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2017’s Most Popular Items on DigitalNC.org

We’ve taken a look back at this year’s top 5 most viewed items on DigitalNC, and they may not be what you expect! Here they are in order of popularity.

#1 Madison Beach

Contributing Institution: Rockingham Community College

The most viewed single item on DigitalNC was this photo:

View through trees of swimmers 

Want to know more about Madison Beach? We did, and found this page in a Rockingham County Public Library volume by local author John T. Dallas to help us out.

Clippings about Madison Beach from the Madison Messenger newspaper

 

#2 Newspaper Clippings about the Hibriten Company

Contributing Institution: Hickory Public Library

Hickory Public Library has shared a variety of files related to local businesses, and this one on Hibriten Furniture was the second most popular item.

Hibriten Furniture newspaper clipping

#3 Jim Thornton Band

Contributing Institution: Harnett County Public Library

This picture of Jim Thornton and his band includes Congressman Harold D. Cooley and singer Mozelle Phillips. The band played at dances and events, as well as on the radio and a live country music television show out of Raleigh entitled “Saturday Night Country Style.”

Five band members holding instruments stranding with man in a suit

#4 Wiggins Mill Bridge Postcard

Contributing Institution: Wilson County Public Library

From the 1880s, this postcard shows the bridge spanning Contentnea Creek in Wilson County, with “Wiggin’s Mill” and the reservoir waterfall in the background. Wiggin’s Mill was a sawmill, and can be found in newspapers of that era as a local landmark both on land and on the creek. The Wilson Advance describes the Wiggin’s Mill bridge floating away in a “freshet” in June 1891.

Colored postcard with bridge over river

#5 1976 Yackety Yack Yearbook

Contributing Institution: UNC-Chapel Hill

Taken together, yearbooks are the most popular items available on our site. It’s not surprising that one made the top 5 list. This 1976 Yackety Yack has spectacular photographs with 1970s style.

Title page of the 1976 Yack, with Chapel Hill metal plate

For the curious, here are some overall numbers for DigitalNC for 2017. Here’s looking forward as we work with partners to share even more of North Carolina’s cultural heritage in 2018!

Pageviews 3,510,047
Users 390,667
Scans Added 567,315

Drink Bevo and Be Healthy: Near-beer During Prohibition

Monday Matchup

Here on our blog, we occasionally feature “matchups” that showcase relationships between different items in our collection. Today’s matchup? A photograph contributed by Rockingham Community College and several advertisements from the Roanoke News and The Alamance Gleaner newspapers.

“Probably no natural demand of the human system is satisfied with keener or more genuine relish than that of quenching the thirst on a warm summer’s day with some cool tasteful beverage. Such a satisfying drink is Bevo, the new non-intoxicating beverage just placed on the market by the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association of St. Louis.” American Brewers’ Review, 1916

One of our most popular blog posts to date is about prohibition, focusing on the iconic images of the era showing alcohol seizures and bootlegging stills. Today’s post instead looks at marketing of the near-beer alternative, Bevo. We learned about Bevo after noticing the cargo stowed in the truck shown below:

Image of Truck Hauling Bevo

Postcard with image of truck loaded with Bevo, Courtesy Rockingham Community College

In the 1910s and 1920s, brewing companies under the press of prohibition sought non-intoxicating alternatives to beer. Bevo was a cereal-based beer produced by Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, beginning in 1916 through 1929. We located several interesting advertisements for Bevo in some of the local newspapers. (Don’t drink the germ water!)

Bevo Advertisement, Roanoke News 1920-01-29

Bevo Advertisement, Roanoke News 1920-01-29

 

Bevo Advertisement, Roanoke News 1919-09-04

Bevo Advertisement, Roanoke News 1919-09-04

 

Bevo Advertisement, Alamance Gleaner 19190227

We’re not sure, but this may refer to Anheuser-Busch turning over his plant for meat packing during World War I (The National Provisioner, Volume 60, page 16). Bevo Advertisement, Alamance Gleaner 1919-02-27

Bevo was touted for its refreshment and purity as well as its wholesomeness and nutrition. Advertisements took advantage of the healthful connotation that cereals had gained around this time, in part due to the efforts of J. H. Kellogg. It was also–of course–marketed for its similarity to beer: “Bevo has been served in beer bottles to beer drinkers for two hours continuously without their discovering that it was not the usual beer” (American Brewers’ Review, 1916). Whether or not those beer drinkers were sober when duped isn’t mentioned…

Bevo did include a small amount of malt liquor, a fact that some prohibitionists felt disqualified it for sale under federal law. We located an argument in the Biennial Report of the Illinois Attorney General (p. 340-341, 1916) which presents some of the objections to Bevo as well as Anheuser-Busch’s counterargument that the lack of fermentation made it saleable. Most localities must have felt Bevo was an acceptable alternative, because it was at least initially wildly popular until its formula changed due in part to the Volstead Act (Bootleggers and Beer Barons of the Prohibition Era, p. 29).

