Here at DigitalNC, we digitize high school yearbooks that are at least 50 years old. We’re pleased to have added yearbooks from our long-time partner, Alamance County Public Libraries, filling in books from the mid-1960s that are now out of our “embargo” period:
These are the first books on our site from Western Alamance High School, which opened for the 1962-1963 school year. You can view all of the yearbooks that Alamance County Public Libraries has shared on DigitalNC via their contributor page.
The front cover of the Doe – Wah – Jack yearbook for Walter M. Williams High School in 1971.
Thanks to our partner, Alamance County Public Library, 16 high school yearbooks are now available on Digital NC. Along with the yearbooks, the Burlington Telephone directory is also available. Each yearbook comes from several different high schools in Alamance County during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yearbook titles include the Doe – Wah – Jack (1971) from Walter M. Williams High School in Burlington and the Aries (1970) from Northeast Guilford High School in McLeansville. These yearbooks join previous years such as the Sylvanian (1960) from Sylvan High School in Snow Camp and the Reg-O-Ala (1959) from E.M. Holt High School in Burlington.
To view our collection of high school and college yearbooks from North Carolina, visit our collection here.
The front cover of Northeast Guilford High School yearbook, Aries in 1970.
Artist Aaron Wallace casts the hand of veteran Will A. Harrison from Guilford County.
Veteran Timothy Morton from Stanly County pictured with the cast of his hand at the North Carolina Veterans Park.
Materials from our new partner, the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, are now available on DigitalNC. These materials document the creation of installations for the North Carolina Veterans Park. The park is located in downtown Fayetteville, and was formally dedicated on July 4, 2011. Installations and plazas in the park explore the theme a “Veteran’s Journey: life before, during, and after service.”
The materials on DigitalNC concern the creation of the Oath of Service Wall and the Community Columns that are located in the Community Plaza of the park. The Oath of Service Wall includes
Materials from each county are represented individually on DigitalNC, and include information about the veterans, community members, and artists that facilitated the casting. Many include photographs of the hand molding process and biographical details.
To browse materials in the North Carolina Veterans Park collection, click here. To learn more about the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, take a look at their partner page, or visit their website.
Two new scrapbooks have been added to Digital NC thanks to our partner, the Heritage Research Center at High Point Public Library. William Bencini served as the mayor of High Point, North Carolina in Guilford County from 1971-1973. In 1971 and 1972, Mayor Bencini and his wife were invited by Eastern Airlines and the City of Atlanta, Georgia to join their inaugural flights to Mexico and Jamaica out of Atlanta.
These scrapbooks depict these voyages through photographs, guest lists, itineraries, menus, and more. They provide interesting insight into air travel in the 1970s, document the activities of Mayor Bencini, and represent the history of the now-defunct Eastern Airlines. Additionally, the guest lists show some of the prominent figures in Atlanta and surrounding areas at the time. Through these images, researchers can witness the beaches, people, food, and tourist attractions that Mayor Bencini enjoyed on these trips. Perusing these scrapbooks, one feels transported to a bygone era as well as foreign countries. Access the scrapbooks here, and see more documents from the Heritage Research Center at High Point Public Library here.
This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.
Today’s 10 for 10 Q&A is from Sylvia Stanback, our contact at the Dudley High School Alumni Association. In 2019 we welcomed the Dudley Alumni Association as our 250th partner, as we worked with Sylvia to digitize yearbooks, photographs, and other school memorabilia. (Alumni Association’s home page | NCDHC contributor page) digitizing yearbooks and catalogs, maps, photographs, and newspapers. Dudley High School, located in Greensboro, was the first Black high school in Guilford County during segregation. Founded in 1929, the school was segregated until 1971. Unlike many Black high schools in the state, Dudley still operates. Sylvia and members of the Alumni Association are active in preserving Dudley’s history during segregation. Read below for more about our partnership with the Dudley Alumni Association.
What impact has NCDHC had on your institution and/or on a particular audience that means a lot to you?
Thanks to NC Digital Heritage Center – DigitalNC, I was able to put some of my old James B. Dudley High School yearbooks online for all former alumni, students, family and friends to view. Some of our DHS alumni did not have copies of their yearbooks from the 1950’s to view. Now, thanks to DigitalNC they can see and share these great documents anytime they want online.
Do you have a specific user story (maybe your own!) about how DigitalNC has boosted research or improved access to important information?
As a result of my meeting your awesome staff, I am now part of a community driven project sponsored by the UNC Libraries, Community Driven Archives Mellon Grant team. This is a great opportunity for me to learn more about community archives. Thanks to my contact with DigitalNC, I can continue helping to preserve more of the history of the African American community in Greensboro, NC.
If you were asked to “describe what makes NCDHC great” in a few words, what would they be?
“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.” In my opinion, what makes NCDHC great is that the fact that it is an outlet to fulfill this great quote by the famous historian and lecturer, Dr. John Henrik Clarke.
Front page of the February 12, 1926 issue of High Life
Nineteen issues of High Life, the student newspaper from Greensboro High School, are now available on DigitalNC, thanks to our partner, the Greensboro History Museum. Issues include documentation of significant events in the school’s community from 1923 to 1926, 1941 to 1942, and 1954. Articles cover subjects such as athletics and other extracurricular activities, social events, curriculum information, and social commentary. The newspaper also includes advertisements for local stores, opinion pieces, and cartoons such as the one below, included to illustrate the hope of a new semester:
“Dawn of a New Opportunity,” cartoon by Erich Nau
Though this is the first high school student newspaper from Greensboro to be available on DigitalNC, it complements several others from High Point, which is nearby and also in Guilford County. You can browse High Point High School’s student newspaper, The Pointer, here and other student newspapers from across the state here.
