Lee County Public Libraries has shared a large collection of materials relating to Sanford, Jonesboro, and the greater Lee County area, now available on Digital NC. Here at NCDHC, we are thrilled to work with a new partner and broaden our representation of “the heart of North Carolina.” Visitors to the site can now view nearly one hundred years of documents, including bulletins and directories; county fair and circus programs; personal records; Chamber of Commerce pamphlets; many photographs of residents, homes, and businesses; scrapbooks; school programs, records, and yearbooks; and more. Also available are forty-four years of minutes from the Pierian Club, a women’s club and Sanford’s oldest literary society. Records from these societies, common in the twentieth century, give unique insight into the activities of middle-class North Carolina women.
Sanford has historically been an important site for manufacturing and industry, and was established at the junction of the Raleigh and Augusta Air Line and Western Railroads. The early twentieth century saw rapid expansion, thanks to Sanford’s location on the railways and its official incorporation as a city in 1907, as well as the growth of manufacturing throughout the Piedmont. Tobacco in particular contributed to Sanford’s growth, which is reflected in many of the photographs and documents now available on the site. Many of the newly digitized materials are concerned with attracting more business to Sanford and advertising its various commercial enterprises. Sanford suffered economic downturns in the Great Depression and again in the 1960s and ’70s as tobacco and manufacturing declined.
Thanks to investment in economic diversification at the end of the twentieth century, Sanford has again become a vibrant and growing community with many manufacturing jobs and a diverse population of over 60,000 residents. Researchers can learn more about Lee County here and view all of our digitized materials from Lee County Public Libraries here.
Cutout from the McDowell County Agriculture Scrapbook
21 new scrapbooks and 10 new yearbooks from the McDowell County Public Library are now online at DigitalNC. The scrapbooks, all of which make up part of MCPL’s Greenlee Collection of Scrapbooks, date roughly from the 1910s to the early 1990s and document various aspects of life in McDowell County. From health and safety, to forest conservation, to arts and crafts, each scrapbook focuses on one of a wide range of topics. The scrapbooks’ pages consist largely of newspaper clippings from various local papers, such as the McDowell News, and a few more regional publications like the the Charlotte Observer. The materials provide a wealth of information for anyone interested in learning about topics of interest to citizens of communities such as Marion and Old Fort over the course of the 20th century. The scrapbooks are neatly organized and generally present their information in chronological order.
Cutout from the McDowell County military scrapbook, 1941-1945
The recent batch also features 10 more yearbooks from MCPL. These include four from Glenwood High School (1951, 1952. 1954, and 1957), two from North Cove High School (1941 and 1942). and one each from Clevenger College (1959), Old Fort High School (1968), Nebo High School (1968), and Marion High School (1968). Together the two sets of materials represent a treasure trove of resources for researchers of local history in North Carolina.
The new additions join a handful of other MCPL scrapbooks and yearbooks already online at DigitalNC. For more information, please visit the MCPL’s DigitalNC page or follow this link to their website.
Each scrapbook contains newspaper clippings and notes about various subjects relating to McDowell County, its residents, and its culture. This batch contains information about local churches, doctors, general events from the early to mid twentieth century. Because most of the text included is newsprint, the scrapbooks are full-text searchable, which can make research easier and more efficient.
Several of the highlights from this batch include stories that recognize notable women from McDowell County, including the scrapbooks’ creator Mary Margaret Greenlee. One example is represented in the story on the right about Mrs. Louise Cunningham Byron. Byron trained and worked as a mortician and was interviewed about her breaking the mold in a male-dominated field.
People and Events in McDowell County News, Volume II, page 123
Mrs. Greenlee is also prominently featured in the scrapbooks. Greenlee was a well known educator and advocate in several counties in Western North Carolina. These scrapbooks are excellent resources for learning more about her life, the lives of women and men throughout the county, and about the history of McDowell County.
You can view all of the new scrapbooks in this collection at the links below:
To see all of digitized scrapbooks from the Greenlee Collection, please use the following link. To learn more about McDowell County Public Library, please visit the contributor page or the website.
