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Vance County Students’ Yearly Record Envelopes Now Available on DigitalNC

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memorabilia underrepresented

Thanks to our partner, Henderson Institute Historical Museum, yearly record envelopes for African American students who attended Vance County schools with last names A through Z are now available on our website. 

These envelopes, filled with a multitude of information, are a great resource for researchers and individuals looking to learn more about Vance County residents, students, and schools. The front of the envelopes include a students’ name, address, date of birth, years they attended school, which Vance County school they went to, how many days they attended, if they were promoted, and noted if they moved out of the county.

Due to the inclusion of medical records and other sensitive personal information, the content within the envelopes were not digitized. If you are interested in learning more about the documents inside of the envelopes, please reach out to the Henderson Institute Historical Museum for more information.

To learn more about the Henderson Institute Historical Museum, please visit their website.

To view more materials from North Carolina’s African American high schools, please view our North Carolina African American High Schools Collection.

Scrapbooks from Mitchell Community College Now Available

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memorabilia scrapbooks

Mitchell Community College students posing for a photo

The elected campus leaders for Mitchell Community College 1938-1939. In back, left to right: Betsy Gilliam, Nancy Sloop, and Helene Solomon. Front row, left to right: Martha Dotson (standing), Eleanor Bonner, and Dorothy Cutting. One person is unidentified.

Thanks to our partner Mitchell Community College, we now have several additional scrapbooks about the school from 1929-1947. The scrapbooks primarily contain newspaper clippings from community papers, including the Charlotte Observer, the Statesville Daily, and the Winston-Salem Journal. 

This batch also contains a few miscellaneous items from MCC from the 1970s, including alumni newsletters and a feature in the Statesville Record & Landmark Bicentennial Edition. 

Most of the newspaper clippings celebrate the notable happenings at the school or accomplishments of its students, such as the performance of the basketball team or the presentation of a commencement speaker. A few mark historic moments for the school, such as when W. B. Ramsey, president of the school for 14 years, resigned her post for its “strain of duties of this exacting and responsible office—always taxing on her health.”

One topic that comes up frequently in these scrapbooks is the Mitchell Community College A Cappella choir, which performed in “a dozen or more cities” in North Carolina (according to the Statesville Daily in May 1939). The Charlotte Observer called it “one of the outstanding musical organizations in the state” in an article from January 8, 1939. 

Photo of the MCC choir in 1939

The MCC choir, 1939

To see more from Mitchell Community College, take a look at their partner page or their website. You can also view the full collections of MCC scrapbooks and alumni newsletters.

Scrapbooks from McDowell County Public Library now on Digital NC

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memorabilia scrapbooks

McDowellCounty

This newspaper clipping discusses the early conversations on opening a community college for the county in Marion, NC. The college would later become known as McDowell County Technical Community College

Scrapbooks from McDowell County Public Library are now available on Digital NC. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings from specific events through McDowell County. The scrapbooks are clippings for the local 4- H Club, along with a wide range of clippings from various communities, including the City of Marion and Old Fort. You can also view clippings from the Chamber of Commerce and the McDowell Technical Community College.

Special thanks to our partner, McDowell County Public Library. To view more from the library, including this collection, visit them here.

To see more in our North Carolina Memorabilia collection, visit here.

Additional Massey Family Materials Now Available on DigitalNC

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memorabilia photos

Thanks to our partner Matthews Heritage Museum and funding from a North Carolina State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) grant, additional Massey family letters, papers, and photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s are now available on our website.

The photographs in this batch are of several Massey family members at different ages including Daisy Massey, Edgar Herbert Massey, Mary E. Renfrow Massey, and Dr. Henry V. Massey. One interesting photograph shows what is believed to be Edgar Herbert Massey and Mary Renfrow Massey in a horse drawn carriage.

Two individuals sitting in a horse drawn cart.

