Pictured below are the women’s basketball teams from both the oldest and newest yearbooks of Fayetteville State University now available on DigitalNC.
The Smithsonian [1927] was published by the State Normal School, which would eventually become Fayetteville State. We also recently digitized the 2012 and 2013 yearbooks, as well as issues of their student newspaper from 2013 and 2014. You can view all of FSU’s yearbooks and newspapers here.
Yearbooks from the Mercy School of Nursing in Charlotte, N.C. are now available online in the North Carolina Yearbooks collection.
Mercy Hospital was founded in 1906 by the Sisters of Mercy and was the first Catholic hospital in North Carolina. Education was part of the core mission of the hospital from the beginning, with a nursing school established at the same time as the hospital. The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center worked with the Mercy School of Nursing to digitize and share online 45 yearbooks covering a half century of nursing education, from 1948-1998.
The Mercy School of Nursing yearbooks join those from other medical and nursing schools already available online, including recent additions from Rex Hospital in Raleigh and Cabarrus College in Concord, making DigitalNC a terrific resource for the study of history of nursing education through the 20th century.
Yearbooks and reports from Robeson Community College, located in Lumberton, are now available on DigitalNC as part of the North Carolina Yearbooks collection.
Roberson Community College was founded in 1965 as part of nearby Fayetteville Technical Institute. In 1968 the school established its own campus in Lumberton and joined North Carolina’s state-supported community college system.
The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center worked with the library at Robeson Community College to digitize and publish online thirteen yearbooks and two reports. The yearbooks range in date from 1970 to 1983 and the reports document changes and growth in the school at its fifteenth and thirtieth anniversaries.
Rex Hospital School of Nursing Graduating Class, 1937
We’ve just posted a wide variety of photos, yearbooks, scrapbooks and other documents from one of our newest partners, Rex Healthcare Library in Raleigh. Many of these items document the history of the Rex Training School for Nurses as well as Rex Hospital, which both opened in 1894. We’re so pleased to help present documents that describe such an integral part of North Carolina’s nursing and healthcare history.
The Training School for Nurses was the first school of nursing to be established in the state. The first class had four graduates, and they learned “at the convenience of the doctors” while actively caring for patients. The school accepted its first male student and first official African American student in 1966. It operated until 1974.
You can view all items from the Rex Healthcare Library, or explore groups of items by type:
Photo of a school dance, from the Yadkinian Yearbook, 1964
Just a quick post to let you know that we’ve added 5 more items from Yadkin and Surry Counties, courtesy two members of the Northwestern Regional Library System, Yadkin County Public Library and King Public Library.
as well as
This brings us to more than 100 yearbooks from the Northwestern Regional Library System.
From the 1922 Rattler, Raleigh High School’s yearbook. Part of a photo essay of Raleigh.
The Digital Heritage Center partnered for the first time with the Olivia Raney Local History Library in Raleigh to digitize nearly a hundred Wake County school yearbooks, catalogs, reunion books, and graduation programs. The materials, which span 1909-2008, are windows into the daily lives and times of North Carolinians throughout the century.
Some of these yearbooks come from schools no longer in operation. Here, we’ve provided a brief history of each former school (when available), and a link to the volumes from that school (see section “Closed Schools” below). We also digitized yearbooks from schools that still exist today (see “Current Schools” section at end).
Aycock Junior High School Cheerleaders, 1969.
History: Junior high school in operation from 1965-1979, when its campus was absorbed by William G. Enloe High School, which was built in 1962. The building was and still is known as the “East Building” on Enloe’s campus. Its original students were from the recently closed Hugh Morson Junior High School (formerly Hugh Morson High School).
Volumes: Aycock [1967]; Charles B. Aycock Junior High School [1974]; six of The Owl’s Nest [1968-1973]; two of Owl’s Nest [1975-1976]
Students of Fuquay Springs High School at work, 1953.
History: Three elementary schools in the area joined together to open Fuquay Springs High School in 1918. The was renamed Fuquay Varina High School in 1963 and operated until fall 1970, when it combined with Fuquay Consolidated High School to form the new Fuquay-Varina High School. That school is still in operation today (history from Fuquay-Varina High School website).
Volumes: three of The Greenbriar [1953-64]
Hugh Morson High School, 1928.
History: On September 2, 1925 the students of the overcrowded Raleigh High School moved into the brand new school called Hugh Morson. The school spanned the block of Morgan Street bounded by Person, Blount, and Hargett Streets. It was named for the long-time teacher and beloved first principal at Raleigh High School, Mr. Hugh Morson. Today, all that remains is a plaque and two gargoyles. The school newspaper was The Purple and Gold; its colors, purple and gold. These colors live on today as the colors of Needham B. Broughton High School (more details in this Good Night Raleigh post; history summarized from an excellent entry in Historical sketches of the Raleigh Public Schools by Mrs J. M. Barbee, 1943).
Hugh Morson High School was demoted to a junior high school in 1955 and operated until 1965, when it closed. Over winter break in 1965, the students were transferred to the new Charles B. Aycock Junior High School and the school was officially closed and demolished in 1966.
Volumes: 18 of The Oak Leaf [1927-1955]; Morson Memories [1962]; Hugh Morson High School Class of 1955 50th Year Reunion Memorial Directory [2005]
Volumes: PTA Year Book [1963]; Morson Junior High [1964]
The Raleigh High School building on W. Morgan St, 1923. The school closed in 1929 and was later demolished.