Our latest batch of materials from the Wayne County Public Library includes some seriously cool scrapbooks that document almost a century of the library’s history. Ranging from 1910 to the 1990s, these seven scrapbooks contain detailed minutes, photographs, newspaper clippings, event paraphernalia and other ephemera.
One of the most exciting sections is the collection of letters from North Carolina authors—who also happen to be mostly women—in the 1950-1976 scrapbook. Several writers seem to have been invited for readings and events at the library, and they wrote letters back to library staff about their experiences.
From the 1950-1976 scrapbook
One of the most famous writers that visited was Betty Smith, who is probably best known for her novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (there are several materials about her already on DigitalNC, including this video interview). Although she was born in New York, Smith adopted Chapel Hill as her home town later in life and is still buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery. Along with the card that she sent to library staff (pictured above), the scrapbook includes a newspaper clipping with an interview of Smith where she encourages Chapel Hill to resist the push for industry and to preserve its small-town character.
“I hate to see commercialism,” she said. “They come in and tear up trees that took 200 years to grow, and pile them up and burn them to get rid of them. Then they stick out little trees—with wire holding them up. Why couldn’t we have a shortage of bulldozers!”
The second half of a letter from Doris Betts
Another well-known author included here is Doris Betts, who served as an English and creative writing professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Betts was born in Statesville, attended UNC Greensboro and eventually settled in Pittsboro. In her literary career, she produced six novels, three short story collections, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three Sir Walter Raleigh Awards and the N.C. Medal for Literature. Her archive is now part of the UNC Chapel Hill Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library.
We have added nearly 50 yearbooks to our collection thanks to our partner Rowan Public Library. These yearbooks are from two Rowan County schools — Price High School in Salisbury N.C. and China Grove High School — and are especially unique in that they capture student life at two schools that existed only for a few decades.
Price High School’s main building from the 1960 edition of the Pricean.
The 1943 Pricean Yearbook was dedicated to two teachers who joined the U.S. military.
Price High School was Salisbury’s African-American high school from 1932 until 1969, when integration led to the closing of the school and the opening of today’s Salisbury High School. Included in this batch of yearbooks are seventeen editions of The Pricean, the annual from Price High School. These yearbooks include the usual contents of high school yearbooks — superlatives, group photos, class poems — but also notable graduates and the final class’ words of farewell and gratitude to the school. They also encapsulate notable events that occurred between 1943 and 1969.
One such historic event was World War Two, which was emphasized by the 1943 Pricean’s dedication. The yearbook was dedicated to Auxillary Ruth E. Miller and Seargeant James C. Simpson, both of whom were graduates of and teachers at Price High School before joining the U.S. Army. Ruth E. Miller was the first Black member of Salisbury’s Women’s Army Auxillary Corps while James C. Simpson was the first teacher from Price High School to join the U.S. army.
China Grove High School’s yearbook, The Parrot, captures some of the early years of the merging of the Rowan County Farm Life School with the city’s main high school that took place in the summer of 1921. According to the Eura Jones, a member of China Grove High’s 1924 class, China Grove High School “was the largest rural high school in the state” in 1921, and only continued to grow. She goes on to detail the school’s continued growth, boasting “two music departments, a teacher training department, glee clubs, four societies, a dramatic club, ball teams, a home economics club, athletics, agriculture, and most of all, the construction of a new three story building to house the growing school.” The yearbooks added to our digital collection span the years from 1923 to 1961.
Plans for China Grove High School’s Expanding Campus, completed by Architect Charles C. Hook.
These yearbooks are only a fraction of the materials we have digitized for the Rowan Public Library. To learn more about the Rowan Public Library, check out their partner page or their website.
Price High’s Driver’s Education Class, Cheering Squad, and First Year Industrial Arts Class from the 1956 Pricean.
