Issues of The Front Page 1979-1986, “Newspaper for North Carolina’s Gay Community,” Now Online

The Front Page first page with masthead, headline Historic March Peaks Gay Pride Week, and photo of adults holding banner "Triangle Lesbian & Gay Pride"The first 8 years of The Front Page newspaper, from 1979-1986, are now on DigitalNC. The Front Page was published in Raleigh for twenty-six years covering “news and happenings of interest to gay people.”  The paper covered national and local news impacting and of interest to the LGBTQ+ community. There are ads for local businesses that were safe spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals, and a community calendar listed events. There’s also a Q&A column where letters from readers all over the state wrote in with problems or questions to recieve a broad spectrum of personal advice. 

Q-Notes, a prominent Charlotte area LGBTQ+ newspaper and the one Front Page merged with in 2006, published a retrospective of The Front Page and an interview with the Page‘s publisher Jim Baxter in the July 29, 2006 issue. Baxter penned an article in IndyWeek shortly after the paper’s final issue, and it describes parts of his career and the history of Front Page

The paper has been added with kind permission from the publishers and thanks to efforts by staff at the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Duke University. Digitization of this paper was funded by an IDEA Action Grant from UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries. Archived issues of Q-notes are available from our site, and you can view more current content at their site.


34 Newspaper titles from Goldsboro, Greensboro, Hendersonville, and more!

Header from August 18, 1869 issue of Greensboro Union Register

This week we have another 34 titles up on DigitalNC! While this batch focuses heavily on newspapers from Hendersonville, Goldsboro, and Greensboro, it also includes Fayetteville, Henderson, Albemarle, Clinton, Burlington, and our first addition from Bush Hill. Bush Hill (renamed Archdale in 1886) was home to the Annie Florence Petty, who was the first professionally educated and trained librarian in the state of North Carolina. Petty (born 1871) was a founding member of the North Carolina Library Association and, in keeping with her Quaker upbringing, she was also the first secretary of the North Carolina Friends Historical Society. After her prosperous, four-decade long career building the library at the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and other libraries across the state, she retired in 1933 and moved into the family home she shared with her equally successful, chemist sister, Mary Petty.

Mary Petty sitting, reading a book, and Annie Petty standing, reading over her shoulder

Mary (left) and Annie Petty in 1952. Image via uncghistory.blogspot.com

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:

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.


More Durham Technical Community College Profiles & Handbooks Now Available

Thanks to our partner Durham Technical Community College, we’ve updated our collection of college catalog and student handbooks through the 2021-2022 school year and college profiles through the 2019-2020 school year.

A photo collage of students and activities from the Durham Technical Community College student handbook

A photo collage from the front page of the 2020-2021 Durham Technical Community College student handbook

The college catalog and student handbooks include admissions information, important dates for students, tuition information, and other financial details. They also include letters from the President of the college (William G. Ingram from 2018-2020 and J.B. Buxton from 2020-2022). The handbook portion of the documents includes information about student responsibilities, community standards, the code of conduct, and career readiness. 

The college profiles have quantitative data about enrollment and student demographics, including sex, age group, and ethnicity.  They also have information on course selection, degrees, finances, and faculty. 

To see the full collection of Durham Tech handbooks and college profiles, click here. To learn more about Durham Technical Community College, take a look at their partner page or visit their website.


Washington High School Homecoming Queens Rule on in Added Yearbooks

Four students standing side by side with flowers

 Washington High School Homecoming Queens, 1945

Two yearbooks from Washington High School in Raleigh, N.C. have been added to our site thanks to our partner, the Olivia Raney Local History Library. One is a standard edition of The Echo from 1943; the other is a special edition, The Echo Nostalgic Reflections, from 1977

Among the pages of Nostalgic Reflections are a few spreads of Washington High School royalty: homecoming queens throughout the years. Some of the listed winners are Margaret Smith Cooper (1941), Daisy Debnam (Miss Washington High 1946), Ressie Curry (Miss Washington High 1947), Juanita Freeman (1948), Lula Poe (1949), Sarah Frances Sewell (1950), Mary E. Williams (1951), and Mildred McKay (1952). 

A car carrying the homecoming court and queen of Washington High School, 1941

Miss Margaret Smith Cooper, Queen 1941

Portrait of Mildred McKay in a crown with flowers

Mildred McKay, Queen 1942

Next to the homecoming spreads are photos from the alumni dance (1976), as well as championship game information from the school’s football program

Curiously, there doesn’t seem to be any information about who succeeded Mildred McKay as homecoming queen in 1943 in The Echo—school events seem to have been a lower priority for the yearbook’s editors than academics, clubs, and favorite poems

You can see all yearbooks from Washington High School here. To find out more about Olivia Raney Local History Library, visit their partner page or the Wake County website.


More Durham County Maps and Plans Now Available for Viewing on DigitalNC

Thanks to our partner, Durham County Library, several new maps and plans for areas and buildings in Durham County are now available on our website.

The materials in this batch include renovation and addition plans for the George W. Watts Elementary School, a combined public hearing map for a state project on Alston Avenue in Durham, Eno Park plans, and plans for Lake Michie recreation facilities. These plans and maps are a wonderful resource for individuals who are interested in the growth and change of Durham County since the 1960s. 

Designed by the landscape architects and land planners from Coulter Associates in Durham, North Carolina, the Eno Park Phase II master plan is particularly wonderful to look at thanks to its bright colors and neatly labeled areas.

