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New Partner Person County Museum of History and The Roxboro Courier 1919 Issues Now Available on DigitalNC

The Roxboro Courier header.

Thanks to our newest partner, Person County Museum of History, four new issues of The Roxboro Courier are now available on our website. This batch expands our current holdings of the newspaper to cover from 1919 to 1946. Many of the articles in this batch relate to the aftermath of World War I and President Woodrow Wilson’s negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference.

One of the issues features an article on the creation of “grenade banks.” Hand grenades manufactured in the United States for World War I were being taken and repurposed (after the careful removal of the explosives) into miniature saving banks. The saving banks were then lent to children by community banks as a way to fundraise through War Saving Stamps. After saving for a certain period of time, the children would bring their money-filled grenades to the bank to be counted. If the child had enough money to buy a War Savings Stamp, the grenade would belong to the child. If there was not enough money for the War Savings Stamp, the money had to be invested into Thrift Stamps and the child would have to try to save enough money to keep the grenade bank during the next cycle. To view a picture of a grenade bank or to read the entire article, please click here.

The Person County Museum of History is located in Roxboro, North Carolina in the home of former North Carolina governor W. W. Kitchin. The museum has several interesting exhibits related to Person County history which discuss topics such as Sappony heritage and baseball legend Enos Slaughter. The site also features seven other historic buildings which can also be toured. Currently, the museum is temporarily closed for exhibit renovations and inventory but plans to be opened again soon.

To learn more about the Person County Museum of History, please visit their website.

To view more issues of The Roxboro Courier, please click here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.


Students Tell Their Stories in Person County!

School Catalog
Commemoration Booklet of Student Activities at Roxboro High School from 1929 to 1930
The front page of The R.E.S. Gazette
Front page of the 1961 R.E.S Gazette from Roxboro Elementary School.

Take a deep dive into students’ lives with new additions of newspapers, yearbooks, and so much more from the Person County Museum of History. This batch includes a variety of materials, including catalogs and school yearbooks, like The Hilltopper from Bethel High and The Rocket from Roxboro High.

Also included in this collection of materials are newspapers from Roxboro Elementary (The R.E.S Gazette, 1961), the historically Black elementary school in the county; Person County High School (The Panther, 1961-1969); and Roxboro High School (Rocket, 1953). It is interesting to see the different topics of conversation from elementary students to high school. From diving into the Christmas holiday to stories about students on campus, each of these newspapers gives a small preview into students’ lives in Person County.

The yearbooks in this batch range from 1921-1969 and represent nine schools across Person county. While many are from Roxboro, others come from Woodsdale, Timberlake, Allensville, Hurdle Mills, and Olive Hill.

Digital NC would like to thank our partner, the Person County Museum of History, for allowing us to help make available these new materials. To see more from Person County Museum of History, visit their website or their partner page!

Be sure to check out our wide variety of high school yearbooks, newspapers, and more on Digital NC!


100 Counties! New Materials from the Camden County Museum Heritage Museum Now Online

Table with scanners and a laptop inside a brightly lit museum space with one person seated and scanning and two people standing and looking at a book

L-R Ashlie Brewer (NCDHC) scans while Lisa Gregory (NCDHC) looks at materials with Brian Forehand (Camden County Heritage Museum)

We have an exciting milestone to announce – with the addition of the Camden County Heritage Museum  and the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center we have now worked with at least one partner organization in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties. NCDHC staff received a warm welcome in Camden County at the end of August when we traveled there to scan materials for both of these organizations.

Black English text on beige paper advertisin typhoid fever and diptheria vaccines in Camden CountyOur post today shares the materials we scanned from the Museum (stay tuned for a future post about the Welcome Center’s materials). From photos to maps to brochures to handwritten research notes, the Museum selected a variety of items that document important aspects of the county’s history. Some of the longer and more detailed items are mentioned below:

We were especially interested to read the typhoid fever and diptheria vaccine announcement shown to the right, which seems especially timely during the current pandemic. Note that the author called out the races separately and that people had to go to a specific location based on their assigned race.

