From Harding High School’s 1941 Acorn Left: Superlatives, Right: Athletics
Over 100 yearbooks from eleven high schools in the Charlotte Metro area are now available on DigitalNC. Included are yearbooks from Charlotte’s first high school, Charlotte High School, with yearbooks dating from 1909.
The collection also includes six yearbooks from two African-American high schools: West Charlotte’sThe Lion and York Road’sWapiti.
For Lillington community members and library lovers, these issues of The Bookbag (from 1977-2007) are full of local stories and excellent library programming. One program that deserves a shoutout is the pet memorial project from 2002, where patrons could donate to the library in honor of a beloved pet and have their pet’s name inscribed on a bookplate. Of course, this raises the timeless issue of whether your pet shares your last name (looking specifically at Bee Bee Davis and Crook Tail Rosser here).
From the January-March 1984 issue of The Bookbag
The library newsletters also give a historic glance into popular technology over the last few decades, as evidenced by this article on the “New Microfiche Printer/Reader” from the January-March 1985 issue.
Thanks to our partner Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, we now have new editions of yearbooks from Mecklenburg County Schools up on our website. We have the 1968 editions of East Wind, the East Mecklenburg High School yearbook; Somecka, the South Mecklenburg High School Yearbook; Ships & Cuts from Garinger High School; The Torch from Olympic High School, The Acorn from Harding University High School; Lion from West Charlotte High School; Post Script from Charlotte Country Day School; Mustang from Myers Park High School; Tomahawk from West Mecklenburg High School; and Spirit of ’68 from Independence Senior High School.
Front cover of the 1968 edition of Somecka, the yearbook for South Mecklenburg High School in Pineville, North Carolina.
You can see yearbooks and a number of other items we’ve scanned for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on their contributor page. For more information about this partner, visit their website.
Several new high school yearbooks from Mecklenburg County are now online on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner institution, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Included are copies of various yearbooks around the county, all from 1967. The yearbooks contain individual school portraits, group portraits, and photographs of sports, activities, and their school groups.
Also new to our collection is a program from the 2017 Theresea C. Elder Trailblazer Awards Brunch, held in Charlotte. Created by Mrs. Elder in 2005, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Heritage Committee was formed to “research, collect and disseminate” historical information about the African-American community in the Charlotte Mecklenburg community. The 2017 brunch honored the Charlotte Post Publishing Company, the minority owned and operated news organization in North Carolina and South Carolina. The 2017 keynote speaker at the event was Mary C. Curtis, a columnist, journalist, national politics correspondent and speaker.
To see more from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, click on their partner page or visit their website to learn more.
The latest batch of materials from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library includes an interesting look at life during World War I in North Carolina–documented through newspapers. The Caduceus, published from the Base Hospital at Camp Greene, gives a detailed look at the goings on of soldiers, doctors, and nurses during their time stationed in Charlotte.
Camp Greene held more than 40,000 troops, rapidly approaching the population of the entire city of Charlotte (46,000 in 1920). The Base Hospital was a 2000 bed complex, staffed by many doctors and nurses. Many of these enlisted personnel wrote articles for the paper, which was published every Saturday. Funded through the advertisements purchased by local businesses, publishers encouraged those living at the camp to patronize businesses located nearby.
What sets the Caduceus apart from other camp newspapers during the period is its documentation of events happening at the camp specifically, as opposed to the national and war updates given by other papers. From baseball games verses local teams to the performances of soldiers’ choral groups, the Caduceus documents many of the weekly activities of those based at the camp. The images below represent some of the many types of materials published in the paper.
Caduceus, August 24th, 1918; page 15
Caduceus, June 8th, 1918; page 6
Another fascinating feature of this batch is the weekly section authored by nurses serving at the camp. The “Army Nurse Corps News” offers a look into the lives of the many women who also served their county during WWI. These sections of the paper published news, poetry, and biographical information about nurses who were on the base, especially the new arrivals. This could be an excellent resource for researchers studying women’s roles in WWI, even outside of North Carolina.
Caduceus, November 23rd, 1918; page 15
To learn more about Camp Greene, check out the Trench and Camp and the corresponding blog post, another newspaper from the camp during WWI, available on DigitalNC.
Caduceus, November 23, 1918
To learn more about the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, please visit their contributor page or the homepage. To see more newspapers from North Carolina, including those that cover WWI in our state, please visit the North Carolina Newspapers Collection.
