Selected early high school yearbooks from Alamance County are now available on DigitalNC in the North Carolina High School Yearbooks collection. The May Memorial Library in Burlington (part of the Alamance County Public Libraries) contributed 85 yearbooks from a number of different schools, ranging in date from the late 19th century through the early 1960s. Check the list below to see if your yearbook is one of the ones available online.
To celebrate 14 years of NCDHC (on May 12, 2009 our first blog post went live with our first scanned collection), the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center have all picked a favorite item from the collection to share. Check them out below – and then we invite you to visit digitalnc.org and find some favorite NC items yourself!
Lisa Gregory, Program Coordinator for the NCDHC
When pressed to pick one item (!) I have to go with the September 26, 1874 issue of the Fayetteville Educator. The Educator ran for a single year and was published by W. C. Smith who went on to publish a later title, the Charlotte Messenger. A few years ago while researching Black newspapers in North Carolina, I happened to run across a reference to the Educator as the earliest known Black newspaper in the state. Other sources generally cite the Star of Zion, which began a short time later and is still published today. With the help of some of our partners we were able to locate and add the Fayetteville Educator to DigitalNC. I picked this item because many 19th and 20th century newspapers written by and documenting the Black community are no longer extant or are extremely rare. For me, the fact that we can now share this online on behalf of our partners really encapsulates why we do what we do at NCDHC.
The educator (Fayetteville, N.C.) 1874-1875, September 26, 1874, Image 1, presented by the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center in partnership with The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture and Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.
Stephanie Williams, NCDHC Programmer
Still from Wadesboro, 1938 film by H. Lee Waters
Movies of Local People (H. Lee Waters): Wadesboro, 1938
H. Lee Waters traveled around the state in the 1930s and 1940s setting up a camera on streetcorners and filming townspeople. There are a handful of these films available on DigitalNC, and one of my favorites is from Wadesboro in 1938. Waters captured people just going about their daily business, which is fun for so many reasons–but my favorite part is seeing peoples’ personalities, and realizing that the way we react when we realize we’re on camera hasn’t changed in 85 years.
Kristen Merryman, Digital Projects Librarian
“Adult feeding bear by Fontana Lake”
Adult feeding bear by Fontana Lake
This is a photograph in our collection I always come back to because it really pulls together many things I love – bears, the gorgeous lakes of the NC mountains, and a good cookout in a park. This obviously portrays something many a park ranger would shun but I love the NC Variety Vacationland vibes it gives off! We digitized this photograph as part of a larger batch from the Graham County Public Library in Robbinsville, NC when we were there for an onsite scanning visit in 2018 and ourselves got to enjoy many lovely views of Fontana Lake and the surrounding mountains.
One of the things I love about our site is how many yearbooks, student handbooks, and students newspapers we have—I love seeing family and friends’ photos from when they were in school. These materials are where I see my own life reflected the most because they capture so many familiar places and people. It’s interesting to see how our schools have changed over the last century but also how so many things are apparently inherent to being a teenager. While I think all of our student publications are fantastic, this handbook is special to me for a few reasons. Not only is it a glimpse at my alma mater (go Deacs!), but it also features an excellent photo of one of my favorite professors in his early years of teaching.
Geoff Schilling, Newspaper Technician
Cat’s Cradle The DigitalNC item I chose is of a Chapel Hill location that means a great deal to me. The first four photos in this set are of the Cat’s Cradle’s early to late ‘80s location at 320 W. Franklin St. (now The Crunkleton), but the last three images are the reason I’m sharing it. Down this alley is their previous location at 405 1/2 W. Rosemary St., which they started occupying around 1971. In 1983, after the Cradle moved out, it became a venue called Rhythm Alley and they stuck around until 1987. At the end of that year the Skylight Exchange took over the space and in 2003 the one-and-only Nightlight came into existence. The Nightlight is an experimental music oasis where you can see everything from outsider folk legend Michael Hurley to Detroit techno heavyweight DJ Psycho. In addition to being my favorite venue in the world, it’s also the preferred stop of touring musicians from all over the country. The landscape of this “Rhythm Alley” has barely changed over the last half-century (save for a healthy amount of graffiti), but its legacy has grown with each new chapter.
Last year I had the opportunity to digitize some amazing slide images that were taken during several Chapel Hill Boy Scout Troop 835 and Girl Scout Troop 59 trips over the years courtesy of our partner Chapel Hill Historical Society. Many of the slides from these trips feature beautiful scenery and fun, but this particular photograph from the August 1973 Quebec trip is one of my favorite items on our site. In addition to being a great candid, I think it’s the individual’s sense of jollity and peacefulness portrayed in this moment of the trip that really makes it a top-pick of mine.
