DigitalNC is happy to welcome a new partner, the Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library. Located in Southport, Brunswick County, this partner adds to our growing list of contributors representing coastal communities.
This partner’s first contribution is a decade of editions of a community newspaper. The State Port Pilot documents community life in Southport and the surrounding areas from 1935-1945. The paper could be an excellent resource for those interested in agriculture at the coast, with many of the stories, advertisements, and images dealing with tobacco farming in that part of the state. This resources is also full-text searchable, allowing for quick research by name and location.
The Pilot also is unique in its advertising techniques, especially during the 1930’s. Full page ads address readers directly with clean simple statements that changed each week.
Thanks to our partners at the Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library and the Southport Historical Society, over a decade of the State Port Pilot‘s issues are now available! This collection stretches from 1962 to 1976 and features notable news and topics both around Southport and across the country. We previously uploaded issues from 1935 to 1961, meaning there are now over two thousand issues to explore!
The publication was founded in 1928 by Bill Keziah, who ran the company until his death in the fifties. The Pilot has run continuously since its founding and publishes a weekly issue every Wednesday. Within their pages are the lives of Brunswick County: obituaries, marriages, job postings, and advertisements. Anyone interested in Southport’s history or the sixties and seventies would be well served looking at this collection.
Five more years of The State Port Pilot, a newspaper from Southport, North Carolina, are now on DigitalNC. These issues span the years 1945-1949, and were provided by our partner, the Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library. They join previously digitized issues published from 1935-1945.
The State Port Pilot was established in 1935 and physical and digital copies continue to be distributed to this day. The newly digitized issues include articles pertaining to local news. As Southport is located in the coast, many articles concern fishing and boating. Other topics covered include local politics, the local economy, and events and happenings in the community. One weekly column includes investigations by “Our Roving Reporter.”
To browse through all digitized issues of the State Port Pilot, click here. To learn more about the Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library, visit their partner page or take a look at their website.
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.
