Viewing entries posted in August 2014

Railroad and Logging Photographs from Transylvania County on DigitalNC

Transylvania County Library - Tannery Employees

Over 240 images of railways and the logging industry in Transylvania County can now be found on DigitalNC. This group of photographs, digitized and submitted by the Transylvania County Library, date from the early 20th century on.

These images show logging and tannin operations in Rosman, Brevard, Lake Toxaway and Quebec, which all border on or lie within the Pisgah National Forest. Featured prominently are the trains, necessary to transport lumber, workers, and logs throughout the area. Sawmills, rail cars loaded with lumber, oxen pulling logs near work camps, and steam-powered machinery are in many of the photos, as well as group portraits of lumber and tannery workers.

Gloucester Train Wreck


Class Registration in NC College Yearbooks

Class registration at Winston Salem State University, 1973. From 1973 The New Ram

Class registration at Winston Salem State University, 1973. From 1973 The New Ram

As college students across North Carolina head back to class it seems like a good time to take a peek in our NC College Yearbooks collection and see what registering for classes used to look like before we were able to just sit in our dorm room, or coffee shop, or be halfway across the world to sign up on our computers. Until the early 1990s, to sign up for classes involved a lengthy process of waiting in very long lines and hoping that no one in front of you got into the class you wanted or needed before you did. As the images below show, the overwhelming feeling among students about this process was pure frustration. Today’s students can be glad this is one college tradition they do not experience anymore!

Registration day was a feature in community colleges as well. This is from Wayne Community College's 1974 yearbook, Insights.

Registration day was a feature in community colleges as well. This is from Wayne Community College’s 1974 yearbook, Insights.

 

Registration frustration from UNC-Wilmington's 1966 Fledgling yearbook

Registration frustration from UNC-Wilmington’s 1966 Fledgling yearbook

 

Utilizing the gym floor to figure out classes during registration, from UNC-Chapel Hill's 1982 Yackety yack

Utilizing the gym floor to figure out classes during registration, from UNC-Chapel Hill’s 1982 Yackety yack

 

At least they looked good while waiting in line for registration at NC Agricultural and Technical State University in 1974. from 1974 Ayantee

Registration was a “hassel!!” at NC Agricultural and Technical State University in 1974. from 1974 Ayantee

To view more college yearbooks from North Carolina, visit the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s NC Yearbooks collection here, and welcome back to school students!


Stanly County Scrapbooks, Ledgers, Postcards, and Civil War Letters Now Online

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center recently digitized a variety of materials from the Stanly County Museum in Albemarle, N.C. Prominent in the materials is information on the Jones family.

The Jones Family Materials

Brothers James Read Jones, left, and Will Jones (circa 1861-1862). Their letters, among others, comprise the Jones Family Letter Collection from the Stanly County Museum.

Brothers James Read Jones, left, and Will Jones (circa 1861-1862). Both were soldiers from Indiana in the Union army. Their letters, among others, comprise the Jones Family Letter Collection from the Stanly County Museum.

The  Jones Family Letter Collection was donated to the Stanly County Museum by Janice H. Mitchener. The letters, which number in the hundreds, are correspondence between James Read Jones, his wife Achsah Gilbert Pleas Jones, and various friends and other members of their family. The complete, numbered letters appear first in the collection (Letters 1-169), followed by incomplete letters (Loose 1-51). Biographical information about the Jones family is at the end of the letter collection (Documents 1-5). The numbered letters are roughly grouped–first are James Read Jones’s letters, and then Achsah Gilbert Pleas Jones’s letters (for a chronology, see Document 5).

The correspondence tracks many threads: the couple’s relationship, from infancy to past marriage, and the life and death in 1862 of Will Jones, James Read Jones’s brother. Though the letters date from January 1861 to April 1894, the bulk of the letters date from 1861-1862, when James and his brother served in the Union army. As Documents 2-4 detail, Sergeant J. R. Jones was mustered into Company E, 36th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry, in September 1861. He met Achsah Gilbert Pleas and on April 7, 1862, just after the Battle of Shiloh, they were married. Sgt. Jones was promoted to Second Lieutenant in March 1862 but discharged for an inguinal hernia on December 2, 1862. He then spent much of his life traveling the world as a Quaker minister, while Achsah raised their children in North Carolina. Achsah and Jimmy were married until Achsah’s death in 1898.

The Jones Family materials also includes a scrapbook. The James Read Jones Scrapbook of Writings is a collection of letters and newspaper clippings by or about James Read Jones. Dated materials in the collection range from 1885-1911. The scrapbook includes many newspaper columns and articles written by J. R. Jones, as well as assorted correspondence, photographs, and poems.

