Thanks to our partners at the Raleigh Fire Museum, NC Digital is pleased to announced that even more records from the Raleigh Fire Department are now available online! These records cover an amazing variety of aspects to the daily life and operation of Raleigh’s firefighters, including financial and municipal reports, fire academy graduation programs, and certificates of award. They will almost double our coverage of the Raleigh Fire Department, which ranges from as far as 1947 to as recent as 2002.

Without a doubt, the highlight of this batch is an issue of The N.C. Fire Service News, a state-wide publication created by and for North Carolina’s firefighters. The pages of this magazine are absolutely full of articles covering fire news, including stories on an antique model T fire engine, the annual fire conference in Asheville, and a story on firefighters in Durham “only” working 56 hours a week! Reading N.C. Fire Service News is a fascinating glimpse into a community of dedicated and passionate professionals supporting each other with advice on how best to protect the public. And, perhaps more superficially, the aesthetics of the 70’s make the pages of the magazine even more engaging.

You can read N.C. Fire Service News, along with the rest of the new records from the Raleigh Fire Museum, online at NC Digital here. Interested in learning more about the history of fire safety? Take a look at our partner pages for Raleigh Fire Museum and the Greensboro Firefighters History Book Committee online at NC Digital!

The Olivia Raney Local History Library in Raleigh has contributed three new tax books from 1891, 1895, and 1898 that are now available on DigitalNC! The Olivia Raney Library specializes in materials that facilitate local history and genealogy research, and holds an extensive collection of Wake County tax records. These books are valuable resources for anyone seeking to research specific individuals or property ownership statistics in Raleigh at the turn of the century. We are excited that they are now available digitally for researchers to peruse from anywhere.

Our digital collections include nearly 200 records from Olivia Raney, including yearbooks, scrapbooks, newspapers, and catalogs. Browse all of our Olivia Raney Local History Library materials on their partner page here, and visit their website here.

Digital NC is excited to announce new materials relating to Sarah “Sadie” Delany now live on our website, thanks to our partner St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Included in this upload are a full textbook and recipe book, staff and student directories, newspaper clippings, handwritten recipes, and other ephemera collected by Delany. 

Sadie Delany and her sister, Dr. Annie Elizabeth “Bessie” Delany, are known for being pioneering figures in the Black community. As children of an enslaved man, Sadie became the first black woman to teach home economics in white New York schools while Bessie was the second black woman with a dentistry license in New York. The sisters grew up on the St. Augustine campus in Raleigh, which their father attended. The sisters later moved to New York, after living through the Jim Crow era in the South.

With a master’s degree from Columbia and many years of experience teaching in black schools, Sadie sent an application to a white high school to teach home economics. However, she knew that if the Board of Education preemptively met her, she would never get the job because of the color of her skin. Instead, she feigned a mix-up and only met the staff on her first day arriving to teach. She went on to instruct at multiple high schools, including the Girls’ High School in Brooklyn and the Washington Irving High School in Manhattan. Below is a Washington Irving class list taught by Delany and a Girls’ High School faculty list that pictures Sadie Delany’s name.

In tandem with her academic accomplishments, Sadie was also an accomplished cook. This upload contains many of her handwritten recipes and newspaper clippings that she likely used. Pictured below is her recipe for 60-minute rolls. 

Sadie lived to be 109, passing away in 1999. To learn more about these impressive women, check out Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, a memoir published by Sadie and Bessie in 1993. Click here and here for further reading. To explore other North Carolina collections on our site, click here.

Founded in 1964 Southwestern Community College is located in Sylva, NC. The materials in this batch includes over 40 year of commencement ceremony programs dating back to 1965 up until 2008. There are a variety of ceremonies including Fall, Spring, Summer and specialized ones for majors like Nursing. The programs list out the names of graduates and the degree they received. It is to be noted that the schools name changed throughout the decades and that can be seen in the graduation commencement programs. You can also find annual reviews of the college, newsletters and newspaper clippings.

You can see all the materials in the Southwestern Community College batch here. You can also browse our collections of materials relating to North Carolina at Digital NC. To see more materials from Southwestern Community College, you can visit their partner page and their website.

Thanks to our generous community partner, Olivia Rainey Local History Library, and at the request of our partner Wake Forest Historical Museum, the book Connections: 100 Years of Wake Forest History by Carol W. Pelosi is now available to read for free on DigitalNC. You can flip through the pages of Connections and find local history of Wake Forest, NC ranging from 1910-2008. Information covers topics like farms and crops, the railroad, local businesses, holiday celebrations, festivals, and local government leaders.

To learn more about what our community partners, Olivia Rainey Local History Library are up to please visit their website.

To view other materials made available by the Olivia Rainey Local History Library visit their contributors page.

To view more North Carolina historical items visit the North Carolina Digital Heritage Centers website DigitalNC.