The letters, spanning from 1863 to 1904, are mainly addressed to Daisy and Mary Massey from other family members and friends. One letter in this batch stood out as particularly interesting (pages two and three of the letter are below).

On December 18, 1902, an individual named Jeb wrote a letter to Daisy Massey. From the letter, it appears that the two were courting or in a relationship. In the letter, Jeb begs Daisy to consider moving to Washington and becoming mistress of his house. He writes, “[…] I believe I could persuade you to come over here and be mistress of my house. Really I do believe I could keep you from getting home sick and fancy you would like Washington far better than the Sunny South. Will you please do give this subject your honest and careful thought and prayer. I can make no big promises for I have nor riches to boast of, but can promise you the very best and true happiness and peace. On my part for you should never hear a cross or unkind word from my lips.” In the final section of the letter, Jeb points out that they are approaching a crossroads where Daisy will have to decide whether they get married or end the relationship. Daisy Massey’s response to the letter is unknown.

To read the letter in its entirety, please click here.

To learn more about the Matthews Heritage Museum, please visit their website.

To view more materials from the Matthews Heritage Museum, please click here.

New Materials Added to the Crystal Lee Sutton Collection from Alamance Community College

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Color photograph of two smiling individuals with raised fists facing camera, Lenin's tomb with line of visitors in the background

Crystal Lee Sutton and Richard Koritz in Red Square, 1984

Crystal Lee Sutton was a union activist whose story rose to prominence after she was fired from her position at a Roanoke Rapids, N.C. textile plant, J. P. Stevens, because she supported the establishment of a union and advocated for better working conditions and pay. Her story was documented in the movie Norma Rae, and Sutton’s life changed greatly due to the fame that followed the movie’s success. She went on to support unionization efforts in a variety of industries during the rest of her life. Sutton passed away in 2009. 

On behalf of Alamance Community College we have digitized additional materials from the Crystal Lee Sutton collection, which was donated directly to the College’s Library before her death.

This batch of materials contains some of Sutton’s school report cards, correspondence to various supporters, newspaper clippings about her activism and the movie, unionization booklets, and a few photos of Sutton. There are also quite a few of her speeches, both handwritten and typewritten, including those she lists as the first speeches she gave after being fired in 1973. 

Due to copyright or privacy concerns, not all of the materials from the Sutton collection are online. If you are interested in those items, take a look at this list. You can contact the Alamance Community College Library for access to the items listed there.

You can view the most recent batch along with all of the items we have been able to share online on the Crystal Lee Sutton exhibit page. 

Newspapers, Maps Added to DigitalNC from the Chapel Hill Historical Society

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maps memorabilia newspapers

Top half of the February 11, 1957 issue of the News Leader with a blurry black and white photo of a mule in front of a house.

The front page of the February 11, 1957 issue of the Chapel Hill News Leader features a snapshot of a mule that kept straying onto the property of the local mayor.

We’ve worked with the Chapel Hill Historical Society to share additional materials from their collections. This batch includes more issues of the following newspapers:

The issues of the News Leader discuss town and county news, as well as a hefty amount of news related to UNC-Chapel Hill. Items related to politics and education frequently take center stage on the front page.

In addition to these newspaper issues the Historical Society shared a variety of maps and plans related to Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Included are plans for a sewer project and plans for a local development called “Laketree Center.”

To view all of the items the Chapel Hill Historical Society has shared head to their contributor page. 

Thomas H. Braswell Collection items now online from Braswell Memorial Library

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Thanks to our partner, Braswell Memorial Library, Digital NC now has new memorabilia items and images that are now available relating to the history of the library itself! Located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the library has been a staple within the community since the 1930s. Below is a photo of the Thomas H. Braswell Memorial Library from the 1930s. In addition to memorabilia items, you can also find images of former staff and different events such as the Bookmobile and photos from Banned Book Week.

Braswell Library

The outside of Braswell Memorial Library, located in Rocky Mount, NC.

 

To learn more about Braswell Memorial Library, visit their website here.