You can view all of the items from the Camden County Heritage Museum on the Museum’s contributor page, or all of the materials we have related to Camden County on the Camden County page on our site.


Genealogical History of Gaston County Families Now Online

A new family genealogy history from Gaston County has been added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Gaston County Museum of Art & History. The book, Our Kin, Being a History of the Hoffman, Rhyne, Costner, Rudisill, Best, Hovis, Hoyle, Wills, Shetley, Jenkins, Holland, Hambright, Gaston, Withers, Cansler, Clemmer and Lineberger Families, was originally published in 1915, but has been reprinted by the Gaston County Historical Society several times since and is now digitally available for all to read.

group portrait with two people in back wearing suits, and three people in front, two in dresses and one in a suit

A photo of author Laban Miles Hoffman (center) and his family, undated

The book focuses on the individual families of Gaston County, including their common ancestors dating back to the 18th century. Many of the family members noted have long descriptions of who they were, what they accomplished in life, how their family names changed over the years, and more. This copy is quite special, as it has retained notes and highlighted terms that one of the authors made in his original edition, preserved in this reprinted version.

Written by Laban Miles Hoffman of Dallas, North Carolina, this book was conceived as a history of his own family, but rapidly grew into an exploration of the histories of all the associated families in his genealogy. He includes a short preface of his own personal story, how he grew up in Lowell, North Carolina, studied at Davidson College, and later went to work in Raleigh under Governor Holden before moving to Arkansas.

As a record of ancestors for over a dozen local families, it is a valuable resource for Gaston County historians, Gaston County residents, and family descendants. We are privileged to make it available on DigitalNC. To learn more about the Gaston County Museum of Art & History, visit their partner page or their website.


New Yearbooks from Mount Airy Regional Museum of History, a New Partner

A new batch of yearbooks courtesy of the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History are now live. These yearbooks are the first materials on DigitalNC from this partner and they are chock full of personality.

Caricature Staff Page from Maroon and Grey

A very distinct staff page from the 1954 edition of Franklin High School’s Maroon and Grey.

These yearbooks span from 1939 to 1961 and encapsulate student life in Surry County through these decades. Schools included are Franklin High School, Pilot Mountain High School, White Plains High School, Dobson High School, and Copeland High School.

"Best Sport" Superlative Winners from Windswept Echoes

Copeland High School’s 1961 “Best Sport” superlative winners.

To learn more about Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, visit their website or partner page. Links to yearbooks are organized by school and listed below.


Hundreds of New Photographs and Artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum and Mauney Memorial Library Now Online at DigitalNC!

Hundreds of new photos, documents and artifacts have been newly digitized at DigitalNC, courtesy of our partners, the Kings Mountain Historical Museum and the Mauney Memorial Library. These digitized materials are part of a joint project between the two institutions, DigitalKM.

Vice President Rockefeller speaking at Kings Mountain High School in 1975 in celebration of the bicentennial.

Included in this batch is nearly 600 images and over 50 historical artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum. These photos include blueprints for the U.S. Post Office at Kings Mountain, photos from the Kings Mountain Centennial parade and celebrations, school and class photos, photographs of military personnel, pictures of local clubs, bands, and sports teams, and much, much more.

Some of the artifacts from Kings Mountain Historical Museum include souvenir programs and other memorabilia from the centennial (100 years), sesquicentennial (150 years), and bicentennial (200 years) anniversaries of the Battle of Kings Mountain. This collection also includes a set of different photographs of military personnel, individuals from Kings Mountain, Trinity Episcopal Church in Kings Mountain, sports teams from the Kings Mountain High School, and much, much more.

A Boeing Flying Fortress, purchased with war bonds bought by Kings Mountain residents during WWII.

Also included are over 125 photos from Mauney Memorial Library and over a dozen historical objects. The photos include class pictures from schools around Kings Mountain, photos of churches around Cleveland County, areas and buildings in Kings Mountain, several aerial views of local schools, and much, much more.

Among these artifacts from Mauney Memorial Library are a collection of research binders by Bonnie Mauney Summers, which contain hand-written notes and charts of genealogical research on 3 branches of the Mauney family and others around Kings Mountain. There is also a binder of monthly meeting minutes taken by the secretary of the Kings Mountain House and Garden Club, dating from 1956-1963. Finally, this collection includes a series of different photographs of areas and people around Kings Mountain, as well as a batch of letters to military personnel sent and received during World War II.

Charles E. Neisler Jr, relaxing in the Davidson College Chemistry Lab, circa 1915.

You can learn more about the Kings Mountain Historical Museum by visiting their contributor page or by visiting their website. To learn more about the Mauney Memorial Library, click here to visit their partner page or click here to visit their website. This collection is part of a joint project to digitize materials related to Kings Mountain history. To learn more, visit the DigitalKM website.


Partners Share Their Stories: Watauga County Public Library in Boone

We are one of 29 finalists for the Institute of Museum and Library Services 2018 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. Now through April 13, IMLS is asking the people who have been impacted by the Digital Heritage Center to share their stories. If you have a story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you! Please contact us or share via social media by tagging us on Facebook (@NC Digital Heritage Center) or on Twitter (@ncdhc).

Today’s story comes from Ross Cooper, Adult Services and Reference Librarian at Watauga County Public Library. We’ve worked with Watauga County Public Library to digitize a wide variety of photographs from their “Historic Boone” collection. They have steadily increased their local capacity for digitization and now make collections available to a broader audience at Digital Watauga.

Close up of around 30 boys and girls of elementary school age in a group, all facing the camera

Boone Elementary School Students, 1913 (Detail), Shared by Watauga County Public Library

“As a Reference Librarian at the Watauga County Public Library in Boone, North Carolina, I was fortunate to have been present when, with the help of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, our institution became first involved with historic preservation and digitization. A local group called Historic Boone wished to bequeath the historic images which their group had gathered, described, and cared for over several decades into the caretaking of our library, some ten years ago. Our then-County Librarian accepted the items and made a space for them. I was privileged at about the same time to attend a North Carolina Library Association annual conference presentation in which Nick Graham and Lisa Gregory of the University of North Carolina and the State Library of North Carolina presented on the ways that small public libraries and other institutions with limited resources might take some small steps towards preservation, scanning, and digitized sharing of materials within their collections which hold historical significance. This led us to a few small first attempts, including a blog-format web site with a few, piecemeal, scanned images. The offer of off-site digitization by the NC Digital Heritage Center which was additionally presented at this conference eventually led our library to transport the entire photograph archives of the Historic Boone society to the University of North Carolina to be digitized and shared online via www.digitalnc.org.

“The wide-spread community interest engendered by this undertaking and by the readily-accessible web presence was followed by the successful application by our new Regional Director for an EZ Digitization grant funded by the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The NC Digital Heritage Center provided invaluable support, advice, and encouragement as we used this generous funding opportunity to purchase scanning and computing equipment and to fund a year-long temporary part-time position for a digitization technician. Our community was fortunate at this time to have a historian, Dr. Eric Plaag, move to our area and immediately begin actively and tirelessly working with our town, our library, and the local historical society on a number of projects involving preservation and dissemination of historical material. With his generously-volunteered expert advice, the steps which we had undertaken thanks to the NC Digital Heritage Center have now taken root and grown into a locally-based initiative, Digital Watauga, which is a cooperative venture between the Watauga County Historical Society and the Watauga County Public Library. Other local organizations, including the Junaluska Heritage Association, representing our county’s oldest historically African American community, and numerous interested individuals, have contributed to making this new and growing effort a success, on behalf of all of our area’s people. It was only through the expertise, assistance, and support of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center that any of this work ‘left the ground’! As just one small portion – perhaps the small, rugged, mountainous, Northwestern portion – of the vast array of resources which have been preserved and shared by NC Digital heritage – the strides which we have made in saving and sharing our local history are a testament to the greater work which this institution has done throughout our state, an effort which extends far beyond our local area and our state’s boundaries. I cannot highly enough express my appreciation, personally and as a community member, and I sincerely and heartily endorse the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center as a perfect exemplar of the ideas and ideals which are recognized by the IMLS National Medal for Museum and Library Service.”


