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New Photos Added from Johnson C. Smith University

Five new large format photographs have been added to DigitalNC’s image collection thanks to our partners at Johnson C. Smith University. A historically Black university, Johnson C. Smith University has been a fixture in Charlotte, North Carolina since 1867.

As these new photos are all from the early 1900s, you may notice an institution name change between the image titles. First established as Biddle Memorial Institute, Johnson C. Smith University was known as Biddle University between 1876 and 1923 before arriving at its current name.

Several of these images capture traditional university moments, such as graduation, class photos, and reunions.

Of note is a panoramic photo taken during a 1929 rivalry baseball game. This candid shot of the crowd avidly watching an Easter Monday match between Johnson C. Smith University and Livingstone College depicts just how well attended baseball games were at the time.

As would have been well known in the early 1900s, white baseball teams barred Black players from joining their leagues, effectively segregating the sport. Black communities thus formed their own professional baseball leagues, culminating in a national organization known as the Negro National League, organized by Andrew (Rube) Foster in 1920. Baseball continued to be a popular and lucrative enterprise for the Black community throughout the mid-1900s, splitting into western and eastern circuits. The last of the leagues folded in 1962. While Johnson C. Smith University no longer has a baseball team, spectators can still enjoy following the women’s softball team, the Golden Bulls.

To see the newest photos in their entirety, click here. To view all images from Johnson C. Smith University, click here. And to learn more about Johnson C. Smith University, you can visit their home page here.


New Batch of Course Catalogs from Johnson C. Smith University

Image from the cover of the 2006-2007 JCSU catalog.

Cover of the 1994-1995 JCSU catalog.

A new batch of catalogs from Johnson C. Smith University is now available on DigitalNC. Johnson C. Smith University is a historically Black four-year research university located in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was established in 1867 as Biddle Memorial Institute but changed its name to Biddle University in 1876, and to Johnson C. Smith University in 1923. Currently JCSU serves over 1,600 students and offers 24 different undergraduate degree programs and a graduate Master of Social Work degree program.

Catalogs in this batch cover two spans of time. The first run of catalogs covers 1878-1909 when the school was Biddle University. The more recent run covers JCSU from 1964-2009. School catalogs include course offerings as well as information such as academic schedules, school history, and more. These newly digitized catalogs join previously digitized JCSU catalogs and bulletins from the 1920s-1960s.

In addition to these catalogs, make sure to take a look at other materials from JCSU including yearbooks and maps. To learn more about Johnson C. Smith University, visit their DigitalNC partner page or their website.


Set of Maps from Johnson C. Smith University Show McCrorey Heights Neighborhood in Charlotte

The heading of a 1949 property map of McCrorey Heights

A set of maps contributed by our partner, Johnson C. Smith University, show property divisions over time in the McCrorey Heights area of Charlotte, North Carolina. McCrorey Heights is a neighborhood in west Charlotte that was established by Johnson C. Smith University President H. L. McCrorey at the turn of the century. In the early 1900s, the neighborhood was a home to the city’s Black professional class and continues to be heavily associated with Johnson C. Smith University.

The six maps show the area from 1912-1949, and changes in the neighborhood property lines can be tracked over this time period. The 1949 maps include names of community member associated with each section of property along with other hand-written notations. These maps help tell the story of Charlotte’s history.

To see more materials from Johnson C. Smith University, take a look at their DigitalNC partner page or visit their website to learn more.


William Howard Taft Visits Johnson C. Smith University

President's Chair, from 1967 Golden BullThe 1967 edition of The Golden Bull, the Johnson C. Smith University student yearbook, celebrates the centennial of the school with an excellent history of the university. One of the artifacts featured in the historical sketch is this rather unassuming looking chair. In 1909, President William Howard Taft gave a speech to the faculty and students at the university. In surveying the setting prior to the President’s arrival, the Secret Service raised what must have been a delicate subject: the school did not have a chair large enough to hold the famously rotund President. The faculty quickly pooled their money and purchased an extra-large chair in time for Taft’s visit. The chair has remained at the school, known thereafter as the “President’s Chair.”