This holiday season join us here on the blog for the 12 Days of NCDHC. We’ll be posting short entries that reveal something you may not know about us. You can view all of the posts together by clicking on the 12daysofncdhc tag. And, as always, chat with us if you have questions or want to work with us on something new. Happy Holidays!
Day 3: We’ll Come to You
In 2017 we introduced a new initiative – DigitalNC on the Road! in which we pack up our scanners and laptops and travel to partners to scan items in their collections. One of our favorite parts of being part of the NCDHC is getting to see our partners’ institutions (and get in a little NC sightseeing and tasting too!)
NCDHC staff scanning at Johnston County Heritage Center
The length of time we will come for is flexible. Some partners we just visit for a day, other partners we come to for two or three days to really work through a collection. The process to visit starts at least a month beforehand where we meet with you via the phone to discuss what collections we can work on, how many materials we can get through, and discuss initial metadata needs. As far as resources needed once we arrive – a few tables and chairs and outlets near those tables is really it. We have been in community rooms, board rooms, and research rooms for our scanning setups! We welcome the public to view us and ask us any questions they might have. Our blog post announcing the initiative gives a good overview of how the process works. We have done photograph collections, news clippings, student history projects, and slides as part of our on site visits. Starting in January however we’ll have new scanners that will also allow us to easily do bound materials, including yearbooks.
Lisa chatting with board members from the Winston Salem African American Archive
We are also happy to come visit and just talk through the collections you have and what might be candidates for digitization back at NCDHC in Wilson Library, and if you’re ready, take some of those materials back for us.
If you’re interested in talking with us to set up an on site visit let us know. We’re always up for a road trip across North Carolina!
Check back on Wednesday as we reveal Day 4 of the 12 Days of NCDHC!
One of the first big stories breaks about midway through the year: the parking meter debacle. Apparently, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen had been tossing around the idea of installing parking meters for a couple of years, and the decision to finally do it happened in 1958. Local businessmen immediately pushed back, arguing that instituting paid parking would hurt their businesses.
Apparently, everyone could agree on the fact that the parking meters were ugly, but the author of the article, Roland Giduz, speculated that complaints about the meters would die down once everyone realized how much they improve traffic (spoiler alert: that doesn’t really happen based on the coverage that follows).
Just below the meter gripes article is another big story of the year: school integration. It describes two issues for an upcoming school merger election: first, whether Black students would attend Carrboro Elementary School, and second, whether the Chapel Hill School Board would charge $30 tuition for students from Carrboro. (Note: more materials about Carrboro Elementary School were also uploaded in this batch, including architectural plans and a document of education specifications).
The earlier articles that this one refers to (from May 22, 1958) don’t mention race until the very last line: “As to the general pupil assignment policy for next year, [Mr. Culbreth] said that he anticipated that the Board would re-adopt the existing regulations, whereby racial segregation has been maintained.” As the July article notes, this is four years after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
September 11, 1958
The issue gets a more personal focus in the September 11, 1958 issue, when the Orange County School Board denied Lee and Lattice Vickers’ child admittance to the then all-white Carrboro Elementary School. The Vickers’ case was set against the backdrop of ongoing school assignment problems, with neighboring school systems fighting each other over pupil placement and resources.
The fight to racially integrate schools in Chapel Hill (and throughout North Carolina) continued well into the 1960s, and, sadly, none of the community papers that we have from the area extend past 1963. One of the latest articles available, from The Chapel Hill Weekly, reports a survey of Southern business leaders and how their perspective on industry shaped their views on the matter.
But, in 1958, public school integration was still competing for front page space with—you guessed it—parking meters.
In this case, efforts were headed by a citizens group concerned about the effects of the ABC stores in the area. Meetings were held at the University Baptist Church, though Carolyn Noell, a spokesperson for the group, noted that local churches were only providing contacts and spaces (not serving as official sponsors).
Not long before this, the News Leaderreprinted an article from the Durham Morning Herald about how lucrative the ABC stores were. Apparently, the Durham ABC stores sold almost $58 million of alcohol from June 30, 1957, to September 1958 (enough to pay for Durham’s entire share of the Raleigh-Durham airport, plus some for Lincoln Hospital, local schools, warehouse equipment, public libraries, garbage disposal services, and a rabies inspection program, among other things). To put these sales into proportion, a fifth of whiskey (from a “popular brand”) cost $3.95 back then. Certainly, money was at the heart of the argument for the Orange County Citizens for Legal Control in their ad in the January 29, 1959 issue.
