Braswell Memorial Library (Rocky Mount, N.C.), covers
14 phone directories are now available for search and use on DigitalNC!
Phone directories, like city directories, offer a wealth of information for researchers and genealogists. Each contains pages dedicated to using the directory and even using a phone. Some of the younger users of this site may have never used a physical phone book, made a collect call, or utilized a phone booth. While that may be shocking to some, resources like these could serve as excellent teaching tools to help younger users and students understand the differences in how people have communicated over the past few decades.
You can see all of the newly digitized directories at the links below:
Telephone Directory for Rocky Mount, Enfield, Nashville, Spring Hope, Tarboro, and Whitakers [1937], page 4
To learn more about Rocky Mount, N.C. and the surrounding areas, check all of the materials that Braswell Memorial Library has contributed to DigitalNC. To learn more about the library, please visit the website or the contributor page.
Twenty-two new city and telephone directories are now available on DigitalNC. Thanks to the Cabarrus County Public Library, it is possible to research information regarding Kannapolis, China Grove, Landis, Concord, and several surrounding areas from 1933- 1965. You can search all of the new additions here.
Besides the names and business data typical of city directories, they also include many advertisements and illustrations. They would also serve as excellent resources for those interested in genealogical research in Cabarrus County.
Sports page from the 1960 Cross Roads yearbook, “Then and Now”
Future Homemakers of America, West Stanly High School 1965
Future Farmers of America, West Stanly High School 1965
These yearbooks provide an intriguing look into the lives of students. They showcase the fashions, clubs and activities of North Carolina students, some that will be familiar to students today and some that have been abandoned over time (Did your class have child mascots? How about a superlative for Best Looking?).
For more information about the Stanly County Museum and their materials, visit their contributor page on DigitalNC or their home website.
Directory from North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
Our colleagues over at the State Library of North Carolina are highlighting a North Carolina county every week, and in honor of this week’s county, Robeson, we are taking a closer look at the city directories from Robeson’s county seat, Lumberton.
In DigitalNC, we have four city directories from Lumberton, that span the time period of 1916-1956. The directories highlight the changes and growth in Lumberton over this time as it moved from a town of approximately 3,000 residents to one of 18,119 people by 1956. City directories, which were printed by private companies, provided many of the services that a telephone book did later in the 20th century, but they tended to include more elaborate information about the residents in the town, had extensive advertisements, and often added civic information. The Lumberton city directories were no exception.
Example of directory information on residents. Directory is courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
The directories for Lumberton in DigitalNC were published by three different publishers, all based out of South Carolina; Gardiner, Baldwin, and Nelson. These publishers took it upon themselves to do a census of all the residents and businesses in town. The information gathered on the residents not only included their address, but how many people lived in the house and their occupations. Information such as race and whether or not the house was owned by the resident was also included.
Extensive civic information is also included in several of the directories, particularly those produced by Baldwin. Not only is a town history provided, with images of the hospital and schools in the town, but also a complete listing of who was in office at the time, both in the North Carolina government and every single member of Congress, and the Supreme Court.
Encouraging business owners to advertise in the directory, as this was the publisher’s source of revenue. Courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
As the city directories were handed out free to those in the town, revenue for the directories came from advertisements, which are a rich source of information about the types of businesses in the town and the types of products they were selling. You can see over time how there was a shift from locally owned small shops to more franchise based operations. For example, in 1916 a local millinery shop is advertised and in the 1956 directory, several regional and national department stores are advertising.
Ads in the 1916 City Directory. Courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Ads from the 1956 City Directory. Courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Lumberton city directories provide a microscope on the town in the early half of the twentieth century and are a rich resource for anyone wanting to learn more about what the 1916 directory advertises as “A Desirable Place for Good Citizens to Live.”
For more information on the history of city directories and their use as a research tool in the 21st century, the New York Public Library has an excellent blog post here. For more city directories from towns and cities across North Carolina, check out DigitalNC’s City Directories Collection.