A January 2014 article in WNC Magazine detailing the Junaluska community
Dozens of new documents, photos, and artifacts have been newly digitized at DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Watauga County Public Library. They all detail the Junaluska community, a neighborhood where a large number of longtime African-American families of Boone live. Many families also belong to the Mennonite Brethren Church, making it the only Mennonite Brethren church with the majority of members being African-American. Click here to view the newly digitized files.
A 2012 article in the Watauga Democrat celebrating the inaugural Junaluska Jubilee
Included in the new batch of digitized artifacts are several journal articles about the Mennonite Church in Boone, local documents, ancestral generation charts, and newspaper articles about the local community and local figures, including the pastor for the Mennonite Brethren Church. Also included are photos and advertisements for the Junaluska Jubilee, a celebration of the Junaluska community. Finally, there is also an audio clip included about the Junaluska community, including segments on segregation, the civil rights movement, and school integration, narrated by local residents.
You can learn more about the Watauga County Public Library by visiting the contributor page on DigitalNC or by visiting the homepage. This collection is part of our effort to digitize materials related to underrepresented communities. To learn more about our underrepresented initiative, go here.
James McGuire Junior’s journals take the form of Gude’s Pepto-Mangan Physician’s Memorandum books. Each page corresponds to a day of the year, and includes a short medical fact, often related to Gude’s Pepto-Mangan medicine, along with a space to write. James McGuire Jr., a prominent business man in Mocksville, North Carolina, wrote many short entries recounting topics such as the weather, travel, social engagements, shopping lists, and finances. The memorandum books themselves most likely originated from James’ father, Dr. James McGuire, a physician.
Mary Jane Heitman’s scrapbook tells the story of her life in photographs, news articles, postcards, handwritten musings, and illustrations from 1891-1927. Mary Jane Heitman was a teacher and historian from Mocksville, North Carolina, and her scrapbook recounts with fondness both her time as a student and a teacher. Each page is poetically constructed, and photographs and descriptions of friends and relatives are distributed throughout. The last page of the scrapbook includes a written tribute by one of her students from Salem Academy that was added after her death in 1962.
To see more materials from Davie County Public Library, visit their partner page, or take a look at their website.
James McGuire Junior’s entry from February 20, 1902 that describes the weather as cloudy with sleet at night.
Thanks to the Chatham County Public Library, seventeen yearbooks from high schools in Chatham County are now available online.
The yearbooks date from 1939-1966 and feature high schools from Siler City and Bonlee. They document the lives of students and teachers from these communities.
To learn more about the Chatham County Public Library and its collections, please visit their contributor page or the website. To browse digitized yearbooks from your high school community, visit the North Carolina Yearbooks Collection and filter by High School Yearbooks.
New materials from Stanly County Museum are now up on DigitalNC. Included in this batch is a student survey from the 1920s, a 1944 ledger from the Albemarle Canteen, an attendance register from the Efird School, an Albemarle City Directory Supplement Edition from 1937, four issues of American and Efird Mills News & Views, and two scrapbooks.
The student survey from a girls boarding school in the 1920s gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the girls at the school, and includes information like each student’s favorite expression, flower, song, dish, and their “greatest desire”. Greatest desire responses ranged greatly from girl to girl and included, “to be a nurse”, “love and be loved”, “to see Europe”, “to get married”, “play a piano”, “go out west”, “to be a stage acteur”, “to be a missionary”, and “to go home (now)”. These questions also give us insight into the personalities of the individual girls. While some answered the questions dutifully, others had a bit of fun filling in their answers. In one survey, a girl responded that the color of her hair was white and that she was 8 ft tall. A few girls, in what must have been an inside joke, responded that their “first date with a boy” was in “1492”, with one girl responding “Aug. 9, 1922. (a real date)”. This fun notebook would be a good resource for investigating popular songs, slang, and dishes of the period, and it offers a wonderful personal connection to the girls at this school.
An excerpt from student Elva Jane Cathey’s survey
Candy recipes pasted directly onto the pages of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1918
Another unique object in this batch is an extensive scrapbook comprised of various news clippings pasted over the pages of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1918. It includes recipes in the first few pages, and then newspaper articles about births, marriages, and deaths in and around Albemarle.
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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