Of course, in a college town like Chapel Hill, there’s also frequent news about the University. One article, from October 2, 1958, warned that student enrollment may swell to between 12,000 and 14,000 in 1970 (today, total enrollment exceeds 30,000). And—surprise!—much of the concern about the growing student population is related to parking.
One of the funnier articles about UNC-CH is about Rameses, the live mascot (not to be confused with costumed cheerleader Rameses, former bodybuilder). Rameses VIII, then in power, was “the most aggressive ram I’ve handled,” according to Glen Hogan, his boarder. He was also one of the biggest up until then, clocking in at 250 pounds. These two facts, Hogan hoped, would dissuade rival Duke students from stealing the mascot.
The reigning Rameses (né Otis) ascended in 2020 as the twenty-second mascot. His handler, James Hogan, is part of the same family that has been caring for the mascots since the 1920s. Rameses XXII has “come a long way” in getting used to people and is (presumably) a bit sweeter than his “big and mean” predecessor—though he is still well-guarded.
December 4, 1958
One final story from 1958 is the opening of the Chapel Hill Public Library, which was originally opened in the Hill House on West Franklin Street. The goal, according to Mrs. Richmond Bond, chairman of the board, was to “supplement” the University’s library by focusing on children’s and popular books that were generally unavailable at UNC.
Bond argued that Chapel Hill was the only town of its size in North Carolina without a public library and that the University library had “almost more than it can do” with the increase of UNC students. This led the Board of Aldermen to approve a $4,600 grant for the local library. Somebody even donated over 300 books before the library opened its doors.
In the very last uploaded issue of the Chapel Hill News Leader, from January 29, 1959, the top headline reads, “Death of a Newspaper.” Due to internal litigation, the paper had to stop running.
A 1930 illustration to celebrate that year’s July 4 anniversary
Courtesy of our partners, the Murphy Public Library and the Nantahala Regional Library, almost 30 more years of the Cherokee Scout have been newly digitized. That brings our collection to nearly 2500 issues, stretching from 1923-1971! These are brand new to DigitalNC and we are proud to present them. Published weekly, The Cherokee Scout serves Cherokee County, where it remains a staple to its readership of nearly 10,000.
A Nov. 1938 article announcing UNC President Graham’s visit to the local Murphy Library
Because of the long time-span of papers now in our collection, it is fascinating to see what sort of issues were being discussed throughout the community’s history. For example, in 1938, UNC’s President Dr. Frank Graham visited Murphy and toured the construction of the Hiwassee Dam and the village set up by the Tennessee Village Authority to bring electricity to the county. As World War II began a few years later, many men from the county enlisted in the different branches of service.
Later, in the 1950s, many of Cherokee County’s children were vaccinated for polio. Inventor Jonas Salk was written of very fondly in the Scout, as Cherokee County had to have numerous money drives for polio in the prior decade. Unusually for newspapers in North Carolina, the Scout also included news from Georgia, including market prices in Atlanta, due to its close proximity.
An April 1955 announcing polio vaccination treatments for local Cherokee County children
Having this newspaper in our collection brings us a wealth of valuable knowledge about how Cherokee County residents interpreted important events at the time and how they were affected. To browse through other materials from the Murphy Public Library and the Nantahala Regional Library, visit their partner pages, or visit their websites here.
A front page from August 1946. News included veterans’ furlough pay, farm credit bills in Congress, and the 20th anniversary of sound in movies
Twenty more years and almost 7000 pages of the Alamance Gleaner have been added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Alamance County Public Libraries. Previously, issues of the Gleaner only covered from 1875-1882 and 1911 to 1926, but DigitalNC now includes January 1927 to January 1947. Based out of Alamance County, the Gleaner was published from 1875 through 1956, and it joins other Alamance County newspapers, including the Mebane Leader and the Burlington Twice-A-Week Dispatch.
A July 1927 article about a highway that would eventually become Route 66
The Gleaner was a weekly newspaper based out of Graham that offered local news, national news, international news, and short stories. One story that the Gleaner wrote about in 1927 was a plan to create a highway from Chicago to Los Angeles, thought of as a “Main Street of America”, a stretch that would eventually become Route 66. As time went on, the Gleaner also came to include a comics section, quizzes, and timely updates from the different campaigns in World War II.
