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Thanks to our partners at Moore County Historical Association, we are excited to announce the addition of five new yearbooks to DigitalNC. The five yearbooks hail from West End High School (West End, N.C.), which served Moore County students from 1927 to 1969. Despite being closed and then demolished in 1984, these five years of thePine Burr offer an opportunity to browse some of the places and faces that made West End High School so special!
The following years of the West End High School’s yearbook, the Pine Burr, that are available on DigitalNC are:
Thanks to our partners at Queens University of Charlotte, we are excited to announce the addition of over 300 images from the Queens University of Charlotte Archives. These images were scanned last December during an onsite visit to our partner in Charlotte. In addition to receiving a warm welcome and campus library tour, the NCDHC staff had a wonderful time browsing the milieu of campus life represented by the decades-worth of photographs that we had the opportunity to scan. Featured below is a selection of the new photographs now available on DigitalNC. Be sure to browse through all of our latest additions from Queens University of Charlotte, which are linked here.
More information about our partner, Queens University of Charlotte, can be found on their website here. Additional information about the Queens University of Charlotte Archives and Special Collections can be found here.
More materials, including yearbooks, scrapbook, more photographs, and a newspaper title, can be found on Queens University of Charlotte’s contributor page, which is linked here.
Visitors can browse even more photographs from Queens University of Charlotte by checking out their Digital Archives found here.
With the help of our partners at Randolph County Public Library, we are excited to announce that three yearbooks and issues from five different newspaper titles are now available to browse on DigitalNC. From Randleman to Farmer to Asheboro to Ramseur, this latest batch of materials come from all across Randolph County. With newspaper issues also hailing from Moravian Falls and Greensboro, these new Randolph County Public Libraries materials actually represent history from all across North Carolina! Additionally, two new newspaper titles were added to DigitalNC with the new issues of the Randleman Enterprise (Randleman, N.C.) and the Randleman News (Randleman, N.C.).
These editions from July 1952 to November 1956 reflect the nation’s anxiety over the polio epidemic. People of all ages and genders faced illness and even death from the disease. Parents sequestered their children indoors, away from playdates and large gatherings, for fear of them catching the illness. Those who became afflicted by polio risked a life confined to the iron lung, a machine designed to help those with paralyzed lung muscles breathe. Although Dr. Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine by the mid-1950s, the disease was not eliminated in North and South America until the mid-1990s.
The Skyland Post uses its platform to advocate for those who fell victim to the disease, especially children. Advertisements for donations for March of Dimes, an organization created to improve the health of mothers and babies, run throughout these new editions. Local organizations in Ashe County also pledged their monetary support to eradicate the disease. Entire communities came together to raise funds for March of Dimes through activities like benefit games.
News of the polio vaccine also bled into The Skyland Post. The October 20, 1955 edition of the paper declared hopeful news – limited vaccines would be available for children five to nine years old. Hopeful pieces declared that the vaccine may grant “life-time immunity,” and parents were encouraged to have their children vaccinated as soon as possible. After years of living in fear of polio, hope was finally on the horizon.
Information about the polio disease is from the Mayo Clinic website seen here.
Thanks to our partners at the Henderson County Education History Initiative, fifteen new yearbooks are now available on DigitalNC. The new yearbooks range from 1942 to 1974, and represent a variety of local schools across Henderson County. Among these schools are:
Almost every one of these schools is already represented online at DigitalNC, and the addition of new yearbooks will further deepen their digitized documentary presence.
The Fassifern School for Girls, however, is a brand-new addition to DigitalNC’s holdings. The school was founded in 1907 in Lincolnton, NC, but was moved to Hendersonville in 1911. It was established by Kate Shipp, and received its name after Shipp’s ancestral home in Scotland. Fassifern was regarded as a prestigious institution during its operation, and provided instructional training for girls who later attended universities such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wellesley, and Vassar. Fassifern was known for the emphasis it placed on individualized instruction, and few of its classes exceeded twenty pupils. The school even provided certificates in business management and ownership to its students as early as 1918, which was particularly unusual for an all-girls school. Unfortunately, the school closed in 1952 after falling on hard times.
You can learn more about the Fassifern School for Girls, along with all the other wonderful schools across Henderson County, online now at NC Digital here. Thanks again to our wonderful partners at the Henderson County Education History Initiative for making these beautiful yearbooks available online. You can find more about the Initiative by locating their partner page at NC Digital here, or on their Facebook page here.