To see more from the Greensboro History Museum, you can visit their partner page here, or visit their website for more information.
The Future Outlook, a community newspaper from Greensboro, NC, is now available on DigitalNC. Thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, nearly 25 years of the paper are now online and full-text searchable. The nearly 450 editions range from 1941-1947, 1949, 1952, and 1958-1972.
The Future Outlook served an African American community in Greensboro and documents major events from their perspective. Like community newspapers throughout North Carolina, the paper documented births, deaths, and events of its readership. Economic and business activities received a lot ink over the years, highlighting prominent Black leaders in Guilford County, as well as, members of clubs and professional organizations. Elections and voting related activities are also well documented. Before each election, including smaller city and county elections, the paper published extensive district maps and voting information.
The Future Outlook, June 13, 1942, page 6
Another area that might be of interest for researchers is the paper’s coverage of local educational institutions. Greensboro is home to several historically Black colleges and universities, including North Carolina A&T and Bennett College. Scholars and students at these universities are heavily covered, especially in during the 1960’s. Students on the Dean’s List, scholars who received grants (like the image above), fraternities and sororities, and university conferences cover many front pages and serve as a record of university activities.
Also included in this batch are issues dating from 1941-1947, documenting the entirety of World War II and community reactions to it. Stories, advertisements, and political messages cover the pages during this period. The paper featured stories about locals who were working for the war effort, like Margaret Lanier. Lanier was a secretary in the Press Division of the Office of Facts and Figures. The Future Outlook published the photo on the left of her posing with seven new poster designs to be distributed for Flag Day in June 1942. In addition, there are many of the iconic war advertisements, posters and cartoons, featuring African American men and women.
The Future Outlook, September 12, 1942, page 4
The Future Outlook, September 26, 1942, page 4
To view all of the issues of the Future Outlook, please visit the following link. To view more community newspapers like this one, please visit the North Carolina Newspapers Collection and limit by “Community Papers.” You can also learn more about this partner, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, by visiting the contributor page or visiting the website.
Photographs, commencement programs, and other documents from Jamestown High School (later Ragsdale High School) of Jamestown, N.C. have been added to DigitalNC. The Old Jamestown School Association, which preserves the history of the Guilford County school and operates out of the Jamestown Public Library, has partnered with us to share these items online along with 17 yearbooks added back in June.
Included are photos dating back to the early 20th century, showing students and faculty as well as the school building and dormitories. There are also commencement programs from the 1880s to the 1970s, two school catalogs, report cards, and a few issues of the school newspaper.
You can view all items from the Old Jamestown School Association on DigitalNC here.
With the recent addition of student yearbooks from Lees-McRae College, we are very pleased to announce the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has now worked with 100 different institutions. These 100 content partners have contributed an incredible variety of materials related to the history and culture of North Carolina, all of which is easily and freely accessible at DigitalNC.org.
When we began work on the Digital Heritage Center in late 2009, it was always our goal to reach out to as many different organizations as possible. Here’s the breakdown on types of institutions we’ve worked with so far (some institutions represent multiple types, which is why the numbers add to more than 100):
While we’ve worked with institutions in all parts of the state, we have yet to reach every county. Our partners come from 51 different counties, leaving just under half of the state’s counties yet to be represented. In coming years, we’ll continue to reach out the remaining counties, as well as to organizations of all types and sizes who are interested in working with us on our shared goal of promoting and increasing access to North Carolina’s cultural heritage.
This week we have the final 35 newspaper titles for this project up on DigitalNC! Over the past 11 months we have uploaded over 2.4 million pages of North Carolina newspapers – bringing our total number of newspaper pages on DigitalNC to 4,175,076 and our total number of titles on DigitalNC to 1,161 – all freely available to anyone! In this closing batch we have our first paper from Bower, North Carolina (which you may know as Clemmons today) and an article in the Union Republican about Stokes County’s would be Wright brother: Jacob A. Hill.
Jacob Hill, Winston-Salem Journal, March 9, 1902
Before Orville and Wilbur’s iconic first flight in 1903, the race to create a manned flying machine was fiercely competitive. One of the contenders was a man from Vade Mecum Springs named Jacob Hill. Hill was born 1862 in Davie County and had been fascinated by the flight of birds ever since he was a child. In 1901 he decided to take that curiosity a little further and solve “the problem of aerial navigation” by building his own dirigible.
Union Republican, March 14, 1901
Danbury Reporter, December 5, 1923
Mr. Hill’s machine could have been the first piloted aircraft, but we’ll never know for sure if it could actually fly and be controlled. Momentum ran out when Hill couldn’t secure funding for his invention. According to Thomas Parramore’s First to Fly, witnesses claimed the craft could get off the ground, but couldn’t do much more than hover in place. Even though Hill’s airship became something of a local joke for a time, the legacy of his wild aspirations continues to live on in North Carolina history.
Danbury Reporter, December 15, 1904
Business Guide, February 16, 1906
Over the past year, we’ve added millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, we have made them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
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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.
Here at DigitalNC, we digitize high school yearbooks that are at least 50 years old. We’re pleased to have added yearbooks from our long-time partner, Alamance County Public Libraries, filling in books from the mid-1960s that are now out of our “embargo” period:
