This week we have an astounding 80 titles up on DigitalNC! These papers span all across the state, covering 22 of North Carolina’s 100 counties! We have papers from smaller communities, like The Free Press from the town of Forest City (Fun fact: Forest City was originally named “Burnt Chimney” after a house that burned own in the area, leaving only a charred chimney behind). We also have well-established papers from Raleigh, such as The Raleigh Times and Evening Visitor, giving us a cross section of the entire state.

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

• Raleigh Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1918-1919
• The Davidson Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.) – 1886-1902
• The Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.) – 1902-1922
• Carolina Messenger (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1869-1877
• Goldsboro Messenger (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1878-1883
• The Daily Capital (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891
• The Daily Call (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1889-1896
• The Hayseeder (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1896-1898
• The Daily Dispatch (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1880
• Daily Morning Record (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1881
• Greensboro Evening Telegram (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1897-1900
• Greensboro Telegram (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1900-1910
• Greenville Daily News (Greenville, N.C.) – 1917-1920
• Greenville News (Greenville, N.C.) – 1920-1921
• North Carolina Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1888
• The Live Giraffe (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1852-1859
• The Democratic Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1859-1860
• The Daily Democratic Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1860
• Hale’s Weekly (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1879-1880
• The Golden Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1891
• State Prohibition Organ (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1881
• The Advertiser (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1893
• Beans (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1887
• Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1897-1900
• The Daily Press (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• The Press-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1896
• The Times-Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1900
• The Raleigh Times and Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1900
• Daily Industrial News (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1905-1909
• Carolina Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1816-1830
• The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.) – 1879-1909
• The Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) – 1882
• The Lenoir Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) – 1882-1898
• The Western North Carolina Times (Hendersonville, N.C.) – 1901-1923
• The Free Press (and Forest City Herald) (Forest City, N.C.) – 1915
• The Free Press (Forest City, N.C.) – 1916
• Forest City Courier (Forest City, N.C.) – 1924
• Everything (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1913-1918
• Davidson County News (Lexington, N.C.) – 1897-1898
• The Press and Carolinian (Hickory, N.C.) – 1893-1896
• The Lincoln County News (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1907-1918
• The Catawba County News (Newton, N.C.) – 1911
• The Franklin Press (Franklin, N.C.) – 1903-1906
• The Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1889-1891
• Greensboro Daily Workman (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1891-1892
• Goldsboro Weekly Argus (Goldsboro, N.C.) – 1903-1905
• Asheville Daily Gazette (Asheville, N.C.) – 1897-1898
• Asheville Gazette-News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1910-1914
• The Asheville Times (Asheville, N.C.) – 1917
• The Old North State (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1865
• The Sampson Democrat (Clinton, N.C.) – 1892-1901
• The Concord Register (Concord, N.C.) – 1875-1885
• The Democratic Pioneer (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1850-1859
• The Patriot, and Greensborough Palladium (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1827-1829
• Greensborough Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1829-1836
• The Greensborough Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1839-1850
• The Greensboro Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1918-1922
• The Eagle (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1868-1875
• The Concord Sun (Concord, N.C.) – 1876-1877
• The American (Statesville, N.C.) – 1865-1869
• The Statesville American (Statesville, N.C.) – 1870-1886
• The Statesville American and Tobacco Journal (Statesville, N.C.) – 1881
• The Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1872-1890
• Economist and Falcon (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1895-1897
• Asheville News (Asheville, N.C.) – 1851-1865
• The Asheville News and Western Farmer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1868
• The Asheville News and Mountain Farmer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1869
• The Randolph Bulletin (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1905-1915
• The Weekly Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1884-1894
• The State Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• The Asheville Register (Asheville, N.C.) – 1899-1900
• The Daily Sun (Asheville, N.C.) – 1888
• The Carthage Blade (Carthage, N.C.) – 1896-1907
• The Dunn Signboard (Dunn, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Harnett Courier (Dunn, N.C.) – 1888-1889
• Asheville Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C) – 1893-1894
• Asheville Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1894
• The Semi-Weekly Citizen (Asheville, N.C.) – 1901
• The Clinton Reporter (Clinton, N.C.) – 1873-1874

If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.

This week we have added issues from 35 different newspaper titles! One of the titles we have is a paper from the now non-existent town of Buffalo Springs, North Carolina. According to this News & Record article, the Harnett County town ceased to exist when the turpentine industry in the area died out. But the intriguing thing about these papers isn’t the ghost of this town, it’s the man who wrote them: John McLean Harrington. Professor and author Michael Ray Smith penned this fascinating paper about Harrington and his newspapers, in which he writes: “Shortly before the Civil War, the son of an affluent Southern family began a journalism career unlike any in his community, his state, or even the nation and produced 305 handwritten newspapers, perhaps the greatest single output of handwritten newspapers by any American journalist.” Harrington had a subscription list of roughly 100 people and would painstakingly copy each individual paper by hand, even though printing presses were widely available at the time. In 1858, when Harrington was writing issues of The Nation, he was only 19 years old. The young man’s ambitions didn’t stop with just being a journalist. He also apparently worked as a bookkeeper, surveyor, educator, sheriff, and postmaster in Harnett County. While his accomplishments were quite impressive, he was also a man of contradiction. Smith writes this of the rural Renaissance man: “He talked of a partner but never revealed the colleague’s identity—if he indeed had one. He discussed the evil of drinking but died an alcoholic. He served as a member of the Confederate militia only to swear an oath that he would always remain a loyal Unionist. Perhaps Harrington tended to do or say whatever was expedient or expected at the time. Maybe he was himself just conflicted in numerous ways.”

