Thanks to our partner, Durham County Library, a batch containing new blueprints, drawings, Festival for the Eno posters, and maps are now available to view on DigitalNC. There are several interesting materials from this batch, including blueprints for the Durham Colored Library and Juvenile Delinquents and Probation, 1950-1968 maps.

In 1916, John Merrick and Dr. Aaron M. Moore established the Durham Public Library in a building owned by Merrick at the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets. While the city of Durham, and later Durham County, provided appropriation for the library, the amounts were meager which meant they relied heavily on community support. In 1925, Hattie B. Wooten–the first librarian–began enacting her plan to increase circulation and promote the library. Her three-point plan was to promote the library as a place of interest for visitors, invite all community groups to host their meetings at the library, have the library placed in the Negro Yearbook.

Successful in her plan, the popularity of the library increased so much that they outgrew their space in Merrick’s building. Unfortunately, it was not until the late 1930s that they were finally able to make headway on relocating. In 1939, the library’s board of trustees passed a resolution to build a new library building that would be located at the corner of Umstead and Fayetteville. While significant sums were donated by several individuals including Dr. Stanford L. Warren who donated $4,000, the new building was financed primarily through a $24,000 loan from the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. In 1939, architect R. R. Markley drew up and revised the blueprints for the Durham Colored Library, which are part of this batch. The new library building, named in honor of Dr. Stanford L. Warren, opened January 17, 1940 and continues to serve patrons today.

To learn more about Durham County Library, visit their website.

To browse more materials from Durham County Library, visit their contributor page here.

Information about the Stanford L. Warren Library / Durham Colored Library was collected from the Durham County Library’s online exhibit, “The History of the Stanford L. Warren Library.”

Thanks to our partner, Durham County Library, batches containing maps related to Durham Urban Renewal projects and several new years of Festival for the Eno posters are now available to view on DigitalNC.

Durham Urban Renewal

In 1958, the Durham Redevelopment Commission was established with the goal to eliminate “urban blight” and improving the city’s infrastructure to accommodate the increased usage of personal motor vehicles. In 1961, work began on the Durham Urban Renewal projects which targeted seven areas in the city. Six of these seven areas were in Durham’s Black neighborhoods such as Hayti and Cleveland-Holloway, and affected nearly 12% of the city’s population. Originally slated to last for 10 years the project dragged on for nearly 15, and was ultimately never finished. By its end, the Durham Urban Renewal projects decimated several of Durham’s Black neighborhoods—razing over 4,000 households and 500 businesses.

Fourteen years ago, in 2010, we digitized over 1,500 materials from Durham County Library’s Urban Renewal Records. This initial batch, which was revisited in 2019 by staff to improve its accessibility, included photographs and appraisals for properties slated for demolition during the project, studies, reports, brochures, and clippings spanning nearly 20 years. Our latest batch of materials from Durham County Library expands the exhibit to include maps from the following Durham Urban Renewal projects: Proposed Redevelopment of Project NCR 54, Crest Street Redevelopment Area, Hayti-Elizabeth Street Renewal Area, Hayti-Elizabeth Street Redevelopment Area, and the North Carolina College Project.

Festival for the Eno

For over 40 years, the Eno River Association has been organizing the Festival for the Eno. The festival is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of North Carolina’s rich and varied cultures while also offering hands-on learning opportunities. When not attending one of the many stage performances, attendees can engage in activities such as wheel throwing, watching a grist mill grinding corn, weaving, urban farming, and even jam sessions.

This section features only four posters, but we have over 70 beautiful Festival for the Eno posters available for viewing on our website here. If you find yourself wishing you could listen to the performances listed on these posters, you can access recordings of Festival performances all the way back to 1984 through the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

To learn more about Durham County Library, visit their website.

To view more materials related to Urban Renewal in Durham, view our Durham Urban Renewal Records exhibit linked here.

To browse more materials from Durham County Library, visit their contributor page here.

To browse materials in the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley Collection housed at UNC, view the finding aid here.

Information in this post was gathered from Alyssa Putt’s “Durham Urban Renewal Records Have Been Renewed” DigitalNC blog post from 2019 and the Festival for the Eno website.