Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like the problems of today are unique to our time and place, but this latest batch of the Carteret County News-Times (1960-1963) demonstrates that people have been working through similar problems for at least 50 years. One issue, from March 16, 1962, somehow touches on big storms flooding the area (and the difficulty of insuring coastal property), U.S. House elections, and redistricting—almost as if it were printed in 2022.
Luckily, no one died in the nor’easter that hit Morehead City and the rest of the coast in March 1962, but the storm did cause quite a bit of damage. A paper from the preceding week (March 2, 1962) pictures flooding along some of the commercial streets and describes buildings that were not up to code to withstand the storm. One commissioner reported that an insurance firm in New York abstained from insuring the area because of the building code problems. A week later, a headline reads (perhaps unsurprisingly): “Red Cross Says Best Way to Help Dare Is Give to Local Red Cross.”
Another front page story describes a bid for the 3rd Congressional District by Morehead City resident S.A. Chalk Jr. Chalk Jr. ran against incumbent David Henderson in the Democratic primary (though in a much different Democratic party than we think of today). He accused Henderson of voting for “policies that are bound to cause even further trouble,” saying, “He claims he’s conservative, but his voting records do not bear this out.” Chalk Jr. still lost the primary, apparently, as Henderson went on to represent the district until 1977.
Aside from the familiar arguments of House elections, the article also mentions that Harnett County was added to the district in 1960. And while the headlines haven’t changed much over the last 50 years, the list of counties included in the 3rd District certainly has. In 1962, the district included 10 counties: Carteret, Craven, Duplin, Harnett, Jones, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender, Sampson, and Wayne. In 2023, the district will expand and morph to contain parts of 15 counties: Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Duplin, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Onslow, Pamlico, Pitt (partly), Sampson, and Wayne (partly). For visual thinkers, an interactive map of NC’s congressional districts can be found here.
You can see the full batch of the Carteret County News-Times here and explore all of our digital newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. You can also explore more materials from the Carteret County Public Libraries on their partner page and their website.
Thanks to our partner New Bern-Craven County Public Library and funding from the State Library of North Carolina through IMLS’ LSTA program nearly 600 issues spanning 1976 to 1987 of our newest newspaper, The Pamlico News, is now available on our website.
The paper was first published in the late 1960s as The Pamlico County News, but in 1977 the paper’s name was changed to The Pamlico News. The newspaper is still published under this name today.
Published weekly in Bayboro, North Carolina, the paper focuses on local and broader North Carolina news including topics on community history, events and festivals, citizen accomplishments, education, and more.
A frequent feature of the paper is celebrating older citizens of Pamlico County’s birthdays. One article featuring Mr. Frank Styron’s 100th birthday is especially fascinating. The piece includes a picture of Mr. Styron as well as information on his family history.
To learn more about New Bern-Craven County Public Library, please visit their website.
To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please click here.
Thanks to our partner, Pamlico Community College, documents and photographs chronicling the history of Pamlico Community College are now available on our website. This batch includes meeting minutes for the first organizational meeting of the Pamlico County Technical Institute Unit, a facility dedication and open house program for the college’s new permanent location, 1973-1975 course catalog, and photos from the college’s early years.
President of the college wields a shovel at the groundbreaking for the college’s permanent location.
Students and faculty on the lawn of the new building.
To learn more about Pamlico Community College, please visit their website.
For more information on other North Carolina community colleges, please visit our community college collections.
Thanks to our new partner, Pamlico Community College, we now have a batch of course catalogs available on our website. The catalogs span the period of 1975-2008, in which the college went through three different names.
Pamlico Community College was founded in 1962 as a branch of the Lenoir County Industrial Education Center. In 1967 it was renamed Pamlico Technical Institute and moved from its location in Bayboro, N.C. to Alliance, N.C. In 1971 it received initial accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and was renamed Pamlico Technical College. In 1976, the college moved to its current location in Grantsboro, N.C. In 1987, it became Pamlico Community College, as it is known today.
Cover of the Pamlico Community College General Catalog for 1995-1997.
For more information about Pamlico Community College, please visit their website.
Map of Pamlico County from Francis B. Hays North Carolina Counties Scrapbook, Volume 4, Page 308
The above map of Pamlico County is one example of the many maps that Francis B. Hays created in his County Scrapbooks, among the newest volumes digitized from Granville County Public Library’s Hays collection. Hays drew a map for each of North Carolina’s 100 counties. The scrapbooks also include population data, historical information, and numerous stories and articles about famous people or events from the county. Hays dedicated a volume specifically to Vance County, Granville County’s next door neighbor.
Map of Vance County from Francis B. Hays scrapbook of Vance County, Page 163
The county scrapbooks are part of a batch of fourteen added to the Francis B. Hays Collection. Mr. Hays was an educator and clerk in Granville County, who dedicated much of his time to documenting the county’s history. These scrapbooks represent Volumes 80-93 of 150 housed at the Granville County Public Library.
Aside from the County Volumes, Hays also documented doctors, nurses, and public health in Granville County, indexing names of those working in medical professions. These volumes could be useful for those interested in genealogical research in Granville County and the surrounding areas.