To view more materials from Durham County Library, please click here.

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


Over 30 newspaper titles added to DigitalNC!

Header for July 17, 1867 issue of Hendersonville paper "The Pioneer"

This week we have another 34 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC, including four from Carthage, North Carolina: Former home to the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company.

The “Jones” of the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company was William T. Jones, who was born into slavery and became one of the most well-respected and wealthiest businessmen in Carthage. Born near Elizabethtown in 1833, his father was a plantation owner and his mother was an enslaved person. Prior to the Civil War, he was given his freedom and moved to Fayetteville to work as a painter for a carriage company. It was there that his work was noticed by Thomas Tyson, who convinced him to come to Carthage to work for his fledgling operation in 1857, and by 1859 Jones was made a partner in that company. In 1861, Jones joined the Confederate Army and was subsequently captured by Union forces. While imprisoned at Fort Delaware, Jones began making moonshine from potato peelings and bread crusts and selling it to the Union guards. After Sherman’s March left much of the area devastated, it was the Jones’ moonshine money that allowed the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company to restart production, employing many struggling locals and helping to restart the local economy.

Even though Jones was a captain of industry, North Carolina House of Representatives candidate, and Sunday School teacher with a legacy that lives on in Carthage, it was not widely acknowledged that he wasn’t White. It wasn’t until recently that him being a Black man was recognized as fact and his full story was told.

Tyson & Jones Buggy Company ad from the February 16, 1888 issue of the Southern Protectionist

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:

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.

 


Old-Time Music Audio Recordings and Oral Histories Now Available on DigitalNC

Thanks to our partner, Mars Hill University, over 40 audio recordings which discuss the history of the Appalachia region and old-time music are now available on our website. These recordings include oral histories with singers and musicians such as Dellie Norton; solo and group performances from the Lunsford Festival as well as the Mountain Dance and Folk Festivals in the 1960s and 1970s; jam sessions; and a university talk about the history of old-time music from the Appalachia region.

To learn more about Mars Hill University, visit their website.

To listen to more oral histories and audio recordings, please visit our North Carolina Sights and Sounds Collection.


Introducing our New Satellite Location at Elizabeth City State University

White state of NC outline on blue background with the words North Carolina Digital Heritage Center EastSince 1751, North Carolina newspapers have been one of the most valuable resources for researching our state’s history. They are also one of the most prolific, and demand for newspaper digitization is an area where we struggle even making a dent.

Thanks to funding from the State Library of North Carolina and a new partnership with G. R. Little Library at Elizabeth City State University, that dent just got a little bigger. ECSU is now home to our first satellite location, and the staff there are focused on print newspaper digitization.

In addition to meeting demand, setting up a satellite location in the eastern part of the state will diminish travel time for eastern partners interested in getting papers from their collections online. All materials will be scanned on a new large format scanner by the digitization technicians at ECSU. Then, after the images have metadata, they’ll be sent to Chapel Hill where they’ll be uploaded to the newspaper site on our page.

Our ECSU colleagues are currently working on papers from Northampton and Bertie counties. We’ll be working with our easternmost partners for more materials to scan in the coming months.

Three adults in face masks look at computer screen near very large scanner, with several other adults in the background.

Zaina Goggins, Vicky Tillett, and Barry Ward work with a new scanner at ECSU Libraries.


24 Newspaper titles added to DigitalNC

Header for November 29, 1787 issue of The State Gazette of North-Carolina

This week we have another 24 titles up on DigitalNC, including one of the state’s oldest papers: The State Gazette of North-Carolina!

The State Gazette was founded by Abraham Hodge and Andrew Blanchard in 1785. Hodge, born 1755 in the colony of New York, worked as a patriot printer during the American Revolution and even operated George Washington’s traveling press at Valley Forge in 1778. While stationed there, he printed official orders, commissions, and recruitment posters for the Continental Army. Seeking a warmer climate after the war, Hodge relocated to Halifax, N.C., where he would go on to own printing presses in Edenton, Halifax, Fayetteville, and New Bern. In addition to newspapers, he was named printer of the North Carolina General Assembly and printed the state’s laws in 1786. He was also one of the first people to contribute to the library of The University of North Carolina.

Clipping from March 5, 1795 issue of The State Gazette of North-Carolina

March 5, 1795 issue of The State Gazette of North-Carolina. Less than a month after The University of North Carolina opened its doors to students.

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:

 

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.

 


Oral histories from the Mount Airy Black community now online from Mount Airy Museum of Regional History

Screenshot of an adult using a spoon with a pot on a stove

Screenshot from the video “Preparing Foods that were Eaten by our Ancestors” which included women discussing their cooking.

29 oral histories collected in the early 2000s by the African American Historical and Genealogical Association of Surry County are now online thanks to our partner the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History. Thanks also to our colleagues in the Southern Folklife Collection, these audiovisual materials were digitized utilizing funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  The interviews are mostly on video and discuss many topics about being Black and growing up in Mount Airy and Surry County area during the first half of the 20th century.  

Blue print showing the façade of a two story office building

We also scanned many maps and architectural drawings for the museum in this batch and those are available here.  The drawings include a lot of buildings around Mount Airy.  

To learn more about our partner Mount Airy Museum of Regional History visit their partner page here.

To hear more oral histories on DigitalNC, go 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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