Lee County Public Libraries has shared a large collection of materials relating to Sanford, Jonesboro, and the greater Lee County area, now available on Digital NC. Here at NCDHC, we are thrilled to work with a new partner and broaden our representation of “the heart of North Carolina.” Visitors to the site can now view nearly one hundred years of documents, including bulletins and directories; county fair and circus programs; personal records; Chamber of Commerce pamphlets; many photographs of residents, homes, and businesses; scrapbooks; school programs, records, and yearbooks; and more. Also available are forty-four years of minutes from the Pierian Club, a women’s club and Sanford’s oldest literary society. Records from these societies, common in the twentieth century, give unique insight into the activities of middle-class North Carolina women.
Sanford has historically been an important site for manufacturing and industry, and was established at the junction of the Raleigh and Augusta Air Line and Western Railroads. The early twentieth century saw rapid expansion, thanks to Sanford’s location on the railways and its official incorporation as a city in 1907, as well as the growth of manufacturing throughout the Piedmont. Tobacco in particular contributed to Sanford’s growth, which is reflected in many of the photographs and documents now available on the site. Many of the newly digitized materials are concerned with attracting more business to Sanford and advertising its various commercial enterprises. Sanford suffered economic downturns in the Great Depression and again in the 1960s and ’70s as tobacco and manufacturing declined.
Thanks to investment in economic diversification at the end of the twentieth century, Sanford has again become a vibrant and growing community with many manufacturing jobs and a diverse population of over 60,000 residents. Researchers can learn more about Lee County here and view all of our digitized materials from Lee County Public Libraries here.
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton has funded digitization of an additional 12 years of the Chowan Herald. This new content means that you can now search the entire run from the first issue in 1934 through December 2014.
The new issues cover 2003-2014. The Herald is published in Edenton, one of North Carolina’s oldest historic cities. There are articles that describe moving the 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse and the renovation and re-opening of the historic Chowan County Courthouse which was originally built in 1767. There’s also an article declaring a home on East Queen Street to be the oldest in the state after dating the wood timbers to 1718.
This area in particular felt the push and pull of development opportunities during this time. The paper covers pushback by residents as retailers like Wal-mart and Lowe’s scope out sites for stores. Many issues cover the potential development of an outlying landing field or OLF by the Navy, which drew criticism for its potential impact on the Pocosin Lake Wildlife Refuge. In the end the Navy withdrew plans for an OLF in North Carolina.
You can search and browse the entire run of The Chowan Herald on its landing page. Other materials related to Chowan County that are available on our site, including newspapers, city directories, and more, can be searched and browsed on the county landing page.
West Main Street in Brevard, N.C., in 1925, also known as Fritz’s old stomping grounds.
More materials from the Transylvania County Library have recently been added to our site, including several issues of Brevard-area newspapers from the early 20th century, a set of telephone directories, and a couple of yearbooks. It is thanks to this batch of newspapers that the life of one of Brevard’s beloved community members was brought to light.
From The Transylvania Times, March 10, 1932.
Fritz was “the famous Nobby Shoppe cat,” “well known among the business houses of Brevard” and “petted by everyone.” He was, according to his obituary, “the object of much admiration on account of his enormous size and his beauty.” Sadly, Fritz succumbed to illness, but his obituary shares front page real estate of The Transylvania Times with a feature on the Lindbergh baby and updates on the county tax penalty—in other words, he was a big deal. (Then again, this front page also features a story about Ralph Woodfin, a farmer who found two “freak eggs,” or an egg within an egg—known today to happen because of a counter-peristalsis contraction).
Fritz’s home, the Nobby Shoppe, was a popular women’s store on West Main Street and a frequent advertiser in The Transylvania Times. In the 1930s, the shop seemed to specialize in ladies’ hats, which sold for $1-$2.95. They also sold “frocks” and “triple crepe dresses” in an expansive selection of sizes.
A cat lounging at the H. R. Bradley House in Transylvania County (likely not Fritz himself).
