This week we have another 60 titles up on DigitalNC! While these papers cover all of North Carolina, almost one third are from Statesville alone!
In the October 3rd, 1902 issue of Elizabeth City’s Tar Heel, there is an interview with Reginald Aubrey Fessenden’s assistant, Professor Saint Marie. Fessenden was a pioneer in early radio, or “wireless telegraphy,” and was conducting experiments at Manteo on Roanoke Island. In the interview, Prof. Saint Marie seems somewhat pessimistic about the process and its possibilities, which might be due to Fessenden abruptly ending their contract with the Weather Bureau the previous month after conflict arose over ownership of the patent.
Tar Heel, October 3, 1902
However, less than two months later The News and Observer reported that Fessenden’s invention had greatly improved and could now send transmissions to Washington, D.C. On Christmas Eve, 1906, he conducted the first radio broadcast by reading a bible verse and then playing ‘O Holy Night’ on his violin for the ships off the coast of Massachusetts. By 1909, according the the Charlotte Evening Observer, he had perfected the process for which he laid the foundation on the Carolina coast.
News and Observer, November 23, 1902
Evening Chronicle, April 14, 1909
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Elizabeth City
Moravian Falls
North Wilkesboro
Oxford
Pittsboro
Rutherfordton
Salem
Salisbury
- The Evening World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1898
- Weekly World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1896
- Salisbury News (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1878
- The Salisbury Press (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1888
- The Tribune (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1872
- The Daily Gazette (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1865
- The Rowan Whig and Western Advocate (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852-1855
- The Salisbury Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1855-1857
- The Weekly Jubilee (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852
- The Prohibitionist (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881
- Salisbury Weekly Sun (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1897-1904
- Salisbury Globe (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1904-1905
- The Salisbury Daily Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899-1900
- Salisbury Daily Truth-Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900-1901
- Daily Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1891-1896
- North Carolina Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1885-1898
- The Industrial Record (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899
Selma
Shelby
Siler City
Smithfield
Statesville
Stonewall
Tarboro
Taylorsville
Wadesboro
Warrenton
Washington
Wilson
Windsor
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have another 61 titles up on DigitalNC, including our first additions from Charleston, Culler, Red Springs, Rutherfordton, and Sanford! Included in this batch, on the front page of the February 28, 1872 issue of Raleigh’s Weekly Sentinel, is an article detailing the final heist of Robeson County folk hero Henry Berry Lowry.
Portrait thought to be of Henry Berry Lowry. Via the State Archives of North Carolina
Henry Berry Lowry, a Lumbee Native American, was the head of the mostly Native outlaw group known as the Lowry Gang. In addition to typical outlaw activities, the Lowry Gang also helped other Native Americans avoid Confederate work conscription and fought alongside Union soldiers who had escaped Confederate prison camps. While Lowry did often resort to murder to settle personal feuds, he was also considered a sort of Robeson “Robin Hood.” When they committed robberies, they would often share the spoils with the community and would return items such as horses as soon as they were no longer needed. They were known to be “respectful” robbers and would let you off the hook if you could show you didn’t have much.
The Weekly Sentinel, February 28, 1872
In 1869, governor William Holden put a $12,000 bounty on Lowry’s head, which resulted in bloody conflict over the next few years. After successfully evading capture, Lowry planned his final heist in February of 1872. The gang stole a safe from a local carriage manufacturer and were bold enough to take another from the sheriff’s office, walking away with $22,000 (about $520,000 today) and then he disappeared. The bounty was never collected and he was never heard from again. Some locals claim they saw him at a friend’s funeral years later, but we will likely never know what happened to Henry Berry Lowry.
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Asheboro
Charleston
Charlotte
Culler
Elizabeth City
Goldsboro
Greensboro
Halifax
Hertford
North Wilkesboro
Oxford
Plymouth
Raleigh
Red Springs
Reidsville
Rockingham
Rutherfordton
Salisbury
Sanford
Shelby
Tarboro
Taylorsville
Wadesboro
Warrenton
Washington
Winston-Salem
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have another 38 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch, we have issues spanning 33 years from Oxford, N.C. paper Oxford Public Ledger. In addition to being the county seat for Granville County, Oxford is also home to the first female parachutist and inventor of the ripcord: Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick.
Georgia was born April 8, 1893 and weighed only three pounds at birth, earning her the nickname “Tiny.” She was married at age 12, had a child at 13, and was widowed before she was 15. In 1907, her life changed forever when she saw The Broadwicks and their Famous French Aeronauts perform aerial stunts at the North Carolina State Fair. She left home, joined the Broadwicks travelling show, and was legally adopted by the show owner, Charles Broadwick, making her “Tiny” Broadwick.
