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Several small town North Carolina newspapers from the 19th century now online

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newspapers

Front page of the Enfield Times in 1873

Much of our newspaper digitization is done from microfilm reels, which typically only have one title on a reel.  However, sometimes a paper does not take up a whole reel and to maximize efficiency, when the reel was created, other small runs of papers are included.  Often those small runs are simply a few issues of very old papers where the only extant know copies number 2 or 3 issues.  This was the case with a reel we digitized this past year for the Bladen Journal.  In addition to the Journal, 13 other titles were on the same reel and all have now been added to DigitalNC!  

The full list includes:

Enfield Times 2 issues, 1873
Tar River Beacon 2 issues, 1876
Greenville Express 2 issues, 1880-1881
Cape Fear Lance  1 issue, 1899
The Beacon  2 issues, 1888
The Enfield Progress 1 issue, 1887
Old Constitution  2 issues, 1870
 Franklinton Weekly 3 issues, 1883, 1886, 1893
The Rural Visitor  7 issues, 1898-1899
 Graham Tribune 1 issue, 1900
The Greenville Index  1 issue, 1894
The Western Reporter  1 issue, 1881

Header of the Graham Tribune 1900 newspaper

The towns the papers represent cover the eastern and western portions of the state, with the oldest issue from 1873 and the most recent from 1900 – over a quarter century of coverage from across the state.

To see more newspapers, check out our North Carolina Newspapers section of the website.  

Bertie County materials now on DigitalNC, including W.S. Etheridge HS yearbook and Hope Plantation materials

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memorabilia underrepresented yearbooks

black and white brochure with a drawing of a plantation style home on it

Our second partner in Bertie County is Historic Hope Plantation, which is a foundation that runs the Hope Plantation historic site in Windsor, NC.  The Foundation was established in 1965 by Bertie County citizens concerned about the fate of the decaying Hope Mansion. According to their website, the site’s “mission is to provide educational, cultural and recreational benefits for the public by the preservation, maintenance and the administration of Historic Hope Plantation as an element of the heritage of the Roanoke-Chowan Region and as an illustration and interpretation of agrarian life in Eastern North Carolina from 1760 to 1840.”Brochure with a color picture of a table with 4 chairs around it

The majority of materials in our first batch from Historic Hope are materials relating to the running of the site, including a very large collection of brochures and programs detailing fundraisers for the museum, as well as visitor pamphlets.  The brochures tell a story themselves, showing how historic house museum interpretation has evolved over time, since the earliest one in 1956 to present day 21st century interpretation that is less decorative arts focused and more focused on telling the story of all those who lived and worked at the plantation, particularly enslaved people.  Some of the staff’s research is also included in the batch, including the court documents of those newly freed men and women who attested their cohabitation before the Civil War ended in order to gain recognition of marriage from the state, as well as research papers written by those affiliated with the site. 

Other related Bertie County materials are also included, particularly a 1954 yearbook from W.S. Etheridge High School which served the Black community of Bertie County before integration.

To learn more about Historic Hope Plantation, visit their partner page.

Issues of The Roanoke Beacon Newspaper, from 1930-1956, Added to DigitalNC

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Black and white front page of English language newspaper with several headshots and photo of bridge

Front page of the August 19, 1938 issue of the Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News discussing the dedication of the Albemarle Sound Bridge.

Additional issues of The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News, published out of Plymouth, NC, are now online thanks to funding from the North Caroliniana Society. This newspaper was recommended for digitization by the Washington County Library which is part of Pettigrew Regional Library. With these additions, you can now search the newspaper from 1899 to 1956.

The News published articles about agriculture (particularly cotton and seafood), social events, politics, and the local schools. Town Topics and Society columns are a great source for the personal news of Washington County residents. There is also coverage of national and international news, which increases through World War II. During that time you’ll see articles that describe the town’s preparations in case of invasion, that recount the activities of local soldiers, and that call for frugality and the purchase of war bonds. 

Later issues in this run cover the aftermath of World War II, distribution of the polio vaccine to Washington County residents, and the debate around segregated schools. 

You can view all of the issues of The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News available on our site through the newspaper’s landing page.

Issues of the Tryon Daily Bulletin from Polk County Added Online

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newspapers

Black and white masthead for the Tryon Daily Bulletin

The Tryon Daily Bulletin’s tagline is the World’s Smallest Daily Newspaper. This masthead is from Aug 15, 1945, with Seth M. Vining as editor.

Issues of the Tryon Daily Bulletin from 1935-1936 and 1942-1951 have been added to DigitalNC, thanks to funding from the North Caroliniana Society. This title was recommended and advocated for by the Polk County Public Libraries.

The Bulletin is a physically smaller paper both in dimensions and page length, and it actually boasts the tagline “The World’s Smallest Daily Newspaper” to this day. Despite (or perhaps because of) its size, the Bulletin focus mostly on local news. You’ll find items about church, school, and sporting events, and articles about marriages, illnesses, births and deaths without many syndicated articles or ads to sift through. As a daily, the paper covered smaller details than you might normally see, as specific as a list of books added to the library. 