You can read more about the noteworthy community members of Transylvania County in the three newspapers just added to our site: The Transylvania Times(issues from 1887, 1932, 1953, and 1967), the French Broad Hustler (issues from 1893, 1894, and 1896), and the Brevard News (issues from 1905 and 1923).
The full list of telephone directories included in this batch can be found here. These include the names and numbers of local businesses and individuals across the county from 1952-1984.
A new set of maps, posters, and architectural plans from our partner, the Durham County Library, has been added to our site. They range in time from the late 1880s to the present, and many provide local insight to the culture of Durham.
Map of Durham, N.C., c. 1957
One of the most exciting maps that we’ve added is this mid-century Western States Publishing Co. Map—perhaps one of the last versions that documents Durham before I-85 (1958) and N.C. 147 highway were built (1967-1970). Comparing it to the city today, you can tell what was disrupted during construction.
Detail from the 1920 map of Durham County
Similarly, this map of Durham from 1920 notes the schools in the area and whether they served Black or White students. According to this map, many of the schools closest to the city center only served White students, while many of the Black schools are further out in the county.
Another neat item in this batch is this Historic Durham County Poster created by John B. Tomlinson. Around the drawn map of Durham County are illustrations of some of Durham’s famous and historic landmarks, including Duke University’s West Campus, NC Central University, and the County Courthouse. These and other annotations help identify some of the big moments in Durham’s history, such as the surrender of J.E. Johnston at Bennett Place.
In terms of more modern materials, take a look at these two bike maps: one from 1991, and one from 2010. The entire back side of the 1991 version is covered in safety information, like how to wear a helmet and 10 tips for “frustrating” a bike thief (No.8 is to “Engrave your social security number on expensive parts,” which doesn’t seem like common advice today.). Meanwhile, the back of the 2010 map is more like a typical city map, with directories of things in downtown Durham.
Dawn Schmitz, Associate Dean for Special Collections & University Archives at Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.
Today’s 10 for 10 Q&A is from Dawn Schmitz, Associate Dean for Special Collections & University Archives at Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte. Since 2010, we’ve partnered with UNC-Charlotte’s Atkins Library (Library home page | NCDHC contributor page) digitizing yearbooks and catalogs, maps, photographs, and newspapers. You should also head over to Goldmine, their digital collections website, where you’ll find oral histories, maps, photographs, and other items documenting the history of the Charlotte area and UNC-Charlotte. Read below for more about our partnership with UNC-C.
What impact has NCDHC had on your institution and/or on a particular audience that means a lot to you?
In 2017, you put out a call for nominations for digitization projects that would help document the history of underrepresented groups in our state. You immediately responded to my nomination of QNotes, a Charlotte LGBTQ newspaper that has been published since the 1980s. As a result, this publication is now online, freely available to the community (rather than behind a paywall), and used regularly by QNotes staff, queer studies scholars and students, and the general public. To top it all off, your bloggers did an incredible job of promoting the resource, highlighting its significance for LGBTQ history. Jim Yarbrough, publisher of QNotes, wrote in the newspaper, “To see our staff’s work made available to a larger audience and future generations — it’s indescribable.”
Do you have a specific user story (maybe your own!) about how DigitalNC has boosted research or improved access to important information?
There are so many examples of reference questions we have answered with a link to DigitalNC. One question I received from our University Communications office was particularly fun and satisfying to answer: When was our sports team first referred to as the forty-niners? Our Athletics department believed it was 1963. But using DigitalNC, I found a mention in the student newspaper two years earlier. (Charlotte collegian., November 01, 1961, page 4 )
What item or group of items on DigitalNC.org do you think everyone should know about?
It’s so hard to choose! For our alumni and the entire NinerNation, the student newspapers, yearbooks, and course catalogs are so important. I personally love the city directories for the wealth of information they contain about Charlotte in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
If you were asked to “describe what makes NCDHC great” in a few words, what would they be?
NCDHC a first-rate operation: responsive, professional, innovative, inclusive, community-engaged, and indispensable!
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.
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