New Catawba Presbytery Documents, Charlotte Post Issues, Johnson C. Smith Materials, and More Now Available

Thanks to our partner, Johnson C. Smith University, a batch of materials including documents from Catawba Presbytery, issues of The Charlotte Post, a book on Johnson C. Smith University’s first female president, and more are now available on our website

The book, The Yancy Years 1994-2008: The Age of Infrastructure, Technology and Restoration, is an educational narrative about Johnson C. Smith University’s first female president, Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy. The first half of the book is split into three different parts with each part representing a different phase of her time as president. One of the biggest impacts Dr. Yancy had on the university during her time as president was her investment in technology. She switched the campus to using email, expanded wireless capabilities, upgraded campus technology, and acquired laptops for students and faculty. In addition, Dr. Yancy brought Johnson C. Smith University into a new realm of success which placed the school on the national stage.

An average height woman, Dr. Yancy, hugs a very tall former basketball plater, Earvin "Magic" Johnson.

Dr. Yancy shares a hug with NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson during a talk inside the Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium at Biddle Memorial Hall.

The last half of the book features a 14-year financial overview of the university and a look at the 2006-2015 master plan. The book’s final chapter, “A Daughter’s Perspective on Dorothy Cowser Yancy,” is written by Dr. Yancy’s daughter, Yvonne. In it, Yvonne discusses her mother and their close relationship.

Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy and her daughter, Yvonne Cowser Yancy, standing next to each other. The daughter, who is on the left, wears a floor length sunshine yellow gown. The mother, on the right, wears a black blazer with a pattern on the neckline and cuff area with either black pants or a black floor length skirt.

Yvonne Cowser Yancy and her mother, Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy at the “Diamond President” Gala Celebration in April, 2008.

To learn more about Johnson C. Smith University, please visit their website.

To view issues of The Charlotte Post, please click here.

To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please visit our North Carolina Newspapers Collection.


Student newspaper from Johnson C Smith University is now online


The University Student, Johnson C. Smith University’s student newspaper, is now available on DigitalNC with issues from 1926-1930.  Johnson C Smith University, a historically Black university in Charlotte, NC was founded in 1867 as the Biddle Memorial Institute.  The name was changed to Johnson C Smith University in 1923 after a benefactress’ husband, shortly before the available run of papers were published.  The school became co-ed in 1932.    

The student newspaper was published monthly in the 1920s and not only had news about the university and Charlotte, but also news about the wider African-American academic world, with a lot of very thought provoking articles about the issues of the time, with articles discussing topics varying from “Social Hereditary” to “Is Smith the Potential Yale of the South?”

To view more resources from Johnson C Smith University, visit their partner page here.  And to view more student newspapers from across the state, visit our newspapers here.


Football in North Carolina

It’s football season! North Carolina’s football history goes back to 1888, when the first games between college teams were played. In 1892, North Carolina hosted the first game ever played between African American colleges when Livingstone College in Salisbury hosted the Biddle Institute (now Johnson C. Smith University).

The photo here, from 1914, shows the first football team at the State Normal School, now Elizabeth City State University.

State Normal School football team, 1914


More Issues of the Africo-American Presbyterian Available

Masthead of the Africo-American Presbyterian from 1880

We’ve recently added more issues of the Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) from 1925 to 1938 thanks to our contributors UNC Chapel Hill and Johnson C. Smith University. These editions also offer more regular coverage since we’ve been able to add one from nearly every week in this period.

One notable article from the August 20, 1891 issue (from an earlier batch) gives us insight into some of the peculiar medical practices that shaped how we think about addiction today. The headline reads, “Dr. Keeley’s Cure for Drunkenness.” 
Newspaper clipping of "Dr. Keeley's Cure for Drunkenness."