Black and white cartoon of standing police officer saying "move on buddy" towards a seated adult writing on a notepad

The Curb Reporter column graphic beginning in the mid 1940s.

The issues scanned from 1942-1951 cover World War II and its immediate aftermath. Unlike many of the Bulletin’s peers, the front page doesn’t focus on national news but rather the war’s impact on the local community. There are calls for donations of items for soldiers, articles announcing events for soldiers visiting from Camp Croft (which was located near Spartanburg, SC), and lists of Tryon-area soldiers and their comings and goings. The paper features a regular front page column called “Curb Reporter” which is a compiled list of brief local, national, and international news items.

You can view all of the issues we’ve scanned of the Tryon Daily Bulletin on the newspaper’s landing page. All of the items we’ve scanned on behalf of the Polk County Public Libraries can be found from the Libraries’ contributor page.

New First Baptist Church Materials Now Available

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Print of the First Baptist Church steeple.

First Baptist Church, M. Williams.

Thanks to our partner, New Bern-Craven County Public Library, several materials from First Baptist Church including five new minute books, “A” building classroom renovation plans, and a beautiful print featuring the church’s steeple are now available on our website.

These minute books cover almost 50 years of church history from 1948 to 1988. A majority of the content present in the books are financial reports, budget proposals, meeting notes, and letters. Renovations for the church’s “A” building classroom were completed by MBF Architects PA in 2014. The print was created by artist M. Williams and depicts the First Baptist Church steeple.

To learn more about the New Bern-Craven County Public Library, please click here.

To view more First Baptist Church materials, please click here.

 

Additional Materials from the Crystal Lee Sutton Collection at Alamance Community College Now Online

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memorabilia photos

photograph of woman with long hair and a serious face behind a podium with sign that says Real vs ReelAlamance Community College houses and cares for a wide variety of materials and artifacts documenting the career of Crystal Lee Sutton, a labor activist who came to national prominence when her story was fictionalized in the movie Norma Rae. Before her passing, Sutton donated the collection to the College and we have helped digitize another batch to share on DigitalNC. You can read about the first batch we worked on in this blog post written in May 2021.

black and white cartoon of large angry person with knife standing over people with lowered heads

“No matter how thin you slice it … It’s still baloney.” Pro-union booklet with J. P. Stevens as the antagonist.

This batch contains ephemera related to Sutton’s part in the strike at J. P. Stevens, Inc. and the fame she received in the wake of Norma Rae.  You’ll find materials about the Stevens strike as well as about unionizing efforts at other companies. There is also pro- and anti-union propoaganda, like the booklet featured at right. 

Of particular note is Sutton’s handwritten description of her treatment at Stevens and the organizing activities that took place at the plant. This first-hand account includes a transcript at the end. 

Sutton spent her career advocating for unionization, frequently speaking about the impact of her efforts and of the movie at schools, festivals, and union chapter meetings. She diligently clipped newspaper articles about union activity around the country.  

There are additional items within the collection that could not be shared online due to copyright and/or privacy concerns. This list gives an inventory of these items, which can be viewed in person at the Alamance Community College Library. In the list you’ll find research papers students wrote about Sutton, correspondence written to Sutton (including correspondence from Sally Field and Gloria Steinem), documents related to lawsuits Sutton was involved in, and a script and publicity shots related to Norma Rae.

To see everything we’ve digitized in this collection, visit the Alamance Community College contributor page on DigitalNC. More information about the Alamance Community College Library can be found on the Library’s home page.

New Issues of the Kings Mountain Herald Newspaper Available Thanks to Mauney Memorial Library

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newspapers

Black and white image of front page of English language newspaper, with photo of school children in uniforms standing on outdoor steps

May 2, 1936 front page of the Kings Mountain Herald.

Today we’re pleased to share that additional issues of the Kings Mountain Herald newspaper have been added to DigitalNC. Issues online now date from 1914-2015 (with some years missing in the 20s and early 30s). It’s one of the most complete runs of community papers available on our site.

Some of the new issues were digitized from microfilm thanks to funding from Mauney Memorial Library. When a partner would like more newspapers digitized than we can provide at no cost, they are welcome to provide funding to subsidize getting them online. The new issues from microfilm span 1918-1919, 1935-1937, 1955-1957, 1959-1965 and 1967. 

In addition to the microfilmed issues, we worked on some extremely fragile issues from 1914-1919. The Library received these as a gift in 2020 and contacted us asking about digitization. We’ve seen a lot of crumbling newspapers in our time, but these may win the prize. Take a look at the image below which shows how they looked as we gently laid them out for scanning.

Stack of yellowed English language newspapers with pieces of broken off paper on the table around the edges

The December 24, 1914 front page of the Kings Mountain Herald.

Like most of the print newspapers we scan, these were shot from above. We attempted to piece back together larger fragments. Each page was carefully turned, but there was quite a bit of “chaff.”  It’s impossible to digitize an item like this without flaking page edges but the staff at Mauney Memorial Library gave us permission to proceed for the sake of making this physical object useful. These may be the only known extant issues from those years, which document World War I and its immediate aftermath, and they are now broadly available.

