Issues of The State’s Voice, published in Dunn, NC from 1933-1935, have been added to DigitalNC. Published by O. J. (Oscar J.) Peterson, this paper is much more of an editorial vehicle than many other papers at the time. The entire front page is devoted to his thoughts on one or more news items or topics of the day. His other interest was in writing informational essays about various parts of the state, like the one in this issue about Orange County and Hillsboro(ugh).

Over the years, Peterson managed a number of newspapers besides The State’s Voice including the Chatham Record, the Sampson Democrat, and the Lumberton Argus. Aligning with the Democratic platform of the time, Peterson expresses strong opinions in his paper about prohibition, public education, and economics. His editorials are so pointed that they are alternatively lauded or criticized in other papers.

In the final issue of the paper, Peterson says: “The publication of the State’s Voice has been an interesting experience, or experiment, in several respects.” The paper was intended to be read statewide, and was launched upon a “highly intellectual basis with a confessed non-public appeal.” He seems to attribute the demise of the paper in part to a lack of intellectuality amongst his subscribers, despite many of them being prominent in the state.

This paper was added on behalf of the Harnett County Public Library. You can view all of the materials contributed to DigitalNC from Harnett County Public Library on their contributor page.

Frontpage of the News of Orange County Newspaper in 1945.

Thanks to our partnership with Orange County Public Library, we now have additions of The News of Orange County now available on Digital NC. The new additions include the years 1944 to 1964. Issued out to the community on Thursdays, The News of Orange County discussed news out of Hillsborough, North Carolina, and other parts of Orange County as well. 

Many of the issues cover a special section about members of the armed forces from Orange County as they fought in World War II. 

To see the other issues of The News of Orange County, visit them here. 

To view more from our partner, Orange County Public Library, visit them here. 

Make sure to check out the rest of our NC Newspaper collection, here. 

The Oxford High School Owl, September 1946

Issues from 8 NC student newspapers are now online at DigitalNC! The issues come from several schools in Granville County and cover news topics like sports, facility renovations, and school events, as well as creative works by students and advertisements for local businesses. The recent batch includes the following newspapers:

• The Spectator – J.F. Webb High School – Oxford, NC – 26 issues – 1965-1972
• The Tattler – Oxford High School – Oxford, NC – 1 issue – 1921
• The Owl – Oxford High School – Oxford, NC – 22 issues – 1946-1962
• Senior Bulletin – Oxford College – Oxford, NC – 1 issue – 1922
• The D. N. Hix Happening – D. N. Hix Middle School – Oxford, NC – 1 issue – 1971
• Viking Press – South Granville High School – Creedmoor, NC – 1 issue – 1963
• The Early Bird – Orange Street Graded School – Oxford, NC – 3 issues – 1952-1955
• The Mary Potter Gazette – Mary Potter High School – Oxford, NC – 5 issues – 1957-1965

The J.F. Webb High School Spectator, February 26, 1965

The newspapers listed above constitute a new addition to the significant number of Granville County Public Library materials already online at DigitalNC. Visit their DigitalNC partner page here or head to the Granville County Library System website for more information.

You may be surprised to learn what was worrying the citizens of Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 1958. Our most recent additions from the Chapel Hill News Leader, supplied by our partner, the Chapel Hill Historical Society, touch on everything from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, civil rights, alcohol laws, and policing to some new technologies arriving the city.

July 31, 1958

One of the first big stories breaks about midway through the year: the parking meter debacle. Apparently, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen had been tossing around the idea of installing parking meters for a couple of years, and the decision to finally do it happened in 1958. Local businessmen immediately pushed back, arguing that instituting paid parking would hurt their businesses. 

Apparently, everyone could agree on the fact that the parking meters were ugly, but the author of the article, Roland Giduz, speculated that complaints about the meters would die down once everyone realized how much they improve traffic (spoiler alert: that doesn’t really happen based on the coverage that follows). 

Just below the meter gripes article is another big story of the year: school integration. It describes two issues for an upcoming school merger election: first, whether Black students would attend Carrboro Elementary School, and second, whether the Chapel Hill School Board would charge $30 tuition for students from Carrboro. (Note: more materials about Carrboro Elementary School were also uploaded in this batch, including architectural plans and a document of education specifications). 

The earlier articles that this one refers to (from May 22, 1958) don’t mention race until the very last line: “As to the general pupil assignment policy for next year, [Mr. Culbreth] said that he anticipated that the Board would re-adopt the existing regulations, whereby racial segregation has been maintained.” As the July article notes, this is four years after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

September 11, 1958

The issue gets a more personal focus in the September 11, 1958 issue, when the Orange County School Board denied Lee and Lattice Vickers’ child admittance to the then all-white Carrboro Elementary School. The Vickers’ case was set against the backdrop of ongoing school assignment problems, with neighboring school systems fighting each other over pupil placement and resources. 

The fight to racially integrate schools in Chapel Hill (and throughout North Carolina) continued well into the 1960s, and, sadly, none of the community papers that we have from the area extend past 1963. One of the latest articles available, from The Chapel Hill Weekly, reports a survey of Southern business leaders and how their perspective on industry shaped their views on the matter.