A small but meaningful addition of 33 issues of The Charlotte Post have been added to DigitalNC’s online collection, further expanding the digital access of this contemporary (and ongoing) newspaper. All 33 issues are from 2006, ranging from March 16 to November 2. Thanks to our longstanding partners at Johnson C. Smith University for allowing us to share these images.
Goldie Phillips started her own company, Island Flavors, to raise money for graduate school, April 20, 2006.
Known as “The Voice of the Black Community,” The Charlotte Post not only delivers relevant national and global news, but focuses on Black topics in and around the Charlotte, N.C. area. Creating space to vocalize achievements from the community, such as printing an entire supplement showcasing the Black high school graduates of Mecklenburg County, as well as navigating issues normally left untold by U.S. news outlets, such as mental illness in the Black community and the racial income gap, The Charlotte Post fills in an inequality information gap for all to benefit from.
The 2006 issues of The Charlotte Post sectioned off the newspaper by topic, including Religion, Sports, Arts and Entertainment, Business, Real Estate, and Classifieds. Covering a variety of subjects, The Charlotte Post maintained consistent features in each section, such as “Sounds,” by Winfred Cross. In Arts and Entertainment, Cross reviewed new music releases, like India.Arie’s Testimony, Vol. 1.
For a look at all of the issues DigitalNC has online from The Charlotte Post, click here. To view all materials from Johnson C. Smith University, click here, and to visit their website, click here.
A bond certificate addressed to Jonathan D. Johnson, who purchased $100 Confederate dollars in March 1864.
Over three dozen 19th century and early 20th century Presbyterian Church sermons delivered by Robert Zenas Johnston are now digitized and available on DigitalNC. Also included are reports from 19th century Presbyterian Churches, documents from Rufus Johnston, and correspondence from Mary Gibson, both citizens of Mecklenburg County. All of these documents come to DigitalNC courtesy of our partner, Davidson College as part of their Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded “Justice, Equality, Community: Reimagining Humanities Curricula” project, which is a three-year, campus-wide initiative. All materials digitized for the project by DigitalNC can be found on the exhibit page Nineteenth Century Family Papers and Plantation Records of Davidson College Trustees.
The cover of one of the notebooks used by the Presbyterian Churches of Mecklenburg County, made in roughly 1876.
Johnston’s sermons (over 550!) stretch from 1859 to 1907, until just before his death in 1908. He delivered them all across the state, from Asheville to Shelby, in different cities around Mecklenburg County, and even at the Unity Church in South Carolina. Approximately 61 of those sermons are undated, but they most likely date from the 1800s as well. In many of the earlier sermons, he discussed the Civil War on the local towns. We also have several of his student notebooks, a contract for a teaching position and pastoral position that Johnston was offered, and more.
Also included in this new collection of documents are financial records of Rufus Johnston, including receipts, bonds, and bills of payment. We also received correspondence and letters from Mary Gibson, one of which tells her brother Robert what she would like done with her property towards the end of the Civil War.
Another folder contains a few documents about Davidson College itself. One document was written by Reverend Jethro Rumple, reminiscing about life at the college in the 1840’s. Included is a small handwritten biography by Reverend Rumple about Reverend John Bunyan Shearer, the eighth president of Davidson College from 1888 to 1901. These documents help give us all a greater idea of what living as a student in those times was like. Also included in this batch is a letter written by Rumple to Brother McLaughlin about an 1878 Concord Presbytery Meeting in Statesville, North Carolina.
This collection also includes various reports to and about Presbyterian Churches across the state. A few letters are addressed to synods, while others are reports on new developments within the church. There are also several notebooks, copybooks, and ledgers used by the church.
An 1855 receipt from Rural Hill Plantation promising payment of $50.12 due the next day.
Finally, DigitalNC also received folders of papers and documents about several Mecklenburg County plantations. Stretching from the 1820s to the 1860s, many of the folders contain financial records and receipts from Rural Hill, a plantation in Huntersville that was built in 1788 by Major John Davidson. There are also documents from his grandson, Adam Brevard Davidson, who later became a Trustee of Davidson College, and financial records, ledgers and booklets from the Mt. Tirzah Plantation in Lincoln County.
To browse through these materials, feel free to visit Davidson College’s partner page, or check out their website.