Georgia ‘Tiny’ Broadwick, 1911. Via Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
In an exhibition in Chicago the week of September 16, 1912, Broadwick became the first woman to parachute from a plane. In 1914, jumped into Lake Michigan, making her the first woman to parachute into a body of water. Also in 1914, she debuted the ripcord in a parachuting demonstration for the U.S. Army, performing the first planned free-fall jump from an airplane. By the end of her career she is said to have performed over 1,100 jumps.
Wilmington Star, January 10, 1914
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
- Toisnot Transcript (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1876
- Rocky Mount Progress (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1880
- The Warsaw Brief Mention (Warsaw, N.C.) – 1880
- The Albemarle Observer (Edenton, N.C.) – 1914-1915
- The Messenger (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1887-1888
- The Times-Herald (Littleton, N.C.) – 1906-1909
- The Maxton Union (Maxton, N.C.) – 1889-1891
- Waynesville Courier (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888-1911
- The Waynesville News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888
- Siler City Leader (Siler City, N.C.) – 1892
- The Troy Times (Troy, N.C.) – 1888
- The Daily News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1886
- The Farmer’s Friend (Morganton, N.C.) – 1898
- The Norlina Headlight (Norlina, N.C.) – 1914-1924
- The Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1889-1901
- Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1901-1911
- Public Ledger and Oxford Banner (Oxford, N.C.) – 1912-1913
- Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1913-1919
- Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1919-1922
- The Tri-Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1869-1872
- The Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1871-1872
- The Salisbury Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881-1883
- The Great Sunny South (Snow Hill, N.C.) – 1898
- The Stovall Courier (Stovall, N.C.) – 1898
- The People’s Paper (Warren Plains, N.C.) – 1895-1896
- Washington Weekly Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1887-1888
- Washington Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1888-1891
- The Roxboro Herald (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1881
- The Person County News (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1882-1883
- Person County Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1893-1896
- The Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1896-1910
- The Roxboro Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1911-1917
- The Argonaut (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1894
- The Selma News (Selma, N.C.) – 1887
- The Messenger (Siler City, N.C.) – 1898-1900
- The Woman’s Right (Wadesboro, N.C.) – 1874
- The Sunny Home (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1881-1883
- The People’s Press (Salem, N.C.) – 1851-1892
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have 40 more titles on DigitalNC from all across North Carolina! Most of these papers are from Raleigh (such as the long-running Raleigh Evening Times and the Methodist Episcopal paper Raleigh Christian Advocate) as well as many papers from smaller communities. We have Rich Square’s Roanoke-Chowan Times, The Warrenton Gazette from Warrenton, The Roanoke News from Weldon, and Richmond County’s Rockingham Rocket. Whether it’s marriage announcements, classifieds for lost pets, or local elections where the winner barely reaches 100 votes, these newspapers give a glimpse into what small town life in North Carolina was like over a hundred years ago.
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
- The Southern Home (Charlotte, N.C.) – 1870-1881
- The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, N.C.) – 1877-1910
- Warrenton Gazette (Warrenton, N.C.) – 1872-1897
- The Record (Warrenton, N.C.) – 1892-1912
- Roanoke-Chowan Times (Rich Square, N.C.) – 1907-1926
- The Daily Tobacco Plant (Durham, N.C.) – 1888
- The Tobacco Plant (Durham, N.C.) – 1889
- The Times-Mercury (Hickory, N.C.) – 1899-1912
- Rockingham Post-Dispatch (Rockingham, N.C.) – 1923-1924
- Rockingham Rocket (Rockingham, N.C.) – 1888-1890
- Salisbury Daily Sun (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1897-1904
- Salisbury Evening Sun (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1904-1905
- The Salisbury Truth (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900
- The Salisbury Semi-Weekly Truth-Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900-1903
- Salisbury Daily Truth-Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900
- The Statesville Sentinel (Statesville, N.C.) – 1909-1922
- The Roanoke News (Weldon, N.C.) – 1878-1922
- The Carolina Era (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1871-1872
- Tri-Weekly Constitution (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1876
- The Weekly Constitution (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1876
- Daily Constitution (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1875-1876
- North-Carolina Constitutionalist and Peoples’ Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1832-1833
- The Weekly North Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1868
- The North Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1868
- The Raleigh News (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1876-1877
- The Raleigh Weekly News (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1878-1880
- