Thanks to our amazing partners at the New Hanover County Public Library, DigitalNC is proud to announce that new issues of the Wilmington Morning Star are now available online! These new issues cover daily life in Wilmington from over a century ago — in the far-flung year of 1924. They will join over twenty thousand issues currently available online, ranging from as far back as 1867 and as recently as 1947!

The 1924 issues of The Wilmington Morning Star cover a revolutionary and exciting period of American life — Wilmington residents wrote fervently on international politics, women gained increased autonomy in social and professional spheres, and advancements in technology increased both quality of life and access to information. For the first time ever, mankind could fly, speak through airwaves, and even file for divorce. In a time when societal and technological advancements revolutionized America’s understanding of possibility, the unbelievable became believable. All of these factors lead to some interesting articles in The Wilmington Morning Star — such as Laddie the hero dog answering phone calls, or psychic visions reuniting lost sons with their mothers.

Closer to home, The Wilmington Morning Star paid special mind to the nuptials of the Biltmore Vanderbilts. In 1924, Miss Cornelia Vanderbilt announced her nuptials only two years after her societal debut. In an announcement to the Times, Miss Cornelia Vanderbilt announced her engagement to the Honorable John F. A. Cecil, the then secretary of the British embassy in Washington. The paper breathlessly followed the engagement, wedding, and reception over the span of 1924, and updates were frequently posted on the front page of its society section. Common topics include Miss Vanderbilt’s wintering at the Biltmore, her rumored meeting of Cecil, and their many appearances in polite society. These articles were often sandwiched between updates on the proliferation of divorce across the country, which struck many with apprehension on marriage. Reading through these stories evokes an atmosphere similar to a Regency romance: is John Cecil marrying into the Vanderbilt family for the right reasons? How do Miss Vanderbilt’s parents feel about her engagement? Will the marriage take place at the Biltmore in Asheville, or even Raleigh? Who will cater? It’s reassuring to see the cult of celebrity through the retrospective lens of a century, and one is struck by the similarities between the idle rich of yesteryear and today.

You can read all about psychic dogs and Vanderbilt family right now at DigitalNC here. Interested in reading more issues of The Wilmington Star? You can find our collection of over twenty thousand issues online now at DigitalNC here. Thanks again to our amazing partners at the New Hanover County Public Library for making this collection available. If you’re interested in learning more about our partners, you can find their page on DigitalNC here, or visit their website online here.

Thanks to our partners at the Appalachian Regional Library and Ashe County Public Library, as well as funding from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), new issues of The Skyland Post (West Jefferson, N.C.) newspaper are now available on our website DigitalNC.

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.

To browse all of our newspapers by location, date, and type, take a look at our North Carolina Newspapers collection. 

To see what other materials they have contributed, visit the partner page of Appalachian Regional Library here. and Ashe County Public Library here.

To learn more about what the library has been up to, check out the Appalachian Regional Library website here and the Ashe County Public Library website here.

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 partners at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, we are excited to announce a new batch of student newspapers available online. This new group of papers spans from March to December 1983 and covers topics ranging from current global events to campus sports news.

Amongst intense Cold War tensions and political strife, UNC Charlotte students proved they knew how to have fun in this edition of The 49er Times. Events like Jam Up, the annual spring concert series, provided students with unforgettable musical experiences and a space to let loose before finals. Performances by The Average White Band and Aviator rocked the stage and electrified the crowds.

Similarly, the 49er Times reported on the fall activities fair, which started the 1983-1984 school year with several free carnival games, snow cones, and cotton candy. The packed festival introduced new students to the UNCC campus and brought together returning undergraduates for a day of fun and connection.

These fun events also helped foster community across the UNC Charlotte student community. Programs like the International Festival allowed students to connect and learn about different cultures through music, food, and conversations.

Despite threats of war, global poverty, and nuclear bombs, Charlotte 49er students made sure their collegiate experiences were fun and new. They embraced the present, cherishing friendships, academic stimulation, and their vibrant campus life.

More materials, including photographs, catalogs, yearbooks, and directories, can be found on the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s contributor page here. 

Visitors can view more issues of The 49er Times here.

More information about the University of North Carolina at Charlotte can be found on their website linked here.

To browse our entire collection of student newspapers, select the “Student Papers” filter on our “Newspaper Titles” search page linked here.

Thanks to our partner, Buncombe County Public Libraries, our newspaper collection has gained a new title, the Mountain Xpress published in Asheville, North Carolina. This batch includes 68 issues of the paper from its very first “opener” issue in July 1994 to November 1995.

In their opener issue, they announce that the Mountain Xpress is a paper people will “reach for with pleasure and anticipation, every week, for free; a paper that tells you what’s going on and what’s going down, that knows how to be lively, outspoken, authoritative and fair; a paper that is uniquely Western North Carolinian [July 1, 1994, page 3].” In addition to providing comprehensive calendars of events, the Mountain Xpress includes reports on local news written by professional and nationally recognized, WNC journalists.

Highlighting the beauty of the North Carolina Arboretum in their April 5, 1995 issue, the paper breaks their typical pattern of published predominately in black and white. Along with highlighting the arboretum as a whole, the feature details the construction and history of what becomes the North Carolina Arboretum. The land the arboretum is built on is referred to as Bent Creek and was inhabited by Native Americans around 14,000 years ago. The Cherokee visited a seasonal camp there into the 1830s before “Colonel W. H. Thomas persuaded them to relinquish the area [April 5, 1995, page 14].” Once the land was vacated, white settlers bought and worked the land until it was mostly an eroded watershed. Years later, George Vanderbilt bought the Bent Creek watershed as an addition to his Biltmore Estate. He used it to experiment with the the newly developing German scientific forestry methods at the time.

The land was purchased from Vanderbilt in 1917 to be part of the Pisgah National Forest. With the Bent Creek Research Forest established in 1921, restoration of eroded fields and replanting trees continues into the 1930s. A majority of this restoration work was completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, specifically the individuals who worked at CCC Vance.

In 1984, local civic leaders in Buncombe County, garden groups, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill managers, submitted a proposal for an arboretum in the Asheville area. Recognizing the value it would have in the western part of the state, the North Carolina General Assembly allotted $250,000 for the development and building of an arboretum. The Bent Creek site was chosen from 25 candidates in the region, but won because the area was unrestricted by urban development; accessible to attractions such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and Biltmore Estate; it formed its own watershed; and, of course, the land was “free” (available from the federal government on a long-term lease). Today, the North Carolina Arboretum boasts 65 acres of cultivated gardens along with 10+ miles of hiking and biking trails, rotating exhibits, a variety of family-friendly nature activities.

To learn more about Buncombe County Public Libraries, visit their website here.

To view more materials from Buncombe County Public Libraries, visit their contributor page here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, visit our newspaper collection here.

To learn more about the North Carolina Arboretum, visit their website here.

Thanks to our partners at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, we are excited to announce that a new batch of student newspapers from April 1982 to March 1983 are now available online!

This group of student newspapers begins by shedding its previous title, The Carolina Journal, and reintroducing itself as The 49er Times. The new name is symbolic; the editors created a space to foster inclusivity, discourse, and news for UNC Charlotte students and faculty. While every rendition of the paper has featured an opinions section, the new 49er Times returned the “Left/Right” column from earlier editions. This piece features arguments between two editorial board members from opposing liberal and conservative political views.

These insightful and occasionally comical columns highlight the realities of college students and the pressing political issues of the early 1980s. The debates in “Left/Right” range from the rights of labor unions to prayer in public schools and the potential reelection of President Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election. These students’ succinct and powerful arguments reflect the polarizing times they lived in, with the Cold War and conservatism still present in everyday life.

“The 49er Times” embraces the free press, publishing op-eds regarding the campus bookstore policies and the fear of a nuclear war. The newspaper became a venue for critical thinking, debate, and prose for students and faculty as they grappled with changes across campus and around the world.

Visitors can view more issues of The 49er Times here.

Visitors to the site can view all of our newspaper issues from UNC Charlotte here. 

To browse our entire collection of student newspapers, select the “Student Papers” filter on our “Newspaper Titles” search page linked here.