This batch also includes two other series of volumes: North Carolina Historical Items and Distinguished North Carolinians. The NC Historical Items series features many articles and clippings that discuss NC during and after the reconstruction era and during the colonial period with information about Native Americans who lived in the state or were removed by the government. The Distinguished North Carolinians series contains articles, clippings, and obituaries of noteworthy men and women connected to the state. Volume 3 of the series may be of particular interest because it contains the most information about noteworthy women, especially authors and poets.
Cover the 1938 North Carolina Highways road map from Francis B. Hays’ scrapbook of North Carolina Maps and Miscellaneous, Page 39
You can see all of the recently added scrapbooks at the links below:
You can view all 93 digitized volumes at the Francis B. Hays Collection exhibit page. To learn more about the Granville County Public Library visit their contributor page or the website.
This week we have another 60 titles up on DigitalNC! While these papers cover all of North Carolina, almost one third are from Statesville alone!
In the October 3rd, 1902 issue of Elizabeth City’s Tar Heel, there is an interview with Reginald Aubrey Fessenden’s assistant, Professor Saint Marie. Fessenden was a pioneer in early radio, or “wireless telegraphy,” and was conducting experiments at Manteo on Roanoke Island. In the interview, Prof. Saint Marie seems somewhat pessimistic about the process and its possibilities, which might be due to Fessenden abruptly ending their contract with the Weather Bureau the previous month after conflict arose over ownership of the patent.
Tar Heel, October 3, 1902
However, less than two months later The News and Observer reported that Fessenden’s invention had greatly improved and could now send transmissions to Washington, D.C. On Christmas Eve, 1906, he conducted the first radio broadcast by reading a bible verse and then playing ‘O Holy Night’ on his violin for the ships off the coast of Massachusetts. By 1909, according the the Charlotte Evening Observer, he had perfected the process for which he laid the foundation on the Carolina coast.
News and Observer, November 23, 1902
Evening Chronicle, April 14, 1909
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:
Elizabeth City
Moravian Falls
North Wilkesboro
Oxford
Pittsboro
Rutherfordton
Salem
Salisbury
- The Evening World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1898
- Weekly World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1896
- Salisbury News (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1878
- The Salisbury Press (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1888
- The Tribune (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1872
- The Daily Gazette (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1865
- The Rowan Whig and Western Advocate (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852-1855
- The Salisbury Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1855-1857
- The Weekly Jubilee (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852
- The Prohibitionist (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881
- Salisbury Weekly Sun (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1897-1904
- Salisbury Globe (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1904-1905
- The Salisbury Daily Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899-1900
- Salisbury Daily Truth-Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900-1901
- Daily Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1891-1896
- North Carolina Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1885-1898
- The Industrial Record (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899
Selma
Shelby
Siler City
Smithfield
Statesville
Stonewall
Tarboro
Taylorsville
Wadesboro
Warrenton
Washington
Wilson
Windsor
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.
Back in December, we announced our annual call for microfilmed newspaper digitization. We asked institutions throughout North Carolina to nominate papers they’d like to see added to DigitalNC. As it is every year, it was an incredibly tough choice – we are typically able to choose between 40-60 reels out of over 500+ nominated. This year we’ve chosen the following titles and years.
| Title |
Years |
Nominating Institution |
| The Elkin Tribune (Elkin, N.C.) |
1942-1949 |
Elkin Public Library |
| The Enterprise (Williamston, N.C.) |
1943-1954 |
Martin Community College and Martin Memorial Public Library |
| Gates County Index (Gatesville, N.C.) |
1942-1956 |
Gates County Public Library |
| Green Line (Asheville, N.C.) |
1987-1994 |
Buncombe County Public Libraries |
| The News of Orange County (Hillsborough, N.C.) |
1944-1964 |
Orange County Public Library |
| The Pamlico News (Bayboro, N.C.) |
1976-1987 |
New Bern-Craven County Public Library |
| The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.) |
1965-1968 |
Southern Pines Public Library |
| The Smithfield Herald (Smithfield, N.C.) |
1911-1925 |
Johnston County Heritage Center |
| The Wallace Enterprise (Wallace, N.C.) |
1931-1955 |
Thelma Dingus Bryant Library |
| Winston-Salem Chronicle (Charlotte, N.C.) |
2017-2018 |
Forsyth County Public Library |
For our selection criteria, we prioritize newspapers that document underrepresented communities, new titles, papers that come from a county that currently has little representation on DigitalNC, and papers nominated by new partners. After selection, we ask the partners to secure permission for digitization and, if that’s successful, they make it into the final list above.
We hope to have these titles coming online in the first half of 2021. If your title didn’t make it this year don’t despair! We welcome repeat submissions, and plan on sending out another call in Fall 2021.
An issue of The Carolinian (Raleigh) newspaper from November 6, 1948.
It’s time to announce our annual round of microfilmed newspaper digitization! As in previous years, we’re asking cultural heritage institutions in North Carolina to nominate papers from their communities to be digitized. We’re especially interested in:
- newspapers covering underrepresented regions or communities, and
- newspapers that are not currently available in digital form elsewhere online.