Thanks to our partner at Hendersonville High School Alumni Association, we have a new batch of materials that includes decades of the Red & White, Hendersonville High’s premier student newspaper, along with dozens of athletic programs. These programs date as far back as the 1950s, when students danced the sock-hop at Homecoming, to as recently as 2015! Issues of the Red & White will join an existing collection of nearly three hundred issues, nearly doubling the digitized collection. Both the athletic programs and the newspapers are suffused with the love that students and alumni hold for Hendersonville High School, and are an amazing example of community publications.
Going through decades of Hendersonville High School’s athletic programs are an amazing way of feeling this love. Each issue is full of sponsors from local businesses, many of which tout their Bearcat Pride. Older issues of the programs even have full-color illustrations and covers sourced from students and local artists. As the decades progress, these programs get thicker and thicker, as more sports (and alumni sponsors!) are added to the school’s athletic season. While a sport’s uniforms, players, and coaches may change throughout the years, Bearcat Pride stays the same!
At this point, non-Hendersonville-onians may be curious what a Bearcat is. According to student journalists at the Red & White, a bearcat (also known as a binturong) is a weasel-like creature native to South and Southeast Asia. It has dark fur, short legs, and smells strongly of freshly popped popcorn. Decades of lore surrounding Hendersonville High School has given rise to myriad theories as to the origins of this unusual mascot, which is often depicted in the newspaper wearing a sporting tuxedo. Unfortunately, there is no definitive support for any of these theories.
If you’re interested in learning more about Bearcat apocrypha, you can find the newly digitized issues of the Red & White online now at DigitalNC here. More athletically minded readers can find the new collection of Bearcat athletic records online here. You can also find every digital record from the Hendersonville High School Alumni Association available on NC Digital at their partner page here. Thanks again to our wonderful partners at the Hendersonville High School Alumni Association for making this collaboration possible!
Thanks to our partners at the Harnett County Public Library, DigitalNC is proud to announce over a hundred new issues of the Harnett County News are now available online! Over one thousand pages across 116 issues cover nearly a decade of developments across Harnett County, chronicling the years from 1953 to 1958.
The Harnett County News has been published in Lillington, North Carolina weekly for over a hundred years. Its initial issues were published by Henderson Steele, and the paper gradually evolved to cover not only Harnett County, but Sampson, Johnson, and other surrounding counties as well. The new issues of the title will cover a critical gap in DigitalNC’s coverage of the paper, which stretches from its inception in 1919 to as recently as 1979. They will provide a critical community perspective on the economic prosperity witnessed by Harnett County residents during the period. Hot topics found in these papers include the end of the Korean War, the arrest of Rosa Parks, and Dwight D. Eisenhower visiting Salisbury.
You can find every issue of the Harnett County News online now at DigitalNC here. Interested in learning more about the history of Harnett? Our partners at the Harnett County Public Library have an abundance of records available for your perusal online now at DigitalNC. You can find their partner page here, or visit the library’s website online here.
Thanks to our new partners at the W. B. Wicker Alumni, DigitalNC is proud to announce that records from the W. B. Wicker School are available online! They also hold the distinction of being our 350th partner at NCDHC! This new collection includes both yearbooks from the school, and paper records published by the school during its operation. Originally named the Lee County Training School, the W. B. Wicker School was founded in 1927, and is one of the oldest educational institutions in Lee County. The school was constructed in part with funds from The Rosenwald Fund. For years, the school was one of the only ways for Lee County’s African-American students to receive a public education in years dominated by Jim Crow legislation and segregation. In the 1960s the school was renamed W. B. Wicker School as a way to honor W. B. Wicker, the school’s longtime popular principal and primary supporter. The school was decommissioned as a high school in 1969 as part of integration efforts for the Lee County schools. Today the building serves as an elementary school for Lee County.
The front page of the 23rd Anniversary Program of the Lee County Training School, now online at DigitalNC.