Military and Veterans History on DigitalNC: Best Ways to Search

Group of Soldiers Posed with Firestone Officials, from the Gaston Museum of Art & History.

Group of Soldiers Posed with Firestone Officials, from the Gaston Museum of Art & History.

This Veterans Day, we thought we’d mention some best bets for finding and searching materials on DigitalNC related to military history. Some time periods and subjects have better representation than others, so we’ve focused on the five wars that have the most related materials.  This post has been updated in 2022 to show the most recent systems for our content.

Tip 1: Search by Subject

To isolate materials that are predominantly about a particular war, you can use the subject specific links listed below.

You can use the Advanced Search (see below where to find in the search window) to narrow your search.

screenshot of search results on the DigitalNC page with a red arrow pointing to where the advanced search is

Use the Advanced Search to further narrow your query

If you click one of the links above and then go into the Advanced Search, you can use more terms to further narrow your search.  Using “partial phrase” is the best option to get the widest set of options that might fit that term.  (see the graphic below that illustrates this)

You can also do a full text search that combines (1) your research interest (perhaps a name, a topic, or an event) in conjunction with (2) the name of a particular war. This may yield a lot more results, depending on your research interest, but it could also zero in on your target faster.

Only interested in photographs? Try this search, which is limited to photos that contain the word “military” or “soldiers” as a subject.

Tip 2: Search by Date Range

Another tactic is to search or browse items that were created during a particular war. These don’t always have that war as a subject term, but they often deal with wartime issues or society regardless.

A list of alumni and students killed or missing in action, from the 1944 UNC-Chapel Hill Yackety Yack yearbook, page 12.

A list of alumni and students killed or missing in action, from the 1944 UNC-Chapel Hill Yackety Yack yearbook, page 12.

Keep in mind that doing a full text search will be ineffective about 98% of the time when it comes to handwritten items on our site, as most do not have transcripts. This is just to let you know that you may need to read through handwritten items pulled up in one of the searches above if you believe they may contain information you’re interested in.

Our partners have shared a lot of yearbooks on DigitalNC and, while they may not be the first thing that comes to mind for military history, many colleges and universities recognized students who served. Especially for the Vietnam, Korean, Gulf, and Afghan wars, yearbooks document campus reactions and protests. You currently can’t search across all of the yearbooks available on DigitalNC; our site has high school yearbooks published up through the late 1960s, and college and university yearbooks and campus publications through 2015.

Tip 3: Newspapers!

Searching the student and community newspapers on DigitalNC can yield biographical information about soldiers, editorials expressing local opinions about America’s military action, as well as news and advertisements related to rationing and resources on the homefront.

The Newspapers Advanced Search is your friend here! You can target papers published during specific years. You can also narrow your search to specific newspaper titles.

advanced_search_wwi

Screenshot of the Newspapers Advanced Search page, with the search phrase “Red Cross” and limiting the results to papers published from 1914-1918.

We now have so many military newspapers on our site, we have a whole exhibit dedicated to them, which you can view by going to our Military Newspapers in North Carolina page. 

The titles include:

  • Air-O-Mech, published by servicemen stationed at Seymour Johnson Field, 1943-1944
  • Cloudbuster, published at UNC-Chapel Hill to share news about the Navy pre-flight school held on campus, 1942-1945
  • Hot Off the Hoover Rail, published by the community of Lawndale for servicemen from their city, 1942-1945
  • The Caduceus, published by the Base Hospital at Camp Greene (Charlotte, N.C.), 1918-1919
  • The Caromount, published the community at Caromount Mills in Rocky Mount “solely for the benefit of all former Blumenthal employees now in the service of our country,” 1943-1955 (later years published for the mill community itself rather than those in the military)
  • The Home Front News, published by the Tarboro Rotary Club for servicemen from their city, 1943-1945
  • Trench and Camp, published by The Charlotte Observer for Camp Greene, 1917-1918

Bonus Resource: Wilson County’s Greatest Generation

One of the largest exhibits on our site is Wilson County’s Greatest Generation, an effort by the Wilson County Historical Association to document the service men and women of Wilson County, North Carolina who served in World War II. Documentation is organized by individual, and includes personal histories, photos, clippings, and other ephemera.