To find additional items from Braswell Memorial Library on our website, visit here. 

100 Counties! New Materials from the Camden County Museum Heritage Museum Now Online

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memorabilia onsite photos

Table with scanners and a laptop inside a brightly lit museum space with one person seated and scanning and two people standing and looking at a book

L-R Ashlie Brewer (NCDHC) scans while Lisa Gregory (NCDHC) looks at materials with Brian Forehand (Camden County Heritage Museum)

We have an exciting milestone to announce – with the addition of the Camden County Heritage Museum  and the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center we have now worked with at least one partner organization in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties. NCDHC staff received a warm welcome in Camden County at the end of August when we traveled there to scan materials for both of these organizations.

Black English text on beige paper advertisin typhoid fever and diptheria vaccines in Camden CountyOur post today shares the materials we scanned from the Museum (stay tuned for a future post about the Welcome Center’s materials). From photos to maps to brochures to handwritten research notes, the Museum selected a variety of items that document important aspects of the county’s history. Some of the longer and more detailed items are mentioned below:

We were especially interested to read the typhoid fever and diptheria vaccine announcement shown to the right, which seems especially timely during the current pandemic. Note that the author called out the races separately and that people had to go to a specific location based on their assigned race.

You can view all of the items from the Camden County Heritage Museum on the Museum’s contributor page, or all of the materials we have related to Camden County on the Camden County page on our site.

Contributions of Vance County People of Color now available on DigitalNC

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The book Contributions of Vance County People of Color by Ruth Anita Hawkins Hughes is now available on DigitalNC.  Thanks to a request from a community member, the folks at Granville County Public Library, and UNC Libraries, we were able to digitize this book.  

Four black and white photographs, top left is a woman in a large white dress who is sitting posed, top right is a child in a white dress standing posed, bottom left is a woman on the phone and the bottom right is a woman in a white nursing outfit holding a dog

Photographs of people discussed in the book are included

Written in 1988, the book contains vignettes about many Black residents of Vance County during the 20th century.  The book is broken up into chapters about farm families, and town families, and then by different occupations in the county.  An amazing resource particularly for genealogists, Contributions… is full text searchable, making it easy to search names quickly!  

To view more materials about the Black community in North Carolina, visit our African American newspapers collection and our general collection here.

Bertie County materials now on DigitalNC, including W.S. Etheridge HS yearbook and Hope Plantation materials

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memorabilia underrepresented yearbooks

black and white brochure with a drawing of a plantation style home on it

Our second partner in Bertie County is Historic Hope Plantation, which is a foundation that runs the Hope Plantation historic site in Windsor, NC.  The Foundation was established in 1965 by Bertie County citizens concerned about the fate of the decaying Hope Mansion. According to their website, the site’s “mission is to provide educational, cultural and recreational benefits for the public by the preservation, maintenance and the administration of Historic Hope Plantation as an element of the heritage of the Roanoke-Chowan Region and as an illustration and interpretation of agrarian life in Eastern North Carolina from 1760 to 1840.”Brochure with a color picture of a table with 4 chairs around it

The majority of materials in our first batch from Historic Hope are materials relating to the running of the site, including a very large collection of brochures and programs detailing fundraisers for the museum, as well as visitor pamphlets.  The brochures tell a story themselves, showing how historic house museum interpretation has evolved over time, since the earliest one in 1956 to present day 21st century interpretation that is less decorative arts focused and more focused on telling the story of all those who lived and worked at the plantation, particularly enslaved people.  Some of the staff’s research is also included in the batch, including the court documents of those newly freed men and women who attested their cohabitation before the Civil War ended in order to gain recognition of marriage from the state, as well as research papers written by those affiliated with the site. 

Other related Bertie County materials are also included, particularly a 1954 yearbook from W.S. Etheridge High School which served the Black community of Bertie County before integration.

To learn more about Historic Hope Plantation, visit their partner page.

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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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