History: Raleigh High School, which preceded both Hugh Morson and Broughton High Schools, was built in 1909 next to “the Raleigh water tower, across the street from fire station #1, on W. Morgan Street” (Good Night Raleigh post). The city of Raleigh decided to build a high school in 1905, reported the News and Observer. The paper also reported that the school’s principal would be Professor Hugh Morson, who ran a successful and well-known boys’ school. The West Morgan Street location was selected for its proximity to both the State and Olivia Raney libraries (the school had no library of its own). The school was built to contain 250-300 students in 1907, but enrollment was soon up to 500. The school built a two-story brick annex during 1921-1922, just east of the city water tower. But schools were soon closed during an influenza pandemic, and the buildings of the high school were used to house patients. In, fact, the school never re-opened. By 1928-1929, the building closed for good, as Hugh Morson and Needham B. Broughton High Schools had both been built. Later the building was used by the Salvation Army, and then divvied up and sold. (Note: history summarized from an excellent entry in Historical sketches of the Raleigh Public Schools by Mrs J. M. Barbee, 1943)
Volumes: seven of The Rattler [1909-1923]; Rattler [1913]; Cylinder [1924]
Volumes:Blue Devils [1960]
Shepard High School boys’ basketball seniors, 1970.
History: African-American high school from 1933-1970.
Volumes: The Lion [1970]
Wakelon High School, side view, 1948.
History: Wakelon School opened in 1908 in an “eclectic brick building” in Italian/Neoclassical style (National Register of Historic Places; the building was added in 1976). It was designed by C. E. Hartage, a Raleigh architect, and features a prominent center octagonal tower. The school’s construction was a big boon for the town of Zebulon, which was incorporated just a year before the school’s construction. Its construction was a result of the 1907 General Assembly act that also established Cary High School. It operated until it was merged with the integrated Zebulon Elementary. The last of the students graduated in the 1980s, and the building was sold to GlaxoSmithKline. It has since been bought back and is now a town hall.
Volumes: two of The Wak-Igh-An [1941-1948]
Washington High School building, 1945.
History: In 1869, a school for African-American students was built at West South Street in Raleigh by the American Missionary Society of New York. The school was bought in 1875 by the city of Raleigh and organized as a public elementary school. The school grew, but by 1918 Shaw University and St. Augustine’s College had both discontinued their high school programs, leaving Black students nowhere to pursue education beyond the elementary level. In the fall of 1924, Washington Elementary and High School opened (Historical sketches of the Raleigh Public Schools by Mrs J. M. Barbee, 1943). It was designed by C. A. Gadsen Sayre in the Jacobean style, a popular style for school architecture in in the 1920s, and continued as the only public high school for African Americans in Raleigh from its inception until 1953 (Raleigh Historic Development Commission). The building now holds Washington Gifted and Talented Magnet Elementary School.
Volumes: two of The Echo [1945-1950]
Volumes: three of Catalogue [1925-1927], a course catalog and campus publication with photographs of the classes and details of the curriculum; yearbooks: The Chsite [1920]; Chsite [1924], six of The Yrac [1952-1962]
Volumes: The Muse [1917]; five of The Stage Coach [1927-1945]
Now the Governor Morehead School for the Blind.
Volumes: four of The Reflector [1954-1960]
Volumes: 21 of The Latipac [1931-1964]; Needham Broughton High School Classes of 1939-1940 Reunion XXXXV [1984]; Perspectives: 50th Reunion, Class of 1958 [2008]; Journeys: NBBHS Class of 1959 50th Reunion [2009]
To view all of the new Wake County materials, click here. And click here to view all yearbooks from Wake County area high schools.
Best All-Around in the 1959 Jamestown High senior class
The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has added a new partner institution, the Old Jamestown School Association. Through them, we have added 17 yearbooks from Jamestown High School to DigitalNC, from their first yearbook in 1940 until 1959, when Jamestown High School was renamed Ragsdale High School and moved into a new building across town. The old Jamestown High School building now serves as the location of the Jamestown Public Library.
Visit the North Carolina Yearbooks collection on DigitalNC for more high school and college yearbooks from around the state.
The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has added a new partner, Central Piedmont Community College.
Cover of the 1986-1988 course catalog for Central Piedmont Community College
Thanks to this partner, we have just added to DigitalNC course catalogs from the college dating from it’s start in 1965 to 2002. Yearbooks dating from 1962-1964 from Mecklenburg College, an African American college in Charlotte that merged with the Central Industrial Education Center in Charlotte to form Central Piedmont Community College in 1964, are also now online.
Cover of the 1990-1992 course catalog for Central Piedmont Community College.
To view more materials from colleges and universities across North Carolina, visit here.
Thanks to a new contributing partner of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, Highlands Historical Society, the Galax News, a local newspaper published for the summer residents of Highlands, and yearbooks and a student newspaper from Highlands High School are now available on DigitalNC.
The Love Bug played at the Galax Theater in the summer of 1970
The Galax News was published weekly by the Galax Theater in downtown Highlands with news about what was going on in the town for the summer. Listings of what movies were showing were naturally a regular feature in the paper, as well as information about what events were going on at the local churches, festivals in town, who was renting their house out for the summer to who, who was arriving or leaving town, and even the guest list of the local hotels for the week. Advertisements for local businesses are also a key component. The issues available online date from 1952 through 1971.
The title cover of the April 10, 1942 issue of The Mountain Trail, published by Highlands High School
Materials from Highlands High School are now online as well. Yearbooks dating from 1941 to 1964 are available as are issues of the student newspaper, The Mountain Trail, dating from 1938 to 1974.
Cover page of the 1947 Pemican yearbook, High Point High School
Thanks to two new contributing institutions to the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, the High Point Museum and the Heritage Research Center at High Point Public Library, yearbooks from High Point High School covering 1916-1964 and High Point city directories covering the 1930s – 1950s are now available on DigitalNC. In addition to information about the students and faculty, each yearbook includes a history of High Point High School and a history of High Point itself.
High Point on the Map, advertisement from the 1916 Atelier yearbook, High Point High School
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.