This week we have the final 35 newspaper titles for this project up on DigitalNC! Over the past 11 months we have uploaded over 2.4 million pages of North Carolina newspapers – bringing our total number of newspaper pages on DigitalNC to 4,175,076 and our total number of titles on DigitalNC to 1,161 – all freely available to anyone! In this closing batch we have our first paper from Bower, North Carolina (which you may know as Clemmons today) and an article in the Union Republican about Stokes County’s would be Wright brother: Jacob A. Hill.

Jacob Hill, Winston-Salem Journal, March 9, 1902

Before Orville and Wilbur’s iconic first flight in 1903, the race to create a manned flying machine was fiercely competitive. One of the contenders was a man from Vade Mecum Springs named Jacob Hill. Hill was born 1862 in Davie County and had been fascinated by the flight of birds ever since he was a child. In 1901 he decided to take that curiosity a little further and solve “the problem of aerial navigation” by building his own dirigible.

Mr. Hill’s machine could have been the first piloted aircraft, but we’ll never know for sure if it could actually fly and be controlled. Momentum ran out when Hill couldn’t secure funding for his invention. According to Thomas Parramore’s First to Fly, witnesses claimed the craft could get off the ground, but couldn’t do much more than hover in place. Even though Hill’s airship became something of a local joke for a time, the legacy of his wild aspirations continues to live on in North Carolina history.

Over the past year, we’ve added 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, we have made 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:

Belhaven

• The Belhaven Pilot (Belhaven, N.C.) – 1948-1957

Bower

• The Olive Leaf (Bower, N.C.) – 1904

Charlotte

• The Weekly Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1886

Greensboro

• The Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1883
• The Greensboro Review (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1881
• The Guilford Herald (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1896

Kings Mountain

• The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.) – 1914-1919

Kinston

• The Daily Free Press (Kinston, N.C.) – 1920-1922

Lenoir

• The Lenoir Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) – 1890-1894

Monroe

• The Monroe Express (Monroe, N.C.) – 1881
• The Monroe Register (Monroe, N.C.) – 1890

Mt. Airy

• The Mt. Airy Watchman (Mt. Airy, N.C.) – 1880
• The Mt. Airy Times (Mt. Airy, N.C.) – 1876-1877

New Bern

• The Republic and Courier (New Bern, N.C.) – 1872-1874
• The True Republican, and Newbern Weekly Advertiser (New Bern, N.C.) – 1810-1811
• The Morning Herald (New Bern, N.C.) – 1807-1808
• Newbern Herald (New Bern, N.C.) – 1809-1810
• The North Carolina Circular, and Newbern Weekly Advertiser (New Bern, N.C.) – 1803-1805
• The Daily Herald (New Bern, N.C.) – 1868
• The Republican & Courier (New Bern, N.C.) – 1871
• Newbern Enquirer (New Bern, N.C.) – 1860
• The Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.) – 1894
• New Berne Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.) – 1894-1895

Salem

• The Farmers’ Reporter (Salem, N.C.) – 1832
• The Salem Observer (Salem, N.C.) – 1867

Salisbury

• North Carolina Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1885-1888

Shelby

• The Highlander (Shelby, N.C.) – 1914-1919
• The Aurora-Highlander (Shelby, N.C.) – 1917

Statesville

• Statesville Christian Advocate (Statesville, N.C.) – 1887-1890

Swan Quarter

• The Hyde County Herald (Swan Quarter, N.C.) – 1941-1956

Taylorsville

• The Mountain Scout (Taylorsville, N.C.) – 1907-1917

Warrenton

• The Indicator (Warrenton, N.C.) – 1867-1868

Winston

• The Union Republican (Winston, N.C.) – 1874-1918
• The Twin-City Daily (Winston, N.C.) – 1889

Winston-Salem

• The Twin-City Daily Sentinel (Winston-Salem, N.C.) – 1916

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.

Thanks to our partner, Greensboro History Museum, a batch containing over 100 additional issues of Grimsley High School’s student newspaper, High Life, as well as nine issues of the Greensboro Daily Workman from the 19th century are now available on our website.

A majority of the High Life issues from this batch are from the 1960s and 1970s. During these years the hippie movement, a movement which featured long hair, advocation of nonviolence and love, as well as folk and rock music, was taking place. Like many parents during this time, one student named Marcia Quigley had a lot to say about individuals, boys in particular, keeping their hair long.

Long Haired Boys Cause Many Unforeseen Problems, May 20, 1968.

The article begins with Quigley discussing the problems of boys having long hair which include them becoming traffic hazards due to their hair dangling in front of or blowing into their eyes, long hair leading to premature baldness, and denied entry to certain buildings. Quigley then goes on to dramatically assert that boys, simply by allowing their hair to grow out, turn from being “honest, dynamic, [and] all-American” to scroungy, upstart hippies with a reputation as a rat. If attacks on their character and driving abilities weren’t enough, the writer also makes sure to include the possibility of being bullied by fellow students and adults. Quigley’s complaint in the May 20, 1968 issue of High Life can be read in its entirety here on our website.

To learn more about the Greensboro History Museum, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please visit our North Carolina Newspaper Collection.

This week we have another 40 titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch we have special editions of Morganton’s The News-Herald that detail the destruction caused to Western North Carolina by “The Great Flood of 1916.”

In July of 1916, two hurricanes hit Western Carolina within a week of each other. The first one came from the Gulf Coast and stalled over the region from the 8^th until the 10^th, and the second made landfall in South Carolina, reached the mountains on the 15^th, and dumped an astounding 22 inches of rain in a 24 hour period.

Asheville Grocery, 1916. Image via ourstate.com

After the storms had passed, the Swannanoa River was a mile wide, the French Broad was four times its normal width, there were over 300 landslides, and the town of Hendersonville was surrounded by a lake. At least 80 people died in the flooding, but since so many people lived in rural areas, the exact number is unknown.

July 18, 1916

July 19, 1916

July 20, 1916

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 Liberty Register (Liberty, N.C.) – 1899-1900
• The Kernersville News (Kernersville, N.C.) – 1883-1888
• Jonesboro Leader (Jonesboro, N.C.) – 1888-1892
• Daily Progress (New Bern, N.C.) – 1860
• The Graphic (Nashville, N.C.) – 1899-1925
• The Constitution (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1880
• The Union Labor Record (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1922-1937
• The Cottage Visitor (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1869
• Carolina Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1831-1832
• The Second Century (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1881
• The News-Herald (Morganton, N.C.) – 1902-1922
• The Greenville Index (Greenville, N.C.) – 1894
• Goldsboro Weekly Argus (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1914-1915
• The Albemarle Enquirer (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1886
• Murfreesboro Index (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1887-1896
• Piedmont Press (Hickory, N.C.) – 1873-1887
• The Hickory Press (Hickory, N.C.) – 1897-1900
• Randolph Regulator (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1876-1879
• The Randolph Sun (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1878
• North Carolina Bulletin (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1856-1857
• The New North State (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1871-1877
• Greensboro North State (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1886-1891
• The Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1885-1889
• Greensboro Telegram (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1910-1911
• The Weekly Index (Henderson, N.C.) – 1868-1869
• The Henderson Index (Henderson, N.C.) – 1870
• The Hustler (Henderson, N.C.) – 1899
• Evening Herald (Henderson, N.C.) – 1900
• The Henderson News (Henderson, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Vance Farmer (Henderson, N.C.) – 1892
• Henderson Daily Dispatch (Henderson, N.C.) – 1916-1923
• Albemarle Sentinel (Edenton, N.C.) – 1839-1840
• Carolina Miscellany (Edenton, N.C.) – 1832
• North-Carolina Miscellany (Edenton, N.C.) – 1833
• The Edenton Clarion (Edenton, N.C.) – 1880-1881
• Edenton Sentinel, and Albemarle Intelligencer (Edenton, N.C.) – 1841
• Albemarle Bulletin (Edenton, N.C.) – 1850-1851
• American Banner (Edenton, N.C.) – 1856
• The Express (Edenton, N.C.) – 1859
• Eastern Courier (Edenton, N.C.) – 1900

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.