If you’re in the Charlotte area and interested in local history and digital libraries, please mark March 30 on your calendars: we will be holding an event to celebrate and explore digital library efforts in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Here are the details:
Event: Digital Charlotte: Celebrating and Exploring Local Digital Library Projects Date: March 30, 2015 Time: Talk at 6:30, followed by a reception Location: UNC Charlotte Center City Campus, 320 E. 9th St. Parking information: http://www.charlottecentercity.org/transportation/parking/ Admission: Free and Open to the Public Questions?: Write digitalnc@unc.edu or call 919-962-4836
“Digital Charlotte” will feature a talk by Julie Davis, Project Director, Digital Loray, and Public Historian in Residence at the Loray Mill, who will speak about the role of public history in the redevelopment of the Loray Mill in Gastonia. The talk will be followed by a reception during which guests can see demonstrations of digital projects from local libraries including UNC-Charlotte, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Johnson C. Smith University, and Davidson College. This will be a terrific opportunity for local genealogists and history buffs to learn more about the rapidly-growing number of online resources devoted to local history. We are also encouraging Charlotte-area librarians, archivists, and students to attend and participate.
This event is being held as part of our work on a recent grant from the Digital Public Library of America. The grant funding has enabled us to expand our services for libraries, archives, and museums around the state. The DPLA is the primary sponsor of the Digital Charlotte event. Additional support is being provided by the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery.
Please contact us if you have any questions. We hope to see many of you in Charlotte!
UNC-Chapel Hill commencement programs from 1843 and 2009.
We’re pleased to present the Commencement Programs of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1843 through 2009, now on DigitalNC.
From 33 names printed in a two-page document, written in Latin, to 80 pages describing accolades, honored guests, and university traditions, these programs have grown as much as the commencement event.
The 1843 program includes several names for which we know more from NCpedia and East Carolina University:
John Luther Bridgers of Tarboro. He was a colonel in the Civil War, a farmer, and a lawyer.
Robert Pain Dick of Greensboro. State Senator and North Carolina Supreme Court judge.
Philo Henderson of Mecklenburg County. Poet who “was rather wild,” wrote a contemporary of his, “but never guilty of anything dishonorable.”
Joseph Caldwell Huske of Fayetteville. Long-time rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, NC.
Sixth grade students at West Elementary School in Kings Mountain, 1959-60. Contributor: Kings Mountain Historical Museum
We are very excited to announce that our site has expanded to include four new sets of primary source teaching resources available for any teachers, researchers, or curious explorers to use. Each of these sets focuses on a particular topic in North Carolina history and includes a curated selection of 15-20 primary sources from our 300+ partners around the state. Within each set is a blend of visual materials (photographs, videos), written materials (newspaper articles, speeches, letters), and audio materials (interviews, oral histories) from the DigitalNC collections.
Each set also comes with short context blurbs for each item, as well as general background information, a timeline, a set of discussion questions, and links to genre-specific worksheets (ex. How to Analyze a Newspaper Clipping). While some of these topics are more concentrated in particular regions, our goal is to connect these broad themes in history to local examples that students can recognize. Here’s a look at the four initial primary source sets:
From the 1971 Gohisca yearbook from Goldsboro High School. Contributor: Wayne County Public Library
While you may be familiar with some of the national stories around school integration after Brown v. Board of Education, this teaching set samples North Carolina yearbooks, photographs, newspapers, and oral histories to ground this topic in familiar places. It draws primarily on our collections from historically Black high schools, many of which were closed during this period (though their alumni associations remain strong!). This collection also implements local materials from the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Supreme Court case over busing.
A cartoon from The Front Page in Raleigh, N.C. (1980). Contributors: Duke University & UNC Charlotte
This set was inspired by the popular NCPedia page, “Analyzing Political Cartoons,” which explains some of the strategies for understanding cartoons in their historical context. Here, we’ve selected examples from over a century of newspapers that include topics such as the 1898 Wilmington Coup, women’s suffrage, economics, and a few contemporary political issues. Each example comes with a bit of historical context and some background on the newspaper itself.
Textile workers marching in Gastonia, N.C. in 1929. Contributor: Gaston County Museum of Art & History
North Carolina’s history of labor is inextricably tied to the legacy of the textile industry. This set uses photographs, memorabilia, speeches, and newspaper clippings of two famous examples—the Loray Mill strike of 1929 and the activism of Crystal Lee Sutton—to weave together an understanding of North Carolina’s economy and culture through one of its major industries of the 20th century.
A postcard from the American Tobacco Company cigarette plant in Reidsville, N.C. Contributor: Rockingham County Public Library
It would be impossible to fully understand the history of North Carolina in the 20th century without talking about the tobacco industry. This set uses photographs, newspapers, videos, and oral histories to explore the lives of tobacco farmers and factory workers as well as the major families who controlled the vast tobacco wealth. Additionally, it includes examples of how the industry affected culture, including a new generation of advertising that attempted to combat public health concerns.
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.