The treatment proposed here is to inject “bi-chloride of gold” four times a day as an “antidote” to the “disease” of drunkenness. The author of this article compares it to using quinine to treat malaria and mercury to treat syphilis (no longer recommended). 

Wilmington wasn’t the only city excited about Keeley’s cure; Leslie E. Keeley actually opened his first clinic in Dwight, Illinois and advertised his cure heavily. By 1892, there were over 100 Keeley clinics throughout the U.S. and Europe reportedly treating 600 people per month.

As chemistry buffs may know, “bi-chloride of gold” would be called dichlorogold today, and it is not used to treat drunkenness or alcohol poisoning. The name seems to have been a bit of a misleader anyway, since Keeley’s real recipe was a mystery. This led the medical community to be a bit more skeptical of Keeley, and his medical license was revoked in 1881 (though it was reinstated a decade later due to procedural issues)

Despite the unreliability of Keeley’s particular recipe, he was one of the first doctors to popularize the idea that addiction is a bodily disease rather than a personal failing.

“The weak will, vice, moral weakness, insanity, criminality, irreligion, and all are results of, and not causes of, inebriety,” Keeley wrote.

And aside from the injections, Keeley’s approach to treating addiction was unlike most methods of the time. According to the article in the Africo-American Presbyterian, patients received the injection “in their own rooms at prescribed hours,” suggesting that they received personal treatment. Some have suggested that a placebo may have also accounted for the success of the treatment; Keeley boasted of 60,000 “graduates” of his program by 1892, indicating its widespread popularity. 

Whatever the reasons for his success, Keeley seems to have enjoyed popularity among the Christian publications of North Carolina.

A newspaper advertisement

An advertisement for the Keeley Institute in Greensboro, N.C. (1910)

You can see all the issues of the Africo-American Presbyterian here. You can also visit the partner pages of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johnson C. Smith University for more materials. Visit the Johnson C. Smith University website for more information about the school.


The Star of Zion newspaper now on DigitalNC

Thanks to funding from the North Caroliniana Society and from the UNC Libraries IDEA grants, one of the oldest African American newspapers in North Carolina, and the longest continuously published, is now online.  The Star of Zion, which is still published today, began publication in 1876 by the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church.  Issues covering 1884 through 1926 are now on DigitalNC, digitized from microfilm.  The earliest years we digitized are published in a few different places, including Petersburg, Va. and Salisbury, NC.  Beginning in 1896, the paper moved publication to Charlotte, NC where it is still published today.  

Front page of the Star of Zion paper, features several formal posed photographs

Issue highlighting the 1923 graduates of students at schools affiliated with the AME Zion Church

The topics covered by the paper are heavily focused on church activities, including reports from pastors across the country about their localities.  Other topics are also covered, including commentary on political issues of the day.  The papers in 1884 feature the full Republican ticket for the presidency and down, which the editors heartily supported.  The issues in the later years have a wider focus on both issues of the day and church news. 

Quote from Star of Zion paper

An editor’s note from the November 19, 1986 issue.

A rather interesting feature that also pops up often in the paper is a presence of a real rivalry with other denomination based African American publications in the state.  One particularly humorous note was posted by the editor in the November 26, 1896 issue of the paper, noting that the Africo-American Presbyterian was lauding the honorary degree Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) had conferred on George White, elected to serve in the 2nd Congressional District from NC (and the last Black Congressman to serve before Jim Crow).  The editors of the Star noted that Livingstone College, the AME Zion affiliated school in North Carolina, had already given one to him in May of that year.  College and religious rivalries are timeless. 

Screenshot of text from a newspaper editorial.

 Note from the Editor of the Star of Zion in the November 26, 1896 issue

To view more North Carolina African American newspapers, visit our exhibit.  To view more projects supported by the UNC Libraries IDEA Action grants, visit these posts.  


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