But, in 1958, public school integration was still competing for front page space with—you guessed it—parking meters. 

Another major debate in the community during this time was over the sale of alcohol. North Carolina was ahead of the curve of prohibition, outlawing the sale and manufacture of alcohol in 1909 (a decade before the national amendment). And, even after the repeal of prohibition in 1933, the Alcoholic Beverage Control system wasn’t created until 1937. (Graham County remained a “dry” county until just recently). In 1958, there was still a lot of resistance to the ABC setting up shop.

November 17, 1958

In this case, efforts were headed by a citizens group concerned about the effects of the ABC stores in the area. Meetings were held at the University Baptist Church, though Carolyn Noell, a spokesperson for the group, noted that local churches were only providing contacts and spaces (not serving as official sponsors). 

Not long before this, the News Leader reprinted an article from the Durham Morning Herald about how lucrative the ABC stores were. Apparently, the Durham ABC stores sold almost $58 million of alcohol from June 30, 1957, to September 1958 (enough to pay for Durham’s entire share of the Raleigh-Durham airport, plus some for Lincoln Hospital, local schools, warehouse equipment, public libraries, garbage disposal services, and a rabies inspection program, among other things). To put these sales into proportion, a fifth of whiskey (from a “popular brand”) cost $3.95 back then. Certainly, money was at the heart of the argument for the Orange County Citizens for Legal Control in their ad in the January 29, 1959 issue.

Of course, in a college town like Chapel Hill, there’s also frequent news about the University. One article, from October 2, 1958, warned that student enrollment may swell to between 12,000 and 14,000 in 1970 (today, total enrollment exceeds 30,000). And—surprise!—much of the concern about the growing student population is related to parking.

One of the funnier articles about UNC-CH is about Rameses, the live mascot (not to be confused with costumed cheerleader Rameses, former bodybuilder). Rameses VIII, then in power, was “the most aggressive ram I’ve handled,” according to Glen Hogan, his boarder. He was also one of the biggest up until then, clocking in at 250 pounds. These two facts, Hogan hoped, would dissuade rival Duke students from stealing the mascot. 

The reigning Rameses (né Otis) ascended in 2020 as the twenty-second mascot. His handler, James Hogan, is part of the same family that has been caring for the mascots since the 1920s. Rameses XXII has “come a long way” in getting used to people and is (presumably) a bit sweeter than his “big and mean” predecessor—though he is still well-guarded.

December 4, 1958

One final story from 1958 is the opening of the Chapel Hill Public Library, which was originally opened in the Hill House on West Franklin Street. The goal, according to Mrs. Richmond Bond, chairman of the board, was to “supplement” the University’s library by focusing on children’s and popular books that were generally unavailable at UNC. 

Bond argued that Chapel Hill was the only town of its size in North Carolina without a public library and that the University library had “almost more than it can do” with the increase of UNC students. This led the Board of Aldermen to approve a $4,600 grant for the local library. Somebody even donated over 300 books before the library opened its doors.

In the very last uploaded issue of the Chapel Hill News Leader, from January 29, 1959, the top headline reads, “Death of a Newspaper.” Due to internal litigation, the paper had to stop running. 

You can see all of our issues of the Chapel Hill News Leader here and more materials from the Chapel Hill Historical Society on their partner page. You can also visit their website for more information.

This week we have added issues from 35 different newspaper titles! One of the titles we have is a paper from the now non-existent town of Buffalo Springs, North Carolina. According to this News & Record article, the Harnett County town ceased to exist when the turpentine industry in the area died out. But the intriguing thing about these papers isn’t the ghost of this town, it’s the man who wrote them: John McLean Harrington. Professor and author Michael Ray Smith penned this fascinating paper about Harrington and his newspapers, in which he writes: “Shortly before the Civil War, the son of an affluent Southern family began a journalism career unlike any in his community, his state, or even the nation and produced 305 handwritten newspapers, perhaps the greatest single output of handwritten newspapers by any American journalist.” Harrington had a subscription list of roughly 100 people and would painstakingly copy each individual paper by hand, even though printing presses were widely available at the time. In 1858, when Harrington was writing issues of The Nation, he was only 19 years old. The young man’s ambitions didn’t stop with just being a journalist. He also apparently worked as a bookkeeper, surveyor, educator, sheriff, and postmaster in Harnett County. While his accomplishments were quite impressive, he was also a man of contradiction. Smith writes this of the rural Renaissance man: “He talked of a partner but never revealed the colleague’s identity—if he indeed had one. He discussed the evil of drinking but died an alcoholic. He served as a member of the Confederate militia only to swear an oath that he would always remain a loyal Unionist. Perhaps Harrington tended to do or say whatever was expedient or expected at the time. Maybe he was himself just conflicted in numerous ways.”