School newspapers

Also new are newspapers from two Albemarle schools. There are two late 1930s issues of The Seven Stars newspaper from Albemarle Central Elementary School, and several volumes of The Full Moon newspaper from Albemarle High School:

  • Volume 11, numbers 3-4 (December 14, 1934 – February 14, 1935)
  • Volume 12, numbers 1-6 (October 18, 1935 – May 15, 1936)
  • Volumes 24-33 (October 3, 1958 – May 24, 1967)
  • Volumes 56-63 (September 1990 – June 1998)

Other new materials include:


146 Johnston County high school yearbooks now online

Students at Richard B. Harrison High School on their way to class in 1966.

Students at Richard B. Harrison High School on their way to class in 1966.

Thanks to our new partner, the Johnston County Heritage Center, 146 Johnston County yearbooks from 16 different high schools are now on DigitalNC.  Many of the high schools were closed when Johnston County consolidated and integrated the school system in the 1960s, including three African American schools.

Planning the cover of Smithfield High School's newspaper, 1964

Planning the cover of Smithfield High School’s newspaper, 1964

The high schools include:

1925 Selma High School girls basketball team

1925 Selma High School girls basketball team

To view more high school yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s North Carolina Yearbooks collection.


Scrapbooks from Baseball Star and Pickle Salesman Ray Scarborough Now Online

Ray Scarborough, ca. 1940sFour scrapbooks documenting the life and career of baseball player Ray Scarborough are now available on DigitalNC. Scarborough was a one-time all star and World Series champion who pitched for several major league baseball teams in the 1940s and 1950s. He often received attention from the national press due to his off-season job as a pickle salesman in his hometown of Mount Olive. The scrapbooks are from the local history collection in the Wayne County Public Library.

Scarborough, a native of Mount Gilead, attended Wake Forest, where he was a star pitcher on the baseball team in the late 1930s. He taught high school briefly in Tabor City before beginning his professional baseball career with the Chattanooga Lookouts. In 1942, Scarborough signed his first major league contract with the Washington Senators.

scarborough2Scarborough pitched for the Senators in 1942 and 1943, then spent two years in the Navy. He rejoined the Senators in 1946 and spent the next eight years in the big leagues, pitching for the Senators, the Chicago White Sox, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and finally the Detroit Tigers before retiring in 1953. He was an all star in 1950 and was a member of the Yankees 1952 World Series championship team. Scarborough finished his career with a record of 80-85 and an ERA of 4.13.

The scrapbscarborough4ooks now online include newspaper clippings, photographs, and some memorabilia from Scarborough’s career. In an era when baseball salaries were significantly lower than they are now (Scarborough’s first contract was for $3,800 a
season), players often had to find additional work in winter. Scarborough was a salesman for the Mount Olive Pickle Company, much to the delight of journalists in New York and Boston who called him the “Pickle Peddling Pitcher” and frequently ran cartoons showing him dunking opposing players in pickle barrels. Scarborough played up the connection himself, looking for opportunities to expand the market for Mount Olive’s famous “Carolina Beauty” pickles.

scarborough5


Yearbooks and scrapbooks now online from Wayne County Public Library

The NC Digital Heritage Center has just added more materials online from Wayne County Public Library including scrapbooks covering 4-H activities in Wayne County, Ray Scarborough, a major league baseball player from Mount Olive, and yearbooks from several Wayne County high schools including Goldsboro High School and Nahunta High School.

prizepigs_4HWayne

The 4-H scrapbooks are from the 1950s and show the focus on pigs in Wayne County’s 4-H program at the time. The scrapbooks also show in detail the amount of record keeping that 4-H members had to maintain to participant in the livestock and crop competitions. The scrapbooks include photographs, worksheets, and essays on “What 4-H Means to Me.”

prizesow_4HWayne

To view more materials from Wayne County Public Library on DigitalNC, visit here.


Oldest and Newest Yearbooks from Fayetteville State University Now Online

Pictured below are the women’s basketball teams from both the oldest and newest yearbooks of Fayetteville State University now available on DigitalNC.

The Smithsonian [1927] was published by the State Normal School, which would eventually become Fayetteville State. We also recently digitized the 2012 and 2013 yearbooks, as well as issues of their student newspaper from 2013 and 2014. You can view all of FSU’s yearbooks and newspapers here.

FSU Basketball team, 1927FSU Basketball Team, 2013


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