The headline in The Daily Advance announcing the sudden death of the 29th President of the United States.
Over 1300 issues of Elizabeth City’s daily newspaper–The Daily Advance, provided by our partner, Pasquotank County Library, are now digitized. These issues span the time period from 1923-1927, and as indicated by the paper’s name, were published every day except Sundays. The Daily Advance was founded in 1911 and continues to be published online and in print. Elizabeth City is located in Pasquotank County on the North Carolina coast. Currently the paper also covers Currituck, Camden, Perquimans, and Chowan counties.
During the 1920s The Daily Advance covered both national and local news including politics, the economy, and other stories of note. The paper provides a lens to see the nation during the roaring ’20s through the view of coastal North Carolinians. The introduction of new products and industries, dramatic political events, shifts cultural norms, and changing role of the media can be seen in this local paper.
To browse through issues of The Daily Advance, click here. To see more materials from Pasquotank County Library, take a look at their partner page or visit their website.
New women’s fashion trends discussed in the September 14, 1925 issue of The Daily Advance
Part of The Wilson Advance header from the March 24, 1876 issue.
The Local Briefs section detailing happenings of the week as seen on the first page of the March 30, 1876 issue.
Two more issues of The Wilson Advance from March of 1876 are now up on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner Wilson County Public Library. These issues join many previously digitized issues from 1874-1899 and give a glimpse into daily life in Wilson N.C. during the late 1800s. The Wilson advance was published every Friday, and included local and national news stories as well as obituaries, marriage announcements, events, and advertisements.
To view more issues of The Wilson Advance on DigitalNC, click here. To see more materials from Wilson County Public Library, take a look at their partner page, or visit their website.
An advertisement for Leibig’s Liquid Extract of Beef from page 2 of the March 24, 1876 issue.
Dairy Princesses for Warren, Granville, and Vance counties are crowned in 1956.
Now available on DigitalNC are seven scrapbooks from Granville County Public Library. These volumes belong to the larger Hays Collection, a large collection of Oxford and Granville County scrapbooks compiled by local historian Francis B. Hays over the span of more than 75 years.
DigitalNC now has digitally published through volume 43 of the Francis B. Hays Collection. The items are grouped by topic: Oxford and Granville Men and Women, Granville County Family Histories, Granville County Marriages Oxford History, By or About Frances B. Hays, Granville County Histories, and Granville County Schools.
Photograph of Mystery Farm No. 43, which belonged to the Currin family.
The two topics most recently updated are Granville County History and Granville County Schools.
Granville County History: The fifth and final volume of general county history features a series of clippings from the local newspaper’s Mystery Farm contest. The newspaper would post aerial photographs of unidentified local farms, and members of the community would write in and give information about the farm. The newspaper would then run a story identifying the farm and the contest winner. For more mystery farms, see the volume starting at page 144.
Granville County Schools: Volumes I-VI trace the development and wide expansion of mostly public schools in Granville County from 1911-1958. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings
Photographs from 1925 of the newly built Creedmoor School, Stem School, Stovall School, Wilton School, Berea School, and Oak Hill School in Granville County.
and photographs, as well as occasional memorabilia like the 1954 commencement program from Oxford High School. The latter pages of Volume VI cover Granville County church history, especially of articles and pamphlets from numerous Baptist churches in the region. It also includes the address by William A. Devin at the Grassy Creek Baptist Church Bi-Centennial Celebration in 1954.
For more information about the Francis B. Hays Collection or to browse by scrapbook topic, click here.
Students in Industrial Arts at New Bern High School hard at work, 1958 The Bruin
Over 40 yearbooks and other published materials from Craven County are now online on DigitalNC, thanks to the New Bern-Craven County Public Library. The yearbooks and catalogs come from schools across Craven County and include:
Drawing from the 1924 Mill Stream, from the Craven County Farm Life School
City directories for New Bern covering 1904-1915 are also included in the batch from Craven County. To view more materials from across North Carolina, visit DigitalNC.
Thanks to our partner, Henderson Institute Historical Museum, a batch containing Henderson Institute school census cards from the early 1900s are now available on our website. These cards feature various information on students including their name, grades, marriage status, address, birth dates, birthplace, and more.
Individual school census card for Henderson Institute student E. Roy Brandon.
Established and operated by the Freedmen’s Board of the United Presbyterian Church to educate the Black community, the Henderson Institute opened its doors to students of Vance County in 1887. The school remained opened for 83 years before its operations as an official high school ceased in 1970 due to integration. During its years of operation, the school served as the only secondary school open to Black individuals in Vance County. In 1986, the Vance County Board of Education deeded the school’s Library Science Building to the Henderson Institute Alumni Association. With funding from graduates, friends, and the general assembly, the association restored and renovated the property. Today the building houses the Henderson Institute Historical Museum.
To learn more about the Henderson Institute Historical Museum, please visit their website.
Carolina Baptist newspaper masthead from September 2, 1857.
Thanks to our partner, Wake Forest University, there are 19 new newspapers added to DigitalNC. Dating from 1857 to 1925, these newspapers were written for Christian communities from the mountains to the Piedmont to the coast of North Carolina.
Most of the newspapers are affiliated with the Baptist denomination, and their audiences vary in size and geography. Some were published for specific churches, like the Broad Street Worker “Devoted to the interests of Broad St. Baptist Church” in Winston, N.C. Others were published for a wider audience by regional, state, or national organizations, like the North Carolina Baptist Missionary Worker and The Gospel Herald published by the Boards of the Baptist State Convention, and the Conflict published by the Anti-Evolution League of America.