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

• The Tri-Weekly Bulletin (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1865-1881
• Asheville Pioneer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1867-1869
• Weekly Pioneer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1870-1874
• The Carolina Eagle (Hickory, N.C.) – 1871-1872
• Mountain Messenger (Jefferson, N.C.) – 1873
• Battleboro Advance (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1871-1873
• The Weekly Ansonian (Polkton, N.C.) – 1876-1877
• The Southern Mail (Hillsborough, N.C.) – 1880
• The Carolina Republican (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1848-1853
• Yadkin & Catawba Journal (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1828-1833
• The Journal (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1833-1834
• The Hornet (Bixby, N.C.) – 1908
• The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1922-1924
• The Asheville Democrat (Asheville, N.C.) – 1889-1891
• Monthly Gleaner (Asheville, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• Fuller’s Gleaner (Asheville, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• The Dispatch (Bessemer City, N.C.) – 1912
• The Carthage Blade (Carthage, N.C.) – 1887-1895
• The Central Times (Dunn, N.C.) – 1895
• County Union (Dunn, N.C.) – 1895-1899
• The Transylvania Hustler (Brevard, N.C.) – 1893
• The Brevard Hustler (Brevard, N.C.) – 1896
• The Western Carolina Democrat (Bakersville, N.C.) – 1888
• Roan Mountain Republican (Bakersville, N.C.) – 1876-1879
• The Nation (Buffalo Springs, N.C.) – 1858
• Cape Fear News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1915-1917
• Central Argus (Hamlet, N.C.) – 1880
• The Stanly Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1903-1907
• The Albemarle Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1912-1916
• The Stanly News-Herald (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1920-1922
• The Beaufort News (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1920-1922
• The State Dispatch (Burlington, N.C.) – 1908-1909
• Daily Carolina Times (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1864-1869
• The Standard (Concord, N.C.) – 1900-1902
• The Battleboro Progress (Battleboro, N.C.) – 1880

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.

We have over 60 titles up on DigitalNC this week! While these papers are from all over North Carolina, about a third are from western Carolina. 18 from Asheville, one from Morganton, as well as our first additions from Bryson City and Bakersville! Bakersville, which gives us The Mountain Voice, only has a population of 466, but is home to the North Carolina Rhododendron Festival. Started in 1947, the festival was a relatively small affair until Spruce Pine resident O.D. Calhoun came into the picture. Calhoun owned several movie theaters across North Carolina and apparently had contacts to Walt Disney. He used these connections to promote the festival and make it into a nationally renowned event. It’s estimated that between five and ten thousand people attended the festival when Richard Nixon made an appearance in 1958.

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

• The Blue Ridge Blade (Morganton, N.C.) – 1876-1881
• North Carolina Advertiser (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1865
• Carolina Beacon and Metropolitan Omnibus (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1840
• Republican Touchstone (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1840
• North-Carolina Statesman (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1854
• The Independent (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1843-1845
• Democratic Flag (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1848
• The American Signal (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1856
• The Daily Telegraph (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1862
• Weekly Ad Valorem Banner (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1861
• Daily Ad Valorem Banner (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1861
• The National Democrat (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1860
• The Randolph Bulletin (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1910-1912
• The Asheboro Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1918-1921
• Asheville Semi-Weekly Journal (Asheville, N.C.) – 1879
• The Western Tribune (Asheville, N.C.) – 1885
• Mountain Home-Journal (Asheville, N.C.) – 1892
• The Asheville Advertiser (Asheville, N.C.) – 1890
• The Buncombe Reformer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1893
• The Skyland Herald (Asheville, N.C.) – 1886
• The Evening Journal (Asheville, N.C.) – 1889
• Asheville Spectator (Asheville, N.C.) – 1853-1858
• Town Topics (Asheville, N.C.) – 1887
• The Daily Advance (Asheville, N.C.) – 1884-1885
• Asheville Daily Advance (Asheville, N.C.) – 1885-1887
• The Asheville Advance (Asheville, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Asheville Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1901-1905
• The State Reporter (Asheville, N.C.) – 1896
• The Smoky Mountain Times (Bryson City, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• Sylvan Valley News (Brevard, N.C.) – 1916
• The Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1890
• Asheville Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1890-1892
• The Albemarle Press (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1922-1925
• The Bayboro Sentinel (Bayboro, N.C.) – 1902-1913
• Columbian Repository (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1836
• The Chapel Hillian (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1891
• The Harbinger (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1833-1834
• Orange County Independent (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1894
• The Independent (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1894
• The Chapel Hill Weekly Gazette (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1857
• Chapel Hill Literary Gazette (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1857-1858
• The Chapel Hill Gazette (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1858
• Burke County Times (Morganton, N.C.) – 1917-1918
• The Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1898
• North Carolina Temperance Union (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1842
• The Southern Advertiser, and Appendix to the “Southern Weekly Post” (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1853
• Democratic State Flag (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1848
• The Deaf Mute (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1850
• North Carolina State Advertiser (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1871
• The Mercury (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864
• The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1919
• The Post (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1869
• Western Carolina Advocate (Asheville, N.C.) – 1892-1983
• Daily Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1886
• North Carolina Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1912-1917
• The Cape-Fear Recorder (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1816-1829
• The High Point Enterprise (High Point, N.C.) – 1886
• Asheville Gazette-News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1914
• The Mountain Voice (Bakersville, N.C.) – 1880
• The Daily Bulletin (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1859-1876
• The Evening Bulletin (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1880

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.