This week we have an astounding 80 titles up on DigitalNC! These papers span all across the state, covering 22 of North Carolina’s 100 counties! We have papers from smaller communities, like The Free Press from the town of Forest City (Fun fact: Forest City was originally named “Burnt Chimney” after a house that burned own in the area, leaving only a charred chimney behind). We also have well-established papers from Raleigh, such as The Raleigh Times and Evening Visitor, giving us a cross section of the entire state.

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:

• Raleigh Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1918-1919
• The Davidson Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.) – 1886-1902
• The Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.) – 1902-1922
• Carolina Messenger (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1869-1877
• Goldsboro Messenger (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1878-1883
• The Daily Capital (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891
• The Daily Call (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1889-1896
• The Hayseeder (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1896-1898
• The Daily Dispatch (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1880
• Daily Morning Record (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1881
• Greensboro Evening Telegram (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1897-1900
• Greensboro Telegram (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1900-1910
• Greenville Daily News (Greenville, N.C.) – 1917-1920
• Greenville News (Greenville, N.C.) – 1920-1921
• North Carolina Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1888
• The Live Giraffe (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1852-1859
• The Democratic Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1859-1860
• The Daily Democratic Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1860
• Hale’s Weekly (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1879-1880
• The Golden Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891
• State Prohibition Organ (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1881
• The Advertiser (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1893
• Beans (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1887
• Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1897-1900
• The Daily Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• The Press-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1896
• The Times-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1900
• The Raleigh Times and Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1900
• Daily Industrial News (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1905-1909
• Carolina Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1816-1830
• The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1879-1909
• The Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) – 1882
• The Lenoir Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) – 1882-1898
• The Western North Carolina Times (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1901-1923
• The Free Press (and Forest City Herald) (Forest City, N.C.) – 1915
• The Free Press (Forest City, N.C.) – 1916
• Forest City Courier (Forest City, N.C.) – 1924
• Everything (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1913-1918
• Davidson County News (Lexington, N.C.) – 1897-1898
• The Press and Carolinian (Hickory, N.C.) – 1893-1896
• The Lincoln County News (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1907-1918
• The Catawba County News (Newton, N.C.) – 1911
• The Franklin Press (Franklin, N.C.) – 1903-1906
• The Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1889-1891
• Greensboro Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1891-1892
• Goldsboro Weekly Argus (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1903-1905
• Asheville Daily Gazette (Asheville, N.C.) – 1897-1898
• Asheville Gazette-News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1910-1914
• The Asheville Times (Asheville, N.C.) – 1917
• The Old North State (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1865
• The Sampson Democrat (Clinton, N.C.) – 1892-1901
• The Concord Register (Concord, N.C.) – 1875-1885
• The Democratic Pioneer (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1850-1859
• The Patriot, and Greensborough Palladium (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1827-1829
• Greensborough Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1829-1836
• The Greensborough Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1839-1850
• The Greensboro Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1918-1922
• The Eagle (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1868-1875
• The Concord Sun (Concord, N.C.) – 1876-1877
• The American (Statesville, N.C.) – 1865-1869
• The Statesville American (Statesville, N.C.) – 1870-1886
• The Statesville American and Tobacco Journal (Statesville, N.C.) – 1881
• The Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1872-1890
• Economist and Falcon (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1895-1897
• Asheville News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1851-1865
• The Asheville News and Western Farmer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1868
• The Asheville News and Mountain Farmer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1869
• The Randolph Bulletin (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1905-1915
• The Weekly Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1884-1894
• The State Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• The Asheville Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1899-1900
• The Daily Sun (Asheville, N.C.) – 1888
• The Carthage Blade (Carthage, N.C.) – 1896-1907
• The Dunn Signboard (Dunn, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Harnett Courier (Dunn, N.C.) – 1888-1889
• Asheville Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C) – 1893-1894
• Asheville Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1894
• The Semi-Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1901
• The Clinton Reporter (Clinton, N.C.) – 1873-1874

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.