With this new increase in pages from the Alamance Gleaner, DigitalNC becomes that much closer to having the entire published history of the newspaper in our collection. To browse other materials from Alamance County, take a look at their partner page, or visit their website.
The following microfilmed newspapers were selected for digitization in 2017-2018. Thanks to supplemental funding from the State Library of North Carolina, we were able to complete more reels than in previous years. Reels were chosen from nominations according to our Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm.
Logo image courtesy the Braswell Memorial Library! “Ricky in Toy Car”
Have you been interested in working with the Digital Heritage Center but find it difficult to get to Chapel Hill, or have concerns about having your materials off site? We want to come to you! We’ll be working with two or three cultural heritage institutions over the next nine months to try out on-location scanning. If you’d like to nominate your institution, read on and use the nomination form linked at the end of this post.
What We Do
Here’s what nominated institutions will receive as part of this process.
We will bring our scanners, computers, and staff to your institution to digitize and describe materials from your collections. We would be there for one full weekday, at a minimum.
We’ll host the scanned images and associated metadata on DigitalNC.org, and give you copies of the original scans to use in any non-profit context.
Optionally, we can do a presentation for staff and/or the public related to any of the following topics:
The Digital Heritage Center’s services (for staff at your institution and/or other local cultural heritage institutions)
A demonstration of what we’re doing while we’re there (for staff at your institution)
The variety of resources you can find on DigitalNC.org and other fantastic digital collections in North Carolina (staff or the public)
What We’ll Need from Partners We Visit
If you’re chosen, we’d need:
At least one conference call before arrival to clarify expectations, work with you on scheduling, and talk through the materials you’d like scanned.
Description and a light inventory of the items we’ll be scanning, if there isn’t one already available.
Some assembly and preparation of the materials you’ve chosen. This might include physically pulling all of the content together before we arrive and removing staples if the materials are stapled at the top corners.
A designated staff contact regularly available to ask questions regarding what we’re scanning while we’re there, and to help with logistics like getting equipment in and out of the building, etc.
An indoor location that has:
at least two power outlets,
internet connectivity,
a work area large enough for 2 scanners and 4 laptops as well as extra room for materials handling,
seating for four people, and
is away from the public so we can get the most scanning accomplished in our limited time (ideal but not required).
Additional Guidance for Nominations
We’ll be giving priority to nominations from institutions furthest from Chapel Hill and to new partners. If you are a prospective partner, please check to make sure you’re eligible.
The materials have to be owned by your institution.
The materials should cover North Carolina subjects, events, and people.
For these on-location sessions, we’re accepting nominations for the following types of items:
photographs (prints) and/or postcards
looseleaf print materials up to 11×17”
bound items may be considered, but in very limited numbers and only if transporting them to Chapel Hill would be impossible
Materials can be fragile but should be stable enough to withstand gentle handling and placement on a flatbed scanner.
We’ll review nominations according to the following criteria, so you may want to address these in your nomination form:
Category
Point Value
New partner
1
New town
1
New county**
2
Materials document an underrepresented
community or population
1
Materials are well described/inventoried
5
Majority of materials date from 1945 or earlier
1
Materials are believed to be unique
1
** We have yet to work with any institutions in the following counties: Alexander, Bertie, Bladen, Camden, Caswell, Chowan, Clay, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Graham, Greene, Henderson, Hoke, Jones, Mitchell, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Swain, Tyrrell, Yancey
We’ll start reviewing nominations on September 30 and will notify selected institutions shortly thereafter. If a selected institution ends up not being able to host us, we’ll continue down the list.
We’re excited about trying out this new service. Please contact us with any questions and share this with any institutions you think might be interested.
Governor Robert W. Scott receives a “Bob Jr.” license plate in this footage of his inauguration and subsequent celebrations. Contributed by the State Archives of North Carolina.
Almost one year ago, we asked our partners for nominations of audio and video media from their collections to digitize, using funding from the Digital Public Library of America. From all corners of North Carolina came suggestions for moving images and sound. Some items were well documented, with descriptions or finding aids [?] in tow. Others were accompanied with the words “We think this is … but we really have no idea.” Thanks to George Blood, L. P., who digitized these items for us, and Andrea Green, our former Community Digitization Manager, we ended up with over 140 physical items digitized from 11 institutions.
