Another newspaper title has been added to our Newspapers of North Carolina collection courtesy of our partner, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This batch of The Scottish Chief, presumably named for the part of Maxton, N.C., that lies in Scotland County, contains issues from 1915 to 1956.

One of the ongoing columns in the paper is “This Week in Washington,” which recaps national news from the Capitol. Some of the articles are all business, like the April 5, 1933 column describing President Roosevelt’s efforts to aid farmers. Others are more light-hearted; the one from December 24, 1934 that begins:

“Lest the reader of this column get the impression that nothing but serious matters of weighty moment are talked about in Washington, here are a few paragraphs of casual gossip heard in the corridors of public buildings and on the street corners.”

The gossip edition also has a section called “Interesting Women” that lists some of the jobs women in Washington were doing, such as advocating for uniform labor laws across states, increasing job opportunities for women, and selecting the supply of books sent to sea with the Navy. 

To see more of “This Week in Washington” and other news from Maxton, you can look at all digitized issues of The Scottish Chief here. You can also browse our entire Newspapers of North Carolina collection by location, type, and date. To learn more about UNC Chapel Hill and its collections, visit the UNC Libraries website and their partner page.

Thanks to our partner, Elon University, we’ve added another newspaper title to our Newspapers of North Carolina collection. The Christian Sun has been published around the state and elsewhere, including Hillsborough, N.C., Pittsboro, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Suffolk, V.A. This batch of issues ranges from 1844-1908, covering the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. 

Although this paper comes from one of the most turbulent times of our nation, the publishers seem less interested in breaking news than in spiritual musings and agriculture. On the front page of the October 18, 1861 issue (six months after the beginning of the war), you can read stories like, “The Christian’s Harvest,” “Fate of Those Who Reject the Gospel,” “Farm and Garden: Value of a Shelter for Sheep,” and the exciting “Efforts of Chloroform on Bees.”

A few stories on the front page do make reference to the war, such as “Good for the Thirsty Soldier,” which recommends staying hydrated on long marches with cold coffee. “After a meal,” the article says, “take the coffee grounds, boil them over again, and pour off into your canteen and let it cool for your next march. It is not only nutritive and stimulating, but it will quench the thirst more effectually than water.”

October 18, 1861

You’ll have to go deeper into the issue to find more detailed news about the battles, though the briefs aren’t what we’d think of as “objective” journalism by today’s standards.

“Probably [McClellan] learned that the Southerners were expecting him and were too well prepared to meet him,” the article boasts.

Perhaps because of the religious leanings of the paper, some of the best articles are completely detached from the timely “news” that contemporary readers are used to; take this pseudo-anarchical argument entitled, “Evils of Creeds. Their Origin.” from September 24, 1851, for example. This article is a bookend to an ongoing series on “Christian union” from the preceding issues, and it summarizes the conclusion that sin, the cause of division within the branches of Protestantism, is also the underlying force of human laws.

To see even more articles on Christian union, the war, and life in the South during this period, you can look at all issue of The Christian Sun here. You can also explore other titles in our Newspapers of North Carolina collection. To see more materials from Elon University, visit their partner page and their website.

Many more issues of The Daily Record from Dunn, N.C., have been added to our site thanks to our partnership with the Dunn Area History Museum and Campbell University. These daily issues span from 1963-1965 and include an assortment of local, state, and national news.

One signature of The Daily Record during these years seems to be the cultivation of sensational, attention-grabbing headlines. Typically printed in fonts even bigger than the masthead, these headlines invoke the kind of high-stakes drama and mystery that you can’t just walk past. This seems to be especially true when the story involves litigation:

In case you’re curious, the “other woman” in the love triangle was “the attractive dark-haired wife of a St. Paul truck-diver.”

But just because the headlines are flashy doesn’t mean the rest is all fluff. Here’s one story that gets better the more you read:

While this event in itself is certainly a newsworthy crime, the details build on the excitement set up by the headline. The subtitle of this article is “Youth Makes Escape in Souped-Up Car.” It goes on to specify a “freckled, red-haired youth” who made a “noisy getaway” in “a souped up automobile equipped with dual exhausts and loud mufflers.” To prepare for this robbery, he dressed up in “white tennis shoes, a bulky cardigan sweater, yellow shirt and black trousers.”

Lest you think this young man was a particularly talented bandit, the article notes that this branch of the First Union National Bank had been robbed three times in the past five years. He also apparently dropped $4,000 of his haul (contained in brown paper bags) as he fled from the bank.

While the entertainment value of these stories is high, the paper also has a lot of coverage of the national issues from 1963-65, which were numerous. Several issues reference the “Red Scare” of communism, the Vietnam War, Barry Goldwater’s run for President, and the tension of the Civil Rights Movement, albeit with a somewhat unsympathetic angle:

You can see all issues of The Daily Record by year in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from the Dunn Area History Museum, visit their partner page and their website. To learn more about Campbell University, you can also visit their partner page and website.

Another newspaper title, The Roseland Enterprise, has been added to our North Carolina Newspapers collection thanks to our partner, the Moore County Library. 

This issue, from March 1, 1897, seems primarily focused on convincing Northern readers to move to Roseland, N.C. The Roseland Land Company, based in Boston, emphasizes the natural beauty of the North Carolina sandhills and its potential for fruit and vegetable growers.  

“Among the many advantages of the recent Civil War which the South will reap in all the coming years, and which will eventually compensate her for the enormous losses sustained by the conflict, is the development of her great natural resources⁠—her minerals and fertile lands⁠—by thousands that would never know their value but for the enforced explorations made necessary in the trying days of the sixties,” the front page begins. 

You can see the full issue here or browse our full collection of newspapers by type, date, and location. For more materials from Moore County Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.