You can view all of the issues of the Kings Mountain Herald, and also see all of the items digitized for Mauney Memorial Library on the Library’s contributor page.

 

Over 100 videos from UNC-Pembroke now on DigitalNC

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moving images underrepresented

Over 100 videos from UNC-Pembroke, transferred primarily from U-Matic and VHS, are now available on DigitalNC. Thanks to our colleagues in the Southern Folklife Collection, these audiovisual materials were digitized utilizing funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

screenshot from WPSU-TV promo showing a graphic of the main UNCP building

Screenshot from a WPSU-TV promo that aired in 1995

The films cover a range of topics, from promotional films about degree programs at the school, to graduation videos from the 1980s and 1990s.  Some of the films document a trip to Georgia to do a cemetery cleanup at the Croatan Indian Memorial Cemetery.

A substantial portion of the videos are from student produced programming including the Pembroke Forum, and Crosscurrents.

There are also several shows produced by students at Robeson Community College, including RCC Today and Robeson Watch.

To view all materials on DigitalNC from UNC-Pembroke, visit their partner page here.  To view more films and other audio-visual materials from around NC, visit our Sights and Sounds collection.

Call for Nominations – Newspaper Digitization 2021-2022

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news newspapers

Black and white front page of an English language newspaper with photo of one-story building

It’s time for our annual round of microfilmed newspaper digitization! As in previous years, we’re asking cultural heritage institutions in North Carolina to nominate papers from their communities to be digitized. We’re especially interested in:

  • newspapers covering underrepresented regions or communities, and
  • newspapers that are not currently available in digital form elsewhere online.

If you’re interested in nominating a paper and you work at a cultural heritage institution that qualifies as a partner, here’s what to do:

  • Check out our criteria for selecting newspapers, listed below.
  • Verify that the newspaper you’d like to see digitized exists on microfilm*. Email us (digitalnc@unc.edu) if you’re not sure.
  • Be prepared to talk with the rights holder(s) to gain written permission to digitize the paper and share it online. We can give you advice on this part, if needed.
  • Review the Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm listed below.
  • Fill out the nomination form. 

Nominations will be taken on an ongoing basis, however don’t wait! We typically get many more requests than we can accommodate. Please contact us at digitalnc@unc.edu with questions. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm

Titles to be digitized will be selected using the following criteria:

  • Does the newspaper document traditionally underrepresented regions or communities?
  • Does the newspaper include significant coverage of the local community or largely syndicated content?
  • Does the newspaper come from an area of the state that has little representation on DigitalNC? (Titles that have not previously been digitized will be given priority. Here’s a title list and a map showing coverage.)
  • Are the images on microfilm legible, or is it difficult to read the text?
  • Is the institution willing to obtain permission from the current publisher or rights holder(s) to digitize issues and make them freely available online?

* What about print newspapers? These are much more costly to scan – we only work with a very limited number. Please get in touch (digitalnc@unc.edu) if you’d like to talk through options for digitizing print newspapers.

Issues from 1951 of the Carolina Times are now on DigitalNC

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newspapers underrepresented

Thanks to funding from an IDEA grant from UNC Libraries, the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is pleased to now have the full run of 1951 issues of the Carolina Times digitized.  The issues from 1951 were never microfilmed, so they were not included in previous projects to digitize the newspaper which were done from film.

Front Page of July 21, 1951 Carolina Times

 The Carolina Times, edited by Louis Austin from 1927 to 1971, was a paper of national significance. Targeted primarily to the African American community in Durham, the Times covered the long struggle for equal rights for all Americans. The newspaper’s motto was “The Truth Unbridled,” an accurate description of Austin’s honest and forthright depiction of racial injustice in North Carolina and beyond.  It ceased publication in 2020, after just over a century of being the voice of the African American community in Durham and the wider state and South.  

Front page of June 9, 1951 Carolina Times reads "UNC MUST ADMIT NEGROES"

1951 was an pivotal year in many ways for the Civil Rights movement.  It was in June 1951 that UNC finally allowed Black students admission to the school, with admission of Harvey Beech, J. Kenneth Lee, and Floyd McKissick into the law school.  Headlines from the paper throughout the year speak to other efforts to integrate other institutions of higher education, the fight for better funding for Black educational institutions, and early efforts at integration of primary education institutions.  Other topics, including the presence of the Ku Klux Klan across North Carolina and the violence of white supremacy, Jim Crow’s impact on all aspects of Black life, and the work of so many Black North Carolinians to fight the system are all covered throughout the year.  Regular columns on education, religion, and other topics are also included in the paper, as well as Society pages, and regular news about the children of Durham that shows the moments of Black joy to be found in the community as well. 

To view more Black newspapers on DigitalNC, visit our African American Newspapers exhibit.  To learn more about the IDEA grant that funds diversity, equity, and inclusion work at UNC Libraries, visit here. 

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This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.

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