We hope this information can guide you through researching military history on DigitalNC. If you have any of your own tips or questions, please let us know by commenting below or contacting us.


Images, a Rare Newspaper, and More now Online from the Round House Museum in Wilson, NC

Statue of a Seated Man, Oliver Nestus Freeman

Statue of a Seated Man, Oliver Nestus Freeman

We’ve recently partnered with the Oliver Nestus Freeman Round House Museum to add items from their collection to DigitalNC. We visited the Museum back in June, and learned about Mr. Freeman and the impact he had on Wilson, NC. Freeman, a local builder and stonemason, incorporated found materials into many of the objects and structures he created. A number of these still exist around town. Among them is the Round House, which is now a museum dedicated to local African American history and culture.

A photographer in Wilson Library’s Digital Production Center shot a number of tools and objects from the Museum. We also scanned photographs of Freeman, his family (including one of Freeman’s bears, Topsy), and his creations.

Another interesting item included in this batch was an 1907 recommendation for Freeman based on his work as a stonemason at The Presidio in San Francisco. In it, Freeman is described as “Reliable and a strictly temperate man who [the recommender, J. K. Dalmas] would employ in Preference to nine tenths of the Mechanics who have worked here.”

The Museum holds a photocopy of a rare issue of an African American newspaper from 1897 – The Wilson Blade. Our friends in Wilson Library’s North Carolina Collection helped us try to find out more details about this paper. We believe it was only published for a few years (perhaps 1897-1900), by S. A. Smith. We also believe this was the same S. A. Smith who was elected principal of the Wilson Colored Graded School in 1896 (The Daily Times, Wilson, NC, 1896-05-29). The issue contains items typical of papers from this time period: state, local, and personal news; advertisements; a train schedule. There’s also an article on a meeting of the Freedman’s Aid Society and Southern Education Society.

Special thanks goes to Wilson County Public Library, whose staff helped facilitate getting these items online. You can view all of the items digitized for the Museum on DigitalNC.


Swaringen Parole Pass from Stanly County Museum

One of the more recent items we’ve digitized from the Stanly County Museum is the “Copy of Robert E. Lee’s Farewell Address and Parole Slip of Confederate Soldier E. S. Swaringen, 1865.” It’s a self-explanatory title, and despite the historic nature of Lee’s address the Parole was probably of equal or more import to Swaringen.  The well-worn parole pass is pictured below.

LeeFarewellAddress_002a

Dated April 10, 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Va., the pass reads: “The Bearer, Sargt E. S. Swaringen of Co. “I” 52nd Regt. of N. C. D., a Paroled Prisoner of the Army of Northern Virginia, has permission to go to his home, and there remain undisturbed.” It is signed S[amuel]. Lilly.

After Lee’s surrender, over 28,000 parole passes like this one were given out to Confederate soldiers who agreed not to fight — who would give up their arms and proceed home. The blank passes were printed in the field, the operation being directed by Major General John Gibbon who recalled the difficulty of producing so many in such a short period of time. It’s interesting to think about printing logistics compared with an event as momentous as the end of a war. Printing and filling out those passes would be like supplying every person in the city of Sanford NC with a small form within 24 hours.

E. S. Swaringen, the bearer of the pass, was Eli Shankle Swaringen or Swearingen (1836-1913) of Stanly County, North Carolina. The Swaringen family was and is prominent in Stanly County; William Swaringen was one of the first justices of the peace. During the Civil War, the 52nd Regiment, of which Eli was a part, was organized on 22 April 1862 near Raleigh. You can read a more extensive description of the Regiment’s activities in Volume 3 of the Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-’65, p. 223 [271 online].

Swaringen and family are buried at Randall United Methodist Church in Norwood, North Carolina, and his tombstone, albeit slightly hard to read, is pictured here.

You can see more Stanly County Museum items at digitalnc.org.


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