To look through the 58 issues of these publications, click the links below:
A student’s photograph taped into a commencement booklet from 1933
Graduation programs and invitations from the Henderson Institute, provided by the Henderson Institute Historical Museum, are now available on DigitalNC. the Henderson Institute was a high school started in 1887 by the Freedmen’s Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church. It was closed after the 1969-1970 school year due to integration. Through the years that the school was open, it was the only secondary school open to African Americans in Vance County. Part of the original school building now houses the Henderson Institute Historical Museum.
The collection of 19 graduation programs and invitations date from 1924 through the school’s final 1970 graduation. Although each program is structured differently, many include the full names of the members of the senior graduating class along with a schedule of events.
Also in this collection are five theater programs from the Henderson Institute. These include programs for student productions of The People Versus Maxine Lowe, Rest Assured, and Once in a Lifetime.
Click here to browse through the programs. To learn more about the Henderson Institute Historical Museum, visit their partner page, or take a look at their website.
Map of Pamlico County from Francis B. Hays North Carolina Counties Scrapbook, Volume 4, Page 308
The above map of Pamlico County is one example of the many maps that Francis B. Hays created in his County Scrapbooks, among the newest volumes digitized from Granville County Public Library’s Hays collection. Hays drew a map for each of North Carolina’s 100 counties. The scrapbooks also include population data, historical information, and numerous stories and articles about famous people or events from the county. Hays dedicated a volume specifically to Vance County, Granville County’s next door neighbor.
Map of Vance County from Francis B. Hays scrapbook of Vance County, Page 163
The county scrapbooks are part of a batch of fourteen added to the Francis B. Hays Collection. Mr. Hays was an educator and clerk in Granville County, who dedicated much of his time to documenting the county’s history. These scrapbooks represent Volumes 80-93 of 150 housed at the Granville County Public Library.
Aside from the County Volumes, Hays also documented doctors, nurses, and public health in Granville County, indexing names of those working in medical professions. These volumes could be useful for those interested in genealogical research in Granville County and the surrounding areas.
This batch also includes two other series of volumes: North Carolina Historical Items and Distinguished North Carolinians. The NC Historical Items series features many articles and clippings that discuss NC during and after the reconstruction era and during the colonial period with information about Native Americans who lived in the state or were removed by the government. The Distinguished North Carolinians series contains articles, clippings, and obituaries of noteworthy men and women connected to the state. Volume 3 of the series may be of particular interest because it contains the most information about noteworthy women, especially authors and poets.
Cover the 1938 North Carolina Highways road map from Francis B. Hays’ scrapbook of North Carolina Maps and Miscellaneous, Page 39
You can see all of the recently added scrapbooks at the links below:
You can view all 93 digitized volumes at the Francis B. Hays Collection exhibit page. To learn more about the Granville County Public Library visit their contributor page or the website.
Student yearbooks from the Henderson Institute, an African American school located in Vance County, are now available in the North Carolina High School Yearbooks collection. The Henderson Institute was founded in 1891 and served the community in and around Henderson, N.C. until its closing in 1970. The original yearbooks, ranging from 1952 to 1970, are held by the Henderson Institute Historical Museum, which documents and preserves the history of the school and works closely with the Institute’s active alumni group.
Thanks to our partners at the Person County Museum of History, DigitalNC is pleased to announce that decades of local papers are now available online! Many of the new issues are from the Roxboro Courier, a locally owned and operated publication based out of Roxboro, as well as several issues of the Roxboro High School Student Newspaper. The student newspaper went by many names at different points during its publication, with the issues in this collection including “The Rocketeer,” or “The Roxboro Rambler.” Together, these publications reflect life in Person County through both an adult and adolescent perspective, providing two different lens to view history through.
The Roxboro Courier issues span as far back as 1942, and as recent as 1982. Included in this collection are two notable issues: the centennial and the sesquicentennial, Both of these issues are massive, with the centennial edition containing over a hundred pages of Roxboro history! Each issue recounts Person County’s past with articles on the county’s founding, interviews with longtime locals, and advertisements from local businesses celebrating the county’s history. While the sesquicentennial edition is somewhat shorter than the centennial edition, both are valuable insights into how past publications memorialized history. These issues will join a collection of almost three thousand issues of the Roxboro Courier already hosted on DigitalNC’s site.
Also included in this batch are a series of photographs from Person County’s past. The photographs display the workers at many of the mills and tobacco warehouses located in Person County, which bolstered the area’s economy for decades. There are even a few class photographs from Person County’s schools! Could any of the students pictured be featured in the new student papers? If you discover any connections, we’d love to know in the comments down below.
The Roxboro High School Student Newspaper’s new issues reach as far back as 1938, and as recent as 1969. The pages of this publication are only somewhat less regal than the Roxboro Courier’s anniversary editions, and are written with a humorous, satirical voice. Collections of jokes, gossip columns, and comedic superlatives can be found in each issue, as well as heartfelt goodbyes to graduating seniors or longtime teachers. While contemporary events are recorded in these issues, they’re oftentimes placed next to articles recording rumors overheard in the hallway. You can find the brand new batch online here, or our entire collection of Roxboro High School’s student newspaper online here.
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.
