We’re pleased to share that you can now search more issues of the Elkin Tribune on DigitalNC, thanks to a nomination from the Elkin Public Library. The years added span 1916-1949, but the majority of the issues are from 1942-1949, with only a few scattered issues from the earlier years.

In the issues added from 1931 you’ll see a lot of coverage of the new Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, which still operates in Elkin today. The issues from 1942-1949 cover World War II and its immediate aftermath. There are lists of individuals who served from both Surry and Yadkin counties in the May 8, 1945 issue linked at the beginning of this post. 

You can view all of the issues we’ve published from The Elkin Tribune on the newspaper’s landing page. To view all of the items we’ve worked on relating to Surry County, check out the county’s landing page. 

Thanks to our partner Cleveland County Memorial Library and support from the North Caroliniana Society, issues of The Shelby Daily Star from 1923 to 1936 and 1945 are now available on our website.

Originally named the Shelby Review, the newspaper has provided Shelby, North Carolina with local and national news since 1894. Since its first issue, the paper has gone through several name changes. In the late 1890s, the name was changed to the Cleveland Star, which it remained until 1936 when it was then changed to The Shelby Daily Star. After nearly 50 years, the paper was renamed to The Shelby Star in 1984. In 1998, the paper was renamed a final time to The Star, which it still goes by today.

New York City’s Time Square VE Day Celebration, May 7, 1945.

Two particularly interesting articles from this paper come from 1945 on Victory in Europe (May 8) and Victory Over Japan (August 15) Day. Instead of just providing information on the celebrations of the end of the war in large cities such as New York City, these articles provide the reader with a unique and interesting look into how small towns such as Shelby celebrated VE and VJ Day.

Victory Over Japan Day, August 15, 1945

Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945

As the May 8th article mentions, Victory in Europe Day was “celebrated calmly and prayerfully in Shelby,” with no “boisterous noise-making like that which marked the close of World War I.”  Many people in the town congregated in churches and auditoriums to sing and pray.

The Victory Over Japan Day article on August 15 presents a different scene in the Town of Shelby. After Japan’s surrender was announced, the courthouse square in Shelby, “was a rootin’ tootin’, yelling, laughing, crying mixture of hilariously happy folk and overloaded automobiles. […] The celebration continued far into the night, and business was at a standstill today with stores, banks, and public buildings closed. Most industrial plants closed down last night soon after the victory signal was received.” Other articles discussing the war and the effects it had on the town can be found in the 1945 issues of the newspaper.

To learn more about the Cleveland County Memorial Library, please visit their website.

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

In following with our collaboration with newspapers.com, we have another large batch of newspapers this week! 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 we have over 5,000 issues of The Wilmington Morning Star. The paper was founded in 1867 by former Confederate Major William H. Bernard and played a role in stoking the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. In November of 1898 a biracial government was legitimately elected in Wilmington, which the paper claimed to be fraudulent. Earlier that year, Daily Record editor, Alexander Manly, published an article proposing that it was possible for white women to be attracted to black men. The Morning Star found this to be “vile and slanderous” and riled a mob of angry white supremacists to burn down the paper’s office then claim that they had not started the violence. The following clippings are from November 9, 10, and 11. The day before the massacre, the day of, and the day after.

Here are the rest of this week’s additions:

• Weekly Progress (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864-1867
• The Raleigh Minerva (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1810-1821
• Daily Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1873-1886
• The Raleigh Register (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1830-1861
• The Raleigh Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1876-1880
• The Raleigh Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1911-1912
• The North Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1892-1908
• The Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1899-1905
• The Raleigh Post (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1900
• The Times-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1895-1900
• The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1919
• The Raleigh Enterprise (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1904-1907
• Raleigh Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1871-1915
• The Daily Progress (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1865-1867
• Asheville Gazette-News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1898-1915
• Asheville Daily Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1891
• The Press-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891-1898
• The Raleigh Evening Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1906
• The Progressive Farmer and Southern Farm Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1913-1916
• The Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1898-1922
• The Daily Conservative (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864-1865
• The Newbern Gazette (New Bern, N.C.) – 1764-1801
• The Wilmington Herald (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1865
• Newbern Weekly Progress (New Bern, N.C.) – 1862-1863
• The State Gazette of North-Carolina (New Bern, N.C.) – 1797-1799

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.

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 are the following:

1. The Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1867-1901
2. Carolina Centinel (New Bern, N.C.) – 1818-1822
3. The Newbernian (New Bern, N.C.) – 1843-1848
4. Newbern Spectator (New Bern, N.C.) – 1834
5. New Berne Daily Times (New Bern, N.C.) – 1866-1874
6. The Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1890-1907
7. The New Era and Commercial Advertiser (New Bern, N.C.) – 1854-1859
8. Daily Progress (New Bern, N.C.) – 1858-1861
9. The Carolina Farmer and Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1871-1874
10. The Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.) – 1882-1914
11. The Morning New Bernian (New Bern, N.C.) – 1916-1917
12. The Encyclopedian Instructor and Farmer’s Gazette (Edenton, N.C.) – 1785-1801
13. The Herald of the Union (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1865
14. The Daily Herald (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1854-1861
15. The Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1892-1896
16. The New Bern Sun Journal (New Bern, N.C.) – 1920-1922
17. New Berne Weekly Journal (New Bern, N.C.) – 1884-1913
18. Saturday Record (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1915-1937
19. North-Carolina Gazette (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1769-1800
20. The Daily Dispatch (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1865-1866
21. The New Bernian (New Bern, N.C.) – 1921-1924
22. North Carolina Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1874-1909
23. The Daily Progress (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1862-1864
24. The Raleigh News (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1872-1880
25. The Friend of Temperance (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1868-1879
26. Newbern Sentinel (New Bern, N.C.) – 1834-1837
27. Weekly Conservative (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1864-1865
28. The Farmer and Mechanic (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1905
29. The Raleigh Microcosm (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1838-1843
30. The Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1897-1899
31. The Harbinger (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1902-1904
32. The Daily Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1892-1893
33. The Raleigh Evening Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1905-1908
34. The Evening Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1908-1910
35. The Raleigh Daily Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1910
36. The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1906-1922
37. The Wilmington Post (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1867-1877
38. The Evening Dispatch (Wilmington, N.C.) – 1914
39. The Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1879-1881
40. The Friend and Templar (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1876-1880

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.