This week we have another 38 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch, we have issues spanning 33 years from Oxford, N.C. paper Oxford Public Ledger. In addition to being the county seat for Granville County, Oxford is also home to the first female parachutist and inventor of the ripcord: Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick.

Georgia was born April 8, 1893 and weighed only three pounds at birth, earning her the nickname “Tiny.” She was married at age 12, had a child at 13, and was widowed before she was 15. In 1907, her life changed forever when she saw The Broadwicks and their Famous French Aeronauts perform aerial stunts at the North Carolina State Fair. She left home, joined the Broadwicks travelling show, and was legally adopted by the show owner, Charles Broadwick, making her “Tiny” Broadwick.

Georgia ‘Tiny’ Broadwick, 1911. Via Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

In an exhibition in Chicago the week of September 16, 1912, Broadwick became the first woman to parachute from a plane. In 1914, jumped into Lake Michigan, making her the first woman to parachute into a body of water. Also in 1914, she debuted the ripcord in a parachuting demonstration for the U.S. Army, performing the first planned free-fall jump from an airplane. By the end of her career she is said to have performed over 1,100 jumps.

Wilmington Star, January 10, 1914

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:

• Toisnot Transcript (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1876
• Rocky Mount Progress (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1880
• The Warsaw Brief Mention (Warsaw, N.C.) – 1880
• The Albemarle Observer (Edenton, N.C.) – 1914-1915
• The Messenger (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Times-Herald (Littleton, N.C.) – 1906-1909
• The Maxton Union (Maxton, N.C.) – 1889-1891
• Waynesville Courier (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888-1911
• The Waynesville News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888
• Siler City Leader (Siler City, N.C.) – 1892
• The Troy Times (Troy, N.C.) – 1888
• The Daily News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1886
• The Farmer’s Friend (Morganton, N.C.) – 1898
• The Norlina Headlight (Norlina, N.C.) – 1914-1924
• The Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1889-1901
• Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1901-1911
• Public Ledger and Oxford Banner (Oxford, N.C.) – 1912-1913
• Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1913-1919
• Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1919-1922
• The Tri-Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1869-1872
• The Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1871-1872
• The Salisbury Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881-1883
• The Great Sunny South (Snow Hill, N.C.) – 1898
• The Stovall Courier (Stovall, N.C.) – 1898
• The People’s Paper (Warren Plains, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• Washington Weekly Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• Washington Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1888-1891
• The Roxboro Herald (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1881
• The Person County News (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1882-1883
• Person County Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1893-1896
• The Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1896-1910
• The Roxboro Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1911-1917
• The Argonaut (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1894
• The Selma News (Selma, N.C.) – 1887
• The Messenger (Siler City, N.C.) – 1898-1900
• The Woman’s Right (Wadesboro, N.C.) – 1874
• The Sunny Home (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1881-1883
• The People’s Press (Salem, N.C.) – 1851-1892

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 funding from the State Library of North Carolina’s LSTA Grant and our partner, Halifax County Library System, new issues of The Roanoke News from 1923 to 1944 are now available on our website. This expands our current holding of the paper from 1878 to 1944. The paper, published weekly, primarily features articles on local, North Carolina news such as the completion of the Wright Memorial Bridge.

Wright Bridge Open to Public, April 1931.

Prior to 1931, individuals looking to visit North Carolina’s Outer Banks, or those wishing to visit Dare’s county seat in Manteo, would have had a rather long trip ahead of them. In 1921, the General Assembly passed a $50 million bond issue that was to be used for improving and paving roads that would connect county seats. In addition to these new roads, several concrete bridges were constructed that shortened the distance between places significantly. One of the bridges constructed under the bond was the Wright Memorial Bridge. In April of 1931, the Wright Memorial Bridge was finally opened to the public after 10 years of construction. The bridge spans the entire three mile width across Currituck Sound, connecting Point Harbor to the Outer Banks. The bridge still enjoys heavy usage almost 100 years later.

To learn more about the Halifax County Library System, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.