High School, Nashville, N.C.
With the start of the fall semester and football season here in North Carolina, marching bands are officially back on the field and in the stands supporting their teams and entertaining audiences with favorites such as Fight Song, Hey Baby, and You Can Call Me Al. While we all appreciate what marching bands adds to these sporting events, no school has shown as much appreciation for their marching band than Henderson High School.
In the school’s 1964 yearbook, an overwhelming amount of page space is given to the school’s band. Some of these photographs show the students rehearsing in the band room with band director W. T. Hearne, but a majority of them show the students in their full marching band and majorette uniforms. The photographs included in this post from the 1964 Pep Pac showcase the amazing size of their band as well as their snazzy uniforms.
To learn more about the Granville County Public Library, visit their website here.
Some say that high school student humor is a bit sophomoric; as evidence to the contrary, we’ve uploaded several student newspapers (thanks to our partner, the Granville County Public Library) that will at least make you smile.
This section also includes some stellar student profiles. One “Sophisticated Senior” lists her favorite pastime as “flirting” and her hobby as “catching beau.” A “Silly Sophomore” prefers to spend her time “eating” and aspires to be a “Bulls’ Eye Egg thrower.”
For a bit of darker humor, the 1967 senior class of J. F. Webb High School ran an extended graduation joke in the form of a “Last Will and Testament,” describing what each person left behind to an underclassman.
Items I and II leave “appreciation,” “respect,” and “esteem” to the principal and teachers. Item III leaves “old books,” “battered lockers,” and some hangout spot called “The Cave” to the student body in general. Item IV is where things start to get personal.
Many students opted for the “I leave my book, ‘How to Get Girls to Like You,’ to my friend Tommy” joke. A few, like Ellen Franklin and Wayne White, left treasured spots. Ronnie Daniel seems to be the only one who bequeathed a “kiss, bear hug, and a love lick on the top of his head.”
In Stovall High School’s paper, The Breeze, the back page is covered in miscellany briefs, including “A Second Grade Letter” by Margaret Gill. Even though Margaret didn’t seem to find it funny that her ducks drink so much water, it’s certainly entertaining to read.
This 1958 issue of Chapel Hill High School’s Proconian didn’t have the established humor section of some previous issues, though it did have a sassy note commenting on current affairs.
The full list of added newspapers (some by students and some for the community) includes:
To see more materials from the Granville County Public Library, visit their partner page or their website. You can browse all newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection.
Photographs of people discussed in the book are included
Written in 1988, the book contains vignettes about many Black residents of Vance County during the 20th century. The book is broken up into chapters about farm families, and town families, and then by different occupations in the county. An amazing resource particularly for genealogists, Contributions… is full text searchable, making it easy to search names quickly!
Thanks to our partner, Granville County Public Library, a batch containing yearbooks from Dabney High School, Henderson High School, Franklinton High School, J.F. Webb High School, and Zeb Vance High School ranging from 1938 to 1970 are now available on our website.
To learn more about the Granville County Public Library, please visit their website.
For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.
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.