Three textile workers pictured in the August 10, 1923 issue of The Charlotte Herald.

Six newspaper titles from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have recently come out of copyright, meaning that they are now available digitally in our Newspapers of North Carolina collection. Geographically spanning the whole state, these titles come from as far east as Fairfield, west as Hayesville, north as Leaksville and Madison, and south as Maxton. 

In the United States, copyright expires for some types of published materials a certain time period after their publication. In 2022, many materials published in the U. S. before 1927 are now out of copyright. Each year that boundary year moves forward by 1; in 2023 the boundary will be “published before 1928.” This is one of the reasons many sites like ours share a lot more materials published before that moving target. In addition, we have a workflow where certain types of publications from 1927-1963 undergo copyright review where we determine if they are likely to be out of copyright and low risk to publish online.

Because of the forward movement of the copyright boundary year and some other reasons related to fair use, we’ve been able to add the newspapers listed below to DigitalNC. These titles were also selected to help bolster representation of certain geographic areas on our site. In content, these issues feature many highlights, including descriptions of prohibition-era beer busts in Hayesville and a comical column of national news from Maxton.

The full list of titles includes:

• The Scottish Chief (Maxton, N.C.) – 1925-1956
• The Clay County News (Hayesville, N.C.) – 1926-1938
• The Messenger (Madison, N.C.) – 1924-1933
• Hyde County Messenger (Fairfield, N.C.) – 1926-1930
• Tri-City Daily Gazette (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1883-1924
• The Charlotte Herald (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1923-1925

You can browse all of our digital newspapers by location, type, and date in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To learn more about UNC Chapel Hill’s collections, you can visit their partner page or their libraries’ website.

This week we have another 70 newspapers up on DigitalNC! These titles span 32 towns and almost as many counties! This batch also includes our first additions from the towns of Waco, Pores Knob, La Grange, Leaksville, Mount Olive, and Manson!

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:

• Morehead City Weekly News (Morehead City, N.C.) – 1892
• Pearson’s Papers (Boomer, N.C.) – 1923
• Mount Olive Advertiser (Mount Olive, N.C.) – 1898-1900
• The Fool=Killer (Pores Knob, N.C.) – 1925-1929
• The Newton Enterprise (Newton, N.C.) – 1879-1918
• The Old North State (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1866-1868
• The Hendersonville News (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1919
• The Littleton Courier (Littleton, N.C.) – 1892
• The Magnolia Advertiser (Magnolia, N.C.) – 1872
• The Morning News (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1887
• King’s Weekly (Greenville, N.C.) – 1901
• Farm and Fireside (High Point, N.C.) – 1872
• La Grange Vidette (La Grange, N.C.) – 1875
• The Davidson Record (Lexington, N.C.) – 1876
• The Home Companion (Manson, N.C.) – 1897
• The Morganton Star (Morganton, N.C.) – 1885-1889
• The Rural Chronicle (Waco, N.C.) – 1884
• Surry Weekly Visitor (Mount Airy, N.C.) – 1872-1880
• The Mount Airy News (Mount Airy, N.C.) – 1896-1914
• The Laurinburg Enterprise (Laurinburg, N.C.) – 1880
• Scotchman and Observer (Laurinburg, N.C.) – 1873
• The Madison Leader (Madison, N.C.) – 1888
• The Madison News (Madison, N.C.) – 1890
• The Mocksville Herald (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1912
• Mocksville Enterprise (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1917-1938
• The Lamp Post (Marion, N.C.) – 1881
• The Western Enterprise (Marion, N.C.) – 1862
• The Citizen (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1859-1860
• Albemarle Southron and Union Advocate (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1860
• The Trumpet (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1886-1888
• The Lincoln County News (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1919-1924
• The Weekly News (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1855
• American Eagle (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1857-1860
• Louisburg Union & North Carolina Miscellany (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1846-1847
• The Raleigh News (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1877-1878
• The Daily Call (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1889
• The Weekly Raleigh Register, and North Carolina Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1842
• The Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1902-1903
• The Weekly Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1903-1904
• The Lumberton Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1904-1905
• The Asheville Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1904-1905
• Asheville Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1900, 1926
• Asheville Gazette (Asheville, N.C.) – 1900
• The Milton Gazette (Milton, N.C.) – 1892-1893
• The Milton Herald (Milton, N.C.) – 1898-1900
• The Milton Advertiser (Milton, N.C.) – 1886-1891
• The Leaksville Reporter (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1888
• Leaksville Herald (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1860-1861
• Dan Valley Echo (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1885-1887
• The Leaksville Gazette (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1883
• Herald of the Times (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1835-1836
• The Elizabeth City News (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1891-1894
• The Albemarle Register (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1874-1875
• The Weekly Transcript (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1867
• North Carolina Native Sentinel (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1856
• The Falcon (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1881-1890
• The Daily Courier (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1860
• The Gleaner (Fayetteville, N.C.) -1883
• Wide Awake (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1876
• The Cape Fear Banner (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1880
• Campaign Herald (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1876
• Solid South (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1894
• The Journal (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1888
• The Statesman (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1873-1874
• Dollar Weekly (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1886
• The Fayetteville Index (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1909-1914
• The Fayetteville News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1866-1868
• North Carolina Gazette (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1873-1880
• The North Carolina Gazette (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1892-1893
• Evening News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1886-1887

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.