Thanks to our partner, Greensboro History Museum, a batch containing over 100 additional issues of Grimsley High School’s student newspaper, High Life, as well as nine issues of the Greensboro Daily Workman from the 19th century are now available on our website.

A majority of the High Life issues from this batch are from the 1960s and 1970s. During these years the hippie movement, a movement which featured long hair, advocation of nonviolence and love, as well as folk and rock music, was taking place. Like many parents during this time, one student named Marcia Quigley had a lot to say about individuals, boys in particular, keeping their hair long.

Long Haired Boys Cause Many Unforeseen Problems, May 20, 1968.

The article begins with Quigley discussing the problems of boys having long hair which include them becoming traffic hazards due to their hair dangling in front of or blowing into their eyes, long hair leading to premature baldness, and denied entry to certain buildings. Quigley then goes on to dramatically assert that boys, simply by allowing their hair to grow out, turn from being “honest, dynamic, [and] all-American” to scroungy, upstart hippies with a reputation as a rat. If attacks on their character and driving abilities weren’t enough, the writer also makes sure to include the possibility of being bullied by fellow students and adults. Quigley’s complaint in the May 20, 1968 issue of High Life can be read in its entirety here on our website.

To learn more about the Greensboro History Museum, please visit their website.

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

“The Big Idea,” 1953

Issues of the Charlotte Labor Journal and Dixie Farm News from 1935-1953 are now available in our North Carolina Newspapers collection thanks to our partner the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. According to the Library of Congress, the paper was published weekly as the “organ of the Charlotte Central Labor Union.”

The first issue we have online, from January 24, 1935, was published less than a year after the General Strike of 1934, when between 300,000 and 500,000 textile workers along the East Coast (most from North and South Carolina) protested working conditions. Despite the large turnout and national recognition, though, workers in the Southern states did not see their demands met, which made many members lose faith in their unions.

Portraits of the AFL Council from January 24, 1935

The issues that we have online roughly follow the trajectory of organized labor in the state overall; the last issue we have is from 1953, when Operation Dixie officially ended, ultimately failing to unite textile workers into a single large union. Part of that failure stemmed from opposition by the AFL, the union behind the Charlotte Labor Journal.

To see more materials from UNC Charlotte, visit their partner page or their library website. To see more digital content about labor unions in North Carolina, click here.

This week we have another 70 newspapers up on DigitalNC! These titles span 32 towns and almost as many counties! This batch also includes our first additions from the towns of Waco, Pores Knob, La Grange, Leaksville, Mount Olive, and Manson!

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:

• Morehead City Weekly News (Morehead City, N.C.) – 1892
• Pearson’s Papers (Boomer, N.C.) – 1923
• Mount Olive Advertiser (Mount Olive, N.C.) – 1898-1900
• The Fool=Killer (Pores Knob, N.C.) – 1925-1929
• The Newton Enterprise (Newton, N.C.) – 1879-1918
• The Old North State (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1866-1868
• The Hendersonville News (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1919
• The Littleton Courier (Littleton, N.C.) – 1892
• The Magnolia Advertiser (Magnolia, N.C.) – 1872
• The Morning News (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1887
• King’s Weekly (Greenville, N.C.) – 1901
• Farm and Fireside (High Point, N.C.) – 1872
• La Grange Vidette (La Grange, N.C.) – 1875
• The Davidson Record (Lexington, N.C.) – 1876
• The Home Companion (Manson, N.C.) – 1897
• The Morganton Star (Morganton, N.C.) – 1885-1889
• The Rural Chronicle (Waco, N.C.) – 1884
• Surry Weekly Visitor (Mount Airy, N.C.) – 1872-1880
• The Mount Airy News (Mount Airy, N.C.) – 1896-1914
• The Laurinburg Enterprise (Laurinburg, N.C.) – 1880
• Scotchman and Observer (Laurinburg, N.C.) – 1873
• The Madison Leader (Madison, N.C.) – 1888
• The Madison News (Madison, N.C.) – 1890
• The Mocksville Herald (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1912
• Mocksville Enterprise (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1917-1938
• The Lamp Post (Marion, N.C.) – 1881
• The Western Enterprise (Marion, N.C.) – 1862
• The Citizen (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1859-1860
• Albemarle Southron and Union Advocate (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1860
• The Trumpet (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1886-1888
• The Lincoln County News (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1919-1924
• The Weekly News (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1855
• American Eagle (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1857-1860
• Louisburg Union & North Carolina Miscellany (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1846-1847
• The Raleigh News (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1877-1878
• The Daily Call (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1889
• The Weekly Raleigh Register, and North Carolina Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1842
• The Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1902-1903
• The Weekly Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1903-1904
• The Lumberton Argus (Lumberton, N.C.) – 1904-1905
• The Asheville Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1904-1905
• Asheville Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1900, 1926
• Asheville Gazette (Asheville, N.C.) – 1900
• The Milton Gazette (Milton, N.C.) – 1892-1893
• The Milton Herald (Milton, N.C.) – 1898-1900
• The Milton Advertiser (Milton, N.C.) – 1886-1891
• The Leaksville Reporter (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1888
• Leaksville Herald (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1860-1861
• Dan Valley Echo (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1885-1887
• The Leaksville Gazette (Leaksville, N.C.) – 1883
• Herald of the Times (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1835-1836
• The Elizabeth City News (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1891-1894
• The Albemarle Register (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1874-1875
• The Weekly Transcript (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1867
• North Carolina Native Sentinel (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1856
• The Falcon (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1881-1890
• The Daily Courier (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1860
• The Gleaner (Fayetteville, N.C.) -1883
• Wide Awake (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1876
• The Cape Fear Banner (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1880
• Campaign Herald (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1876
• Solid South (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1894
• The Journal (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1888
• The Statesman (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1873-1874
• Dollar Weekly (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1886
• The Fayetteville Index (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1909-1914
• The Fayetteville News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1866-1868
• North Carolina Gazette (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1873-1880
• The North Carolina Gazette (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1892-1893
• Evening News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1886-1887

