This website uses cookies and similar technologies to understand visitor experiences. By using this website, you consent to cookie usage in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
The 1942 commencement number of the Johnson C. Smith University Bulletin is important to note for its celebration of the university’s 75th year. Inside, the bulletin not only includes a copy of the commencement address, but a history of university along with some great photographs.
Thanks to our partners at the Winston Salem African American Archive, DigitalNC is proud to announce that nearly five hundred new records are now available online! This collection contains an astonishing variety of records from Winston-Salem’s African American history, and include records from businesses, churches, sports teams, and more. The records date from as far back as 1848 to as recent as 2020, covering nearly two centuries of history. While many of these records are from Winston-Salem proper, there are an astounding variety from towns such as Kernersville, Clemmons, and Lewisville.
The church records predominantly hail from Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. There are mid-century Sunday Service Bulletins, newspaper features on prominent pastors, and many photos of churchgoers, choir-members, and church events. A personal highlight of this collection is the inclusion of The Spotlight, a monthly newsletter published by New Bethel Baptist Church. Each issue of The Spotlight featured updates on the lives of its congregation, schedules for church events, and photos of previous events. This batch includes seven issues of The Spotlight, ranging from 1956 to 1974 and chronicling over a decade of New Bethel’s flock.
Also included in this collection are an excellent series of records highlighting Black owned businesses from 20th century Forsyth County. Two issues of the N.C. Minority Business Directory provide resource guides for the years 1995 and 1992, and a set of photographs picture business owners relaxing, smiling, or working in their shops. Businesses featured in this collection include the Twin City Bus Line, WTOB Radio Broadcasting, and Wilson’s Grocery Store.
Perhaps the most colorful feature of this batch, however, is the amazing arrangement of sports records from Winston-Salem’s history. This collection has an amazing variety of material, from color photographs to football programs to sticky notes. The author’s personal favorite (perhaps of this entire batch!) are the two football programs from Atkins High School. Each of these programs feature amazing cover illustrations, photographs, and team rosters. The programs are filled to the brim with care and attention, with margins in each program featuring notes on referee signals, illustrated in an iconic mid-century copy.
If you’re interested in digging in to this treasure trove of Forsyth County history, you can find all of the new records online at DigitalNC here.
Thanks to our partners at the Burwell School Historic Site and the Historic Hillsborough Commission, DigitalNC is proud to announce that two new scrapbooks are now available online! These scrapbooks cover a pivotal period in the preservation of Hillsborough’s history, chronicling the formation and initial efforts of the Historic Hillsborough Commission during the town’s bicentennial celebrations.
One of the main missions of the commission’s early years was the renaming of then “Hillsboro” to a more accurate “Hillsborough.” The scrapbooks chronicle the efforts of the commission as they lobbied local politicians, raised awareness of the town’s history, and celebrated their eventual victory in time for the town’s two-hundredth birthday. Later clippings in the scrapbook record the organization and commencement of a “colonial pageant” on the bicentennial, wherein Hillsborough residents dressed in period garb and celebrated the town’s history.
You can find the new scrapbooks online here. Interested in learning more about Hillsborough’s history? Find the Historic Hillsborough Commission’s partner page online at DigitalNC here, or visit the Burwell School Historic Site’s website online here.
Thanks to our partners at the Raleigh Fire Museum, DigitalNC 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 DigitalNC 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.
To browse more materials related to North Carolina, take a look at the other collections on Digital NC. To view more North Carolina yearbooks, visit our Yearbooks Collections on Digital NC. When new materials contributed by Blowing Rock Historical Society becomes available you can find them on their contributors page. In the meantime, you can check out what Blowing Rock Historical Society has been up to on their website.
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.
There are many ways to educate people about fire safety. Greensboro Fire employed the famous duo Ember and flame to do the educate a variety of people about fire safety. Ember, the Dalmatian, was born July 04, 2000 and was only 8 weeks old when she began training to be a fire safety dog. Owner and trainer, Mitzi Rice aka Flame performed in more than 3,200 shows at schools, day cares and nursing homes. Ember and Flame have both passed on, but their impact on fire safety in and around Greensboro is not forgotten.
The information about Ember and Flame is from newspaper articles included in this most recent batch of materials. You can browse through the materials to learn more about Ember, Flame and the Greensboro Fire Department.
While Ember is the star of this article, the Greensboro Fire Fighters have a plethora of photographs, newspaper clippings and other information materials such as magazine issues and safety manuals for curious researchers at Digital NC.
Featured among these documents are the magazines published alongside both the Henredon Classic and the Planters Pat Bradley International golf tournaments. These golf tournaments were hosted annually at the Willow Creek Golf Club at High Point, and attracted world famous golfers from across the country. Each magazine featured notable competitors in each tournament, alongside columns by sports journalists analyzing the game of golf at large. Some issues even include profiles on the golfers and detailed maps of the courses they would play on. Of course, each magazine is a wonderful resource for advertisement from the eighties: local businesses and furniture manufacturers hold a key presence amongst the pages.
The latest batch also included large number of church bulletins from congregations within High Point. Churches included are Wesley Memorial Methodist, Oakview United Methodist, and Washington Street Methodist. Many of the church bulletins describe the construction and design of Wesley Memorial’s new chapel, allegedly one of the last gothic churches constructed in North America. One bulletin conducts a thorough art historical analysis of the symbolic decorations of the church, detailing the allusions carved into the walls of the church: a splendid resource for anyone interested in art history or planning to visit the historic site!
Four yearbooks from T. Wingate Andrews High School and High Point Central High School were also included in the batch, with all books covering the early 1970s at the schools.
If we’ve piqued your interest, you can investigate all of our brand new documents here. Interested in learning more about High Point history? View more documents on our website here, or visit High Point Museum’s website here.
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.