While you unfortunately can’t try Bevo today, you can visit it. In St. Louis, near the area where the beverage was produced, stands Anheuser-Busch’s iconic “Bevo Mill” windmill. The entire surrounding area is known as Bevo Mill, a testament to a German-American’s attempts at keeping his beer company afloat and popular during prohibition and World War I.


Prohibition, Bootlegging, and the Law in North Carolina

Prohibition Headline from Roanoke News on May 28, 1908

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

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

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.

Officers in Spray pour illegal whiskey down the storm drain in the 1950s. From Rockingham Community College


The Informer, “For Recruitment of Minority Librarians”

Holmes_Scrapbook_2_043

First page of the March 1979 issue of The Informer newsletter.

The Digital Heritage Center has worked with over 150 libraries throughout North Carolina. It’s no surprise that DigitalNC.org boasts a good number of items that document the history of libraries in the state, including scrapbooks and photos.*

For many years libraries were purposefully segregated, with branches tacitly or overtly meant to serve an African American neighborhood or community. The Richard B. Harrison Library in Raleigh is an example of a library that was a true social force, due to the hard work and influence of librarian Mollie Huston Lee. I thought of Ms. Lee recently. I was doing some work in our scrapbook collection, when I came upon an interesting newsletter tucked into one of the Irwin Holmes scrapbooks from the Durham County Library.

Titled “The Informer,” the newsletter’s tagline is: “For Recruitment of Minority Librarians” and appears to have been published first out of Raleigh and then out of Fort Valley, Georgia. There are two (possibly two and a half) issues in the scrapbook: one dating from March 1979 (pictured at right) and the second from September 1983. The issues of The Informer in our collection give biographies and moving tributes to African American librarians, such as Ann M. Jenkins of NCCU and Edna “Pinky” Penolya Mcaden King Watkins, an NCCU graduate who worked in libraries around the country. They also list positions available in North Carolina and around the country. The Informer publisher, IESMP or “Information Exchange System for Minority Personnel,” sold a number of other publications that offered to help librarians find jobs at institutions friendly to hiring minorities.

Dr. Dorothy May Haith was The Informer’s editor and possibly publisher, and she has had a lifelong passion for improving the profession and her community. A Shaw University and North Carolina Central University alum (she also holds degrees from Indiana University), Haith led the library at Bennett College, and also at Howard University. She has a number of publications to her name, has served on professional boards, and has given back to educational institutions by endowing scholarships. The Spring 2011 issue of Windows, published by the University Library at UNC Chapel Hill, describes a gift made to Wilson Library by Haith to honor those she felt encouraged her education (we call Wilson Library our home).

Dorothy Haith's High School yearbook photo from Booker T. Washington High in Reidsville, N.C.

Dorothy Haith’s high school yearbook photo from Booker T. Washington High in Reidsville, N.C.

Through The Informer, Haith was building a network for minority librarians through the 1970s and 1980s, offering them professional resources and personal information about their peers. Though Googling gives most of us this benefit now (as it did for me when trying to find out more about Haith), before the internet, this was a true labor and a valuable service.

Recruitment of minorities and increasing diversity continues to be a great need. What many patrons may not realize is that libraries strive to be some of the most inclusive, safe spaces in the country. Many build towards that goal in numerous ways: through concerted efforts to recruit a diverse workforce, through selection of an inclusive and various group of materials for collections, and through ensuring libraries are safe for ALL patrons. In fact, the American Library Association, the national professional organization for librarians, reinforces these goals through a code of ethics, professional development, and scholarships. As a profession, we have a long way to go, but these steps get us closer.

At DigitalNC, we hope to identify and help share more collections from our partners related to North Carolina’s minority populations in the coming year. If you work at a library or other cultural heritage institution and have collections that fit this category that you’d like to share online, we’re eager to hear from you.

*There’s also a rich Library History digital collection from the State Library of North Carolina.

**NCCU has numerous issues of The Informer in their collection, available at the School of Library and Information Sciences Library.


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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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