If your institution is in one of these counties, please consider nominating! These are counties that currently have little content represented on DigitalNC. Bertie, Bladen, Camden, Caswell, Clay, Gates, Hoke, Jones, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Swain, Tyrrell.
If you’re interested in nominating a paper and you work at a cultural heritage institution that qualifies as a partner, here’s what to do:
- Check out our criteria for selecting newspapers, listed below.
- Verify that the newspaper you’d like to see digitized exists on microfilm. Email us (digitalnc@unc.edu) if you’re not sure.
- Be prepared to talk with the rights holder(s) to gain written permission to digitize the paper and share it online. We can give you advice on this part, if needed.
- Send us an email with the name of the newspaper you would like to nominate, along with your priority years for scanning. Please talk briefly about how the paper and your institution meet the criteria below.
Nominations will be taken on an ongoing basis, however don’t wait! We typically get many more requests than we can accommodate. Please contact us at digitalnc@unc.edu with questions. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm
Titles to be digitized will be selected using the following criteria:
- Does the newspaper document traditionally underrepresented regions or communities?
- Does the newspaper include significant coverage of the local community or largely syndicated content?
- Does the newspaper come from an area of the state that has little representation on DigitalNC? (Titles that have not previously been digitized will be given priority. Here’s a title list and a map showing coverage.)
- Are the images on microfilm legible, or is it difficult to read the text?
- Is the institution willing to obtain permission from the current publisher or rights holder(s) to digitize issues and make them freely available online?
- If the newspaper is selected for digitization, will the nominating institution promote the digital project through programs and announcements?
*Updated 8/9/2019 to add county list.
Have you been interested in working with the Digital Heritage Center but find it difficult to get to Chapel Hill, or have concerns about having your materials off site? We want to come to you! We’ll be working with two or three cultural heritage institutions over the next nine months to try out on-location scanning. If you’d like to nominate your institution, read on and use the nomination form linked at the end of this post.
What We Do
Here’s what nominated institutions will receive as part of this process.
- We will bring our scanners, computers, and staff to your institution to digitize and describe materials from your collections. We would be there for one full weekday, at a minimum.
- We’ll host the scanned images and associated metadata on DigitalNC.org, and give you copies of the original scans to use in any non-profit context.
- Optionally, we can do a presentation for staff and/or the public related to any of the following topics:
- The Digital Heritage Center’s services (for staff at your institution and/or other local cultural heritage institutions)
- A demonstration of what we’re doing while we’re there (for staff at your institution)
- The variety of resources you can find on DigitalNC.org and other fantastic digital collections in North Carolina (staff or the public)
What We’ll Need from Partners We Visit
If you’re chosen, we’d need:
- At least one conference call before arrival to clarify expectations, work with you on scheduling, and talk through the materials you’d like scanned.
- Description and a light inventory of the items we’ll be scanning, if there isn’t one already available.
- Some assembly and preparation of the materials you’ve chosen. This might include physically pulling all of the content together before we arrive and removing staples if the materials are stapled at the top corners.
- A designated staff contact regularly available to ask questions regarding what we’re scanning while we’re there, and to help with logistics like getting equipment in and out of the building, etc.
- An indoor location that has:
- at least two power outlets,
- internet connectivity,
- a work area large enough for 2 scanners and 4 laptops as well as extra room for materials handling,
- seating for four people, and
- is away from the public so we can get the most scanning accomplished in our limited time (ideal but not required).
Additional Guidance for Nominations
- We’ll be giving priority to nominations from institutions furthest from Chapel Hill and to new partners. If you are a prospective partner, please check to make sure you’re eligible.
- The materials have to be owned by your institution.
- The materials should cover North Carolina subjects, events, and people.
- For these on-location sessions, we’re accepting nominations for the following types of items:
- photographs (prints) and/or postcards
- looseleaf print materials up to 11×17”
- bound items may be considered, but in very limited numbers and only if transporting them to Chapel Hill would be impossible
- Materials can be fragile but should be stable enough to withstand gentle handling and placement on a flatbed scanner.
We’ll review nominations according to the following criteria, so you may want to address these in your nomination form:
| Category |
Point Value |
| New partner |
1 |
| New town |
1 |
| New county** |
2 |
Materials document an underrepresented
community or population |
1 |
| Materials are well described/inventoried |
5 |
| Majority of materials date from 1945 or earlier |
1 |
| Materials are believed to be unique |
1 |
** We have yet to work with any institutions in the following counties: Alexander, Bertie, Bladen, Camden, Caswell, Chowan, Clay, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Graham, Greene, Henderson, Hoke, Jones, Mitchell, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Swain, Tyrrell, Yancey
Use this nomination form to submit!
We’ll start reviewing nominations on September 30 and will notify selected institutions shortly thereafter. If a selected institution ends up not being able to host us, we’ll continue down the list.
We’re excited about trying out this new service. Please contact us with any questions and share this with any institutions you think might be interested.
