The Smithfield Herald, established in 1882, was the oldest newspaper in Johnston County, offering an important insight into the county’s history. These semiweekly issues from January 1926 to April 1930 highlight local interests. Popular topics include weddings, deaths, church news, and local politics.
Also available to explore: creative writing! The Smithfield Herald published serialized fiction, poems, and short stories. Below is one example:
Learn more about the Johnston County Heritage Center and browse their extensive collections here. To look through all 3,096 issues of The Smithfield Herald available on DigitalNC, click here. And to search through other North Carolina newspapers, click here.
Thanks to our newest partner, Greene County Public Library, a new batch of materials is now available on DigitalNC! The Greene County Public Library, located in Snow Hill, North Carolina, is one of eight libraries in the Neuse Regional Library System. The materials in this batch include the only known volume of estate papers for Greene County prior to the 1870s, 1850 Greene County census, and a North Carolina Agricultural Station bulletin that provides a look into 1940s medical care.
In February 1877, a legislative act was passed that, among other things, created the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station. This act directed the station to conduct research on plant nutrition and grown, discover which fertilizers were best for each crop, and conduct other needed agricultural investigations. Nearly two months after the act was passed, the first station in the state, as well as in the South, began its work in a one-room chemistry laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Eventually the management of the station was transferred to the institution that would become North Carolina State University (NCSU); however, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (NCDA) continued to maintain its relationship with the station. Over time, a total of 15 Agricultural Experiment Stations were opened across the state. Today, the stations are cooperatively operated by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and North Carolina State University.
In November 1948, the Agricultural Experiment Station at North Carolina State College (eventually NCSU) published bulletin no. 363, titled “Medical Care in Greene County.” The bulletin provides a fascinating look into 1940s medical care in the county for both its white and Black residents. In addition to population demographic information, the bulletin provides a breakdown of the county’s medical facilities, medical workers, how far people traveled to receive care, how long patients stayed, who went to these facilities and why, cost for care, how patients paid their bills, and if any had insurance. Based on this information, the North Carolina Agricultural Station includes suggestions in the bulletin for the county’s medical care moving forward.
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.
Since there are so many yearbooks in this batch, there is a wide assortment of creative yearbook titles—some of which are stronger than others. As an alumna of R.J. Reynolds High School, I’ll admit that I have some bias toward the Black and Gold, but even I have to acknowledge that it’s a pretty generic name (in this batch alone, we’ve also got The Maroon and Gold from Atkins, the Blue and White from Old Town High School, and the Blue and Gold from Griffith High School).
Rather than opt for the usual school colors-based title, here are the top five yearbooks that aimed for something a little different.
I like that this team of young yearbook editors took a philosophical approach to their title. Like looking through a keyhole, a yearbook can only give a limited picture of what the culture and experience of Rural Hall High School was like. They continue this slice-of-life theme on the inside of the yearbook as well with this comical drawing featuring some of their classmates.
There’s something so quintessentially high school about being assigned The Iliad, possibly reading it, and then using it as a metaphor for the obstacles you face (a move perhaps only topped by a comparison of your personal journey to The Odyssey). This literary homage is made even better by the fact that the mascot for Southwest was the Trojan, meaning that this yearbook likely describes the siege and fall of the school by means of wooden horse.
Third place on this not-at-all subjective list was initially selected because of its overlap with the editorial column of James Mackintosh Qwilleran, a fictional detective and journalist who writes “The Qwill Pen” in the mystery series The Cat Who… by Lilian Jackson Braun. However, based on the uniforms required for yearbook photos, it does also seem possible that the students of Salem Academy really were writing with quills.
As someone with no military experience, when I initially picked this title, I had a different mental image of what the “dress parade” might include. However, given the fact that students at Oak Ridge did have to wear their uniforms on display for the yearbook, it still seems like a really fitting title. Plus, this edition has some cool woodblock prints and this one inexplicably tiny photo of a gazebo.
