Announcement in the Jackson County Journal from May 25, 1939. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was scheduled to visit Sylva for the town’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Here you can find issues of the Jackson County Journal ranging from 1923-1942. The final few years in this selection are dominated by World War II-related items, such as local men enlisting as soldiers, or Sylva groups’ contributions to the war effort. Town obituaries and events also make up the mix. (For example, the front page of the Journal for November 19, 1942, includes the headlines “42 Men Left for U.S. Army First of Week” and “Mrs. Morris Passed Away Last Friday.”)
The Sylva Herald and Ruralite has been publishing weekly in Jackson County from 1926 to the present. The 385 issues of this newspaper on DigitalNC span 1943-1950, beginning with the August 4, 1943 issue, which announces the launch of a new newspaper for Jackson County and explains: “the Herald Publishing Company … has purchased the 17-year-old Ruralite and combined it with The Sylva Herald. … The publishers plan to make it as newsy, and as modern as possible.” War news continues to predominate the early issues, along with announcements about local Sylva church and society news.
Learn more about our contributor, the Jackson County Public Library, at their website or their contributor page. You can also find current information about The Sylva Herald and Ruralite at their website. Browse the North Carolina Newspapers Collection to see more newspapers from communities around the state.
From the Sylva Herald and Ruralite, August 4, 1943.
Since there are so many yearbooks in this batch, there is a wide assortment of creative yearbook titles—some of which are stronger than others. As an alumna of R.J. Reynolds High School, I’ll admit that I have some bias toward the Black and Gold, but even I have to acknowledge that it’s a pretty generic name (in this batch alone, we’ve also got The Maroon and Gold from Atkins, the Blue and White from Old Town High School, and the Blue and Gold from Griffith High School).
Rather than opt for the usual school colors-based title, here are the top five yearbooks that aimed for something a little different.
I like that this team of young yearbook editors took a philosophical approach to their title. Like looking through a keyhole, a yearbook can only give a limited picture of what the culture and experience of Rural Hall High School was like. They continue this slice-of-life theme on the inside of the yearbook as well with this comical drawing featuring some of their classmates.
There’s something so quintessentially high school about being assigned The Iliad, possibly reading it, and then using it as a metaphor for the obstacles you face (a move perhaps only topped by a comparison of your personal journey to The Odyssey). This literary homage is made even better by the fact that the mascot for Southwest was the Trojan, meaning that this yearbook likely describes the siege and fall of the school by means of wooden horse.
Third place on this not-at-all subjective list was initially selected because of its overlap with the editorial column of James Mackintosh Qwilleran, a fictional detective and journalist who writes “The Qwill Pen” in the mystery series The Cat Who… by Lilian Jackson Braun. However, based on the uniforms required for yearbook photos, it does also seem possible that the students of Salem Academy really were writing with quills.
As someone with no military experience, when I initially picked this title, I had a different mental image of what the “dress parade” might include. However, given the fact that students at Oak Ridge did have to wear their uniforms on display for the yearbook, it still seems like a really fitting title. Plus, this edition has some cool woodblock prints and this one inexplicably tiny photo of a gazebo.
I don’t even know where to begin with this absolute chef’s kiss of a yearbook title. I love the old-timey spelling. I love the idea that a yearbook is the modern equivalent of a person who yells out the town news. I love the font choice and the inclusion of “Ye.”
Old Town High School experimented with a couple of names before this (see Blue and White and The Log), suggesting that it might take a few tries before you can land on the perfect name. The icing on the cake is that every time I read it, I can hear the opening notes of Lil Nas X’s 2019 hit “Old Town Road” in my mind. (Sadly, Old Town High School was not located on Old Town Road, though such a road does exist in Winston-Salem).
North Carolina Brigade at Camp Stewart, El Paso, Texas
Panoramic photos of Company K and the 120th Infantry, provided by Randolph County Public Library, are now online at DigitalNC. These photos, taken from 1914-1919, show Company K, which was comprised of men from Asheboro, and the larger North Carolina Brigade in a variety of locations.
Company K, 120th Infantry 30th (Old Hickory) Division at Camp Jackson, S.C.
The locations of the photos include Camp Sevier and Camp Jackson, both located in South Carolina, and Camp Stewart in El Paso, Texas. One photo of Camp Sevier shows an aerial shot of soldiers in formation along with camp structures and buildings. Many of these photos include some identifying information including names of soldiers or commanding officers in the photo. The panoramic nature of these photos gives the viewer a unique sense of these camps and required us to use special photo equipment reserved for digitizing large materials!
120th Infantry at Camp Sevier, S.C.
Click here to browse the photos. To see more materials from Randolph County Public Library visit their partner page or take a look at their website.
Company K, 120th Infantry 30th Division at Camp Sevier, S.C.
What year would you guess Velveeta cheese was invented? The answer: 1918—making it 104 years old. It was bought by Kraft Foods Inc. in 1927, and that’s how we came to see this advertisement in the February 23, 1932 issue of The Ruralite from Sylva, N.C. This issue is one of the many from a batch of papers that was just uploaded to our site thanks to the Jackson County Public Library. This batch contains issues from 1926-1935—a great time period for newspaper advertising, apparently.
While Velveeta cheese (or, technically, “pasteurized prepared cheese product”) almost seems anachronistic for 1932, it isn’t the only familiar item advertised in the pages of The Ruralite. Since we’re in cold and flu season, you may be considering a trip to the drug store for a little medicine—and you might even buy the same item as your parents or grandparents.
It’s unclear whether today’s VapoRub is the same as 1935’s Va-tro-nol, but the cost of Vicks has certainly changed over the past 87 years. And medicine isn’t the only product that has gotten pricier; a list of goods from Sylva Supply Company, Inc. from 1932 lists “Kellog’s” corn flakes for $0.15/two boxes, Gerber’s “strained fruits and vegetables” for $0.11/can, and bath towels for $0.09 each.
There are also advertisements for Bayer aspirin and Camel cigarettes (of course). While it has changed media, perhaps advertising retains some of the characteristics it had in the 1930s.
The NDNP is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress with the intention of creating a vast, searchable database of newspapers and other historical documents. You can currently search all of the NDNP issues on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website. Those same issues will be available on our newspaper database, allowing you to search that content alongside the other papers on DigitalNC. The week’s titles are the following:
This concludes the list of newspapers that we are sharing from the NDNP. 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.
New materials from the Rockingham County Public Library are now available on DigitalNC. This batch includes photographs, remembrance books, neighborhood histories, newspaper clippings, and a football schedule poster.
Photographs include the one above of Lowes Methodist Church, now Lowes United Methodist, in Reidsville, and one of Charlie Jackson Bennett laying in state in 1953. There are remembrance books for the same Bennett, as well as Carrie Lee H. Bennett and Sylvia Bennett Brown. The funeral home where Sylvia Bennett Brown was laid to rest also created a remembrance plaque, included in this batch of items.
Other items include a variety of materials documenting the history of Mayodan and Stoneville, North Carolina, mostly from the twentieth century. The Carolina Heights neighborhood in Eden, North Carolina, is also represented here by a leaflet sharing its history. Carolina Heights was formerly in Spray, which was consolidated into Eden in 1967. To see all materials on DigitalNC from Spray, click here.
DigitalNC is thankful to our partner, Rockingham County Public Library, for enabling access to these materials online. To learn more about the Rockingham County Public Library, visit their partner page here or their website here. To see all items in this batch, click here, and to see everything contributed by the library, click here.
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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.