Here’s an overview of what’s been added to DigitalNC to our new Sights and Sounds collection (some of our partners will be posting their digitized media on their own digital collection sites instead). Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more posts taking a closer look at some of our favorites.
Braswell Memorial Library
Throughout the 1990s, Mary Lewis Deans spearheaded an ambitious and well-documented oral history campaign in Nash County. She and her colleagues spoke with long-time residents about rural farming life, military service during World War II, segregation, and family traditions. Deans was businesslike yet friendly, no-nonsense and yet genuine. Listen to and read Deans’ oral histories.
From Davie County Public Library comes a two-part series on Davie County History, and a home video of local personality Louise Graham Stroud, who performed monologues as her self-created character, “Miss Lizzie.”
Cynthia Watts (left) interviews actress Joan Bennett in one of the Arts in Durham films contributed by the Durham Public Library.
Durham Public Library
Love Durham? Love the Arts? Love the late 70s? Some of our staff favorites come from Durham Public Library’s collection of “Arts in Durham” films. Produced by the Durham Arts Council, these films showcase local bands, dance groups, visual artists, and more. We’ll definitely be blogging about our favorite moments. Durham Public Library also contributed a taped lecture by Dr. Charles Watts on the history of Lincoln Hospital, and two-part coverage of the Durham County Centennial Parade of 1981.
Edgecombe Memorial Library
Tobacco Perspectives is an amateur recording of a two-night event in the early 1980s during which a historian, a political scientist, and representatives from farm, industry, and public health agencies lectured on the tobacco industry both past and present.
Rockingham County Public Library
We’ve already announced the bookmobile film from Rockingham County, but we’re still looking for someone who can identify the school that’s shown. In this film boys and girls eagerly peruse and check out books from local librarians. It’s even got Jim, the library dog.
State Archives of North Carolina
We were pleased to join for the first time with the State Archives during this project, as they chose a number of films that document the state’s history. Among the films from the Archives that we’ve added online are coverage of Governor R. W. Scott II’s inauguration and U. S. Coast Guard Appreciation Day (1970).
No Handouts for Mrs. Hedgepeth, 1968, documented a Durham family living below the poverty line. Contributed by the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
From 1962-1965, the North Carolina Film Board produced films tackling some of the most pressing issues in North Carolina: race relations, education, and economic opportunity. Eight of those films join others from the North Carolina Collection and Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill on DigitalNC. As might be expected, some are about UNC and Chapel Hill. Fans of the Hugh Morton Collection will also see several films believed to have been filmed by Morton or his colleagues. There’s even footage of Mildred the Bear.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
In 1960, Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey became the first chair of what is now the Department of Africana Studies at UNC-Charlotte, which contributed three items related to her career. A scholar, educator, and community icon, one of these shows children in a classroom being taught by Maxwell-Roddey’s students. The others show a night of live poetry and music.
Headline in the Roanoke News, May 28, 1908 From the Halifax County Library
94 years ago today, on January 17, 1920, the United States officially became a dry country, as the 18th Amendment banning the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages went into effect. However, in North Carolina, it had little effect as the state had enacted prohibition via a referendum vote twelve years earlier on May 26, 1908, becoming the first in the south to ban alcohol.
Moonshine still being destroyed in Davie County, 1912 From Davie County Public Library
Prior to the full country being under Prohibition, North Carolinians would drive to Virginia or South Carolina to procure their alcohol and bootlegging quickly became good business in the state and those early bootleggers who fixed up their cars to be as fast as possible laid the ground for race car driving and eventually, NASCAR. Once full prohibition was in effect across the country, moonshiners also did quick business. In DigitalNC there are several photographs and newspaper articles about those who were caught by police attempting to make or transport liquor and many more expressing editorial opinions for and against prohibition.
Sheriff captures 126 gallons of bootleg whiskey in Rockingham County, NC From Rockingham Community College
While nationwide prohibition ended with the 21st Amendment’s passage in 1933, North Carolina did not ratify the amendment and it was not until 1937 when the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) system was set up in North Carolina counties to sell alcohol that prohibition officially ended in North Carolina. However, many counties still remained dry well after 1937 and post prohibition moon-shining and bootlegging was still a common occurrence in the mid 1900s. Today, Graham County remains as the only fully dry county in the state. To learn more about prohibition in North Carolina, check out this post from the North Carolina Collection and this article in NCpedia.
Officers in Spray pour illegal whiskey down the storm drain in the 1950s. From Rockingham Community College
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.