I don’t even know where to begin with this absolute chef’s kiss of a yearbook title. I love the old-timey spelling. I love the idea that a yearbook is the modern equivalent of a person who yells out the town news. I love the font choice and the inclusion of “Ye.”
Old Town High School experimented with a couple of names before this (see Blue and White and The Log), suggesting that it might take a few tries before you can land on the perfect name. The icing on the cake is that every time I read it, I can hear the opening notes of Lil Nas X’s 2019 hit “Old Town Road” in my mind. (Sadly, Old Town High School was not located on Old Town Road, though such a road does exist in Winston-Salem).
Though this batch of yearbooks covers so many different eras of high school throughout the 20th century, one consistent element among several editions is a focus on uniforms. The 1970 edition of The Falcon, for example, shows a representative from the school’s various teams showing off their athletic uniforms. This 1970 cheerleading uniform is a bit of a departure from the cheerleading uniforms of the 1950s, as evidenced by this squad from Mills River High (though the dance teams’ preference for shiny uniforms seems to be evergreen).
One thing that many of the Burke county yearbooks have in common is a shared admiration for animal mascots. In addition to the adorable tiger seen on the 1956 edition of the Impersonator from Valdese High School, you can’t overlook the endearing little guy on the front of the 1965 Calvacade from Drexel High School. (Though you may think he is a funny bear or perhaps a fox, further investigation reveals he is, in fact, a wolverine.) This set also includes a fighting eagle, a turkey, wildcats, bulldogs, and one fancy horse giving a knight a lift.
It may help to take a moment for context: 1972 was a big year for national an international news—against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, there was also the Watergate scandal, the launch of Apollo 16, and Bloody Sunday. Meanwhile, high school students were still dealing with the classic problems of being a teenager (trying out for sports, forming relationships, staying out of the principal’s office, etc.). Apparently, these elements combine to form one of the most exciting times to be a high school yearbook editor.
Joyce Warren and Alfred Garland. From the 1972 edition of the Doe-Wah-Jack (Walter M. Williams High School).
The Latta Family Account Ledger [1812-1821] details the accounts of residents in and around Orange County at the time and includes many well known early Durham families such as the Lattas, Rigsbees, Mangums, Holloways, and Leighs.
This batch of materials is openly available for research and covers a range of topics. Genealogists looking for family histories can benefit as well as folks interested in education, entrepreneurism or religion. To learn more about the area please visit the Durham County Library website.
Superlatives from the 1958 Tyshac; from left is Donald McKinney (most popular), Pauline Crisp (most studious), and Richard Buchanan (most likely to succeed).
One delightful hallmark of yearbooks from this era is the dedication to a beloved teacher or administrator. One sweet example is the dedication to Margaret Norris (who has a little bit of a Meryl Streep look) at the beginning of the 1967 edition of The Nushka. It reads, “It would be impossible to estimate the number of ways in which she has made our days a little brighter, our paths a little easier to travel, and our lives a little more worthwhile.”
Another dedication from the 1969 Pioneer celebrates “our friend” and “a man unafraid to stand for right, even though he may stand alone,” Jack Kirstein. It reads, “Dedicated to making young people better citizens, he presents himself as a living example of the love, patience, and understanding human beings must have for one another.”
Get excited, North Carolina genealogists—three more years of Wilson County Genealogical Society newsletters are now available on our site! These issues, ranging from 2020 to 2022, offer stories of family lineages and local histories along with WCGS news.
One article from the February 2022 newsletter helpfully explains the differences between older kinds of photographs: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes. The authors, James and Margaret Bailey, explain the physical processes for developing each type, which include exposing some kind of metal or glass to light and then treating it with chemicals. One notable quality about these kinds of photographs is that they represent a mirror image of reality. The article includes this example of a person wearing a ring; in the original daguerreotypes, it looks like she is wearing in on her right hand, but in the digitally-flipped image, it’s clear that she is wearing it on her left hand (possibly indicating that she is married).
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.