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.

Title of the The Valdese News newspaper

Civic Groups in the community gathered to create food baskets for the needed in December 1938.

Digital NC is happy to announce the new addition to the newspaper collection, The Valdese News.  Issues from 1938  – 1950 cover small  community of Valdese, North Carolina, located in Western North Carolina. Locals were able to receive the newspaper on weekly on Thursdays until 1949 when the newspaper made a switch to a Wednesday delivery.

Local stories in The Valdese News included stories about the local schools, major improvements within the community and even community service opportunities. In December 1938, local civic groups gathered to create food baskets for the needy within the community. Organizations such as the Colonial Theatre, the Valdese Lions Clubs, and the Valdese Boy Scouts, donated items to help create the baskets for local community members. Community members were also given a special show at the Colonial Theatre as a thank you for their support.

To see other issues of The Valdese News, visit them here.

To view more from our partner, Burke County Public Library, visit there here.

Don’t forget to check out extensive collections of NC Newspapers here.

Thanks to our partner the Alleghany County Public Library, we’ve added several early issues of the Alleghany Times to our Newspapers of North Carolina collection. The issues range from 1933 to 1947 and include local news from Sparta, N.C., as well as some national stories.

One notable front page story is from the February 16, 1933 edition. Right in the center, a headline reads, “Bank of Sparta Robbed of $1,500; Yeggs Enter Through Door of Cellar.” (Apparently, a yegg is a “safecracker or robber.”)

The article goes on to describe how the crooks removed the hinges of the cellar door to enter the safe and used either code-cracking skills or prior knowledge of the safe’s combination to get to the gold.

Strangely, of equal newsworthiness (based on its placement on the front page) was the story of Marion Talley separating from her first husband, Michael Raucheisen (whose name doesn’t appear in the biography linked above because, apparently, the marriage was annulled after a few months). 

And, perhaps even more surprisingly, both of these articles appear above an article detailing an assassination attempt on then-President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The article describes Roosevelt arriving in Miami on a ship, fresh off a cruise through the Bahamas, when Guisseppi Zingara, a brick-maker, fires shots from a pistol at him. Although the President-elect wasn’t hurt, Anton Cermak, then-Mayor of Chicago, was “shot through the body.”

To see all materials from the Alleghany County Public Library (including more papers), you can visit their partner page or take a look at their website.

Front page of the January 12, 1947 announcing a contest looking for NC’s “ideal Catholic family”

Appeal to NC Catholic’s from the Bishop, Bishop Waters, for a fundraiser for the people of post-war Europe during Lent in 1947

Thanks to our new partner, the archives at the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, issues covering 1946-1968 of the North Carolina Catholic, a weekly publication, are now on DigitalNC. The paper, which started publication in 1946, covers news in the Diocese of Raleigh (which at the time covered the whole of the state – in 1971 the Diocese of Charlotte was started which split off the western half of the state) relating to Catholic Church matters, but other local news items as well. Baptisms, weddings and funerals across the Diocese are listed in each issue.  Local and national politics is also heavily covered.  The 1960 presidential election, in which John F. Kennedy was elected as the first President who was Catholic, is covered widely in the paper and has a note in the issue after the election “Hats off to the President!”  Topics such as the Vatican II council, views on birth control and abortion, segregation, secularism, the Cold War and the USSR are all covered in the issues now online.  

To view more North Carolina Newspapers, visit our newspapers site.