This batch includes a program from the 23rd anniversary of the school, a bulletin from Sanford City Schools, and a booklet advertising the campus’ recent renovations in the twenty-first century. Each record embodies a different aspect of the campus’ history — from its operation by W. B. Wicker in the 1940s, to its status as a national historic landmark in the twenty-first century. A highlight of this batch is “the bulletin of the Sanford City Schools,” which features a front-page story of W. B. Wicker as a place “where excellence is traditional.” The bulletin features stories on the school’s administrative growth, with the school gaining a new librarian, secretary, and full-time assistant principal. Many of the teachers and faculty-members working at W. B. Wicker went to the school as students, or in the case of then-principal Benjamin T. Bullock, worked as a teacher for sixteen years before becoming W. B. Wicker’s successor as principal. Dedication and commitment to the school’s purpose as a space for education are apparent in each of these stories, and readers gain a deeper sense of the importance schools like W. B. Wicker played in their communities.
You can read these new materials online now at DigitalNC here. Thanks again to our amazing new partners at the W. B. Wicker School Alumni for making these records available and our partners at Lee County Libraries for connecting us. If you’re interested in learning more about our new partners, you can visit their new partner page online at DigitalNC here.
Since 1930, The Sanford Herald has been a leading news and information source for central North Carolina counties including Lee, Harnett, Chatham, and Moore. Still publishing today, their website states their mission being to “inform, challenge and celebrate the communities we touch.”
Taken by newspaper staff in some of the paper’s earliest years, this batch of photographs provides a wonderful look into life in and around the Sanford area. Agriculture in particular is heavily featured throughout with images showing tobacco in various stages, farmers, fields, and farm animals. Along with these are photographs showcasing local groups, individual residents, and events. While we unfortunately do not have any of the corresponding issues of The Sanford Herald available to be able to read the articles that accompany these photographs, nearly all photographs had the issue date and page written on the back.
Thanks to our new partner at the Jonesboro Historical Society, DigitalNC is proud to announce that EIGHTY new records are now available online for the very first time! These materials cover almost every possible aspect of life for Jonesboro residents, from wartime letters and community recipes to yearbooks! Located in Lee County, Jonesboro is now a neighborhood of Sanford, but retains a rich history and was once an independent township. The community retains its independent charm, and has a rich history detailed in the archival record. These new materials range from as far back as 1912, and are as recent as 1996. Mediums run the gamut from the conventional (programs, photographs) to the novel (cookbooks, bulletins). This batch has something for any Tar Heel historian, whether they’re interested in Edwardian fashion or the second world war.
Anyone interested in wartime narratives will be pleased to find an amazing collection of bulletins published by Jonesboro residents. These bulletins were circulated around Lee County, as well as sent overseas to soldiers. Each issue featured letters written by Jonesboro men sent overseas, and often updated their friends and family on their status, station, and well-being. For many families, these letters were often the only news they received on their friends and loved ones, and even those deployed expressed gratitude for updates on where their childhood mates were stationed. During the second world war, Jonesboro men were stationed across the world, including England, northern Africa, and in the Pacific. Home front experiences are also recorded in these newsletters, including prayers written by mothers and clergy. Also included in this collection are photographs of Henry Buchanan, who served in the first world war on mounted horseback!
Recipes and more can be found in the Jonesboro Methodist Community Cook Book. A photograph of Jonesboro Methodist Church. It is titled “Jonesboro Methodist Church Community Cook Book!”
For those among us interested in domestic histories, the Community Cook Book published by the Jonesboro Methodist Church will prove particularly appetizing. This book is a wonderful collection of recipes gathered from Jonesboro residents, ranging from soda bread to lobster. Each dish has the name of the community-member who contributed the meal, and they often provide written advice or histories alongside their family recipes. If that’s not enough, the book also provides advice for new couples who may be unaccustomed to hosting guests. The advice features details on setting tables, seating arrangements, silverware, and even proper etiquette once everyone’s seated. Also included are “household hints,” for easy preparation of common ingredients such as tomatoes, pecans, pie crusts, and sandwiches. While some of the etiquette tips may not be as prevalent today (the use of household maids is definitely not as common), this book is a delightful resource for anyone interested in cooking more Southern food, or for those wishing to become “better” hosts.
The collection also includes a wide range of portraits and photographs taken around Jonesboro. If you’re interested in cooking, learning more about the second World War, or just want to look at some gorgeous historic portraits, you can find the batch online now at DigitalNC here. Thanks again to our amazing new partners at the Jonesboro Historical Society for making these records available and for our partner at Lee County Libraries for connecting us.
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.
![A picture of the title page of The Ramsonian [1956] yearbook. There is a cartoon illustration of a bighorn ram wearing a hat with an "R" on the front. Below the ram, the title, "The Ramsonian," is printed in cursive script.](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-27-113346.png)