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

• The Tri-Weekly Bulletin (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1865-1881
• Asheville Pioneer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1867-1869
• Weekly Pioneer (Asheville, N.C.) – 1870-1874
• The Carolina Eagle (Hickory, N.C.) – 1871-1872
• Mountain Messenger (Jefferson, N.C.) – 1873
• Battleboro Advance (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1871-1873
• The Weekly Ansonian (Polkton, N.C.) – 1876-1877
• The Southern Mail (Hillsborough, N.C.) – 1880
• The Carolina Republican (Lincolnton, N.C.) – 1848-1853
• Yadkin & Catawba Journal (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1828-1833
• The Journal (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1833-1834
• The Hornet (Bixby, N.C.) – 1908
• The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) – 1922-1924
• The Asheville Democrat (Asheville, N.C.) – 1889-1891
• Monthly Gleaner (Asheville, N.C.) – 1894-1895
• Fuller’s Gleaner (Asheville, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• The Dispatch (Bessemer City, N.C.) – 1912
• The Carthage Blade (Carthage, N.C.) – 1887-1895
• The Central Times (Dunn, N.C.) – 1895
• County Union (Dunn, N.C.) – 1895-1899
• The Transylvania Hustler (Brevard, N.C.) – 1893
• The Brevard Hustler (Brevard, N.C.) – 1896
• The Western Carolina Democrat (Bakersville, N.C.) – 1888
• Roan Mountain Republican (Bakersville, N.C.) – 1876-1879
• The Nation (Buffalo Springs, N.C.) – 1858
• Cape Fear News (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1915-1917
• Central Argus (Hamlet, N.C.) – 1880
• The Stanly Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1903-1907
• The Albemarle Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1912-1916
• The Stanly News-Herald (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1920-1922
• The Beaufort News (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1920-1922
• The State Dispatch (Burlington, N.C.) – 1908-1909
• Daily Carolina Times (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1864-1869
• The Standard (Concord, N.C.) – 1900-1902
• The Battleboro Progress (Battleboro, N.C.) – 1880

If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.

A couple of weeks ago UNC’s university archivist tweeted about finding articles in the Daily Tar Heel about a flu epidemic on UNC’s campus in early 1941. Intrigued – and figuring it was in no way contained to UNC’s campus – we did some digging in other newspapers on our site to find other stories about the epidemic’s impact on other campuses in NC at the time. A topic that is feeling quite relevant now, we found mentions scattered throughout the papers in January and February 1941 (for context – what would have been a year that started with an epidemic for these students and ended with the country involved in a World War) about how students were reacting to this sudden uptick in the flu.

Several campuses seemed to have a newfound appreciation for the infirmary, with an “Ode the Infirmary” published in Mars Hill College’s student newspaper.

From the Montreat College paper, a look “Through the Infirmary Door”

The social lives of the Belles of Saint Mary’s were put on hold for the flu that struck campus in mid January.  Their society pages in their student newspaper detail such and the following flurry of activity as they were able to come out of quarantine.

At the high school level, reports of basketball games and academic competitions were cancelled or put on hold as school was cancelled for several days to prevent the spread of the flu virus.  Both the students at Greensboro High School and High Point School reported such.

Other social and academic events were also cancelled – all citing the epidemic as the cause.

Other college campuses did not seem to have large effects from the flu but did report on students who were travelling from other areas of the state who then had to quarantine upon arrival on campus.  For example, in an article in Montreat College’s student paper, they reported on students who had to quarantine upon arriving back to campus.

All in all, nothing quite as dramatic as what appears to have happened at UNC was going on at other North Carolina schools, perhaps another echo of what has happened in 2020.  A brief perusal of the community papers from the time show that the flu epidemic was something affecting the whole state for sure, with mentions of it in papers from as far east as Beaufort, NC and as far west as Franklin, NC in Macon County.  

Clipping from The Beaufort News , January 16, 1941

Clipping from The Franklin press and the Highlands Maconian, January 23, 1941

Several articles note that this particular epidemic was moving from the western part of the state to the eastern part of the state, which was apparently unusual, and overall cases had been fairly mild (which likely explains in part why it rarely pops up as an event in history).  

January 22, 1941 issue of the State Port Pilot discussing the effects of the flu across the state.

To explore our over 1 million pages of digitized newspapers yourself, visit our North Carolina Newspapers page and read here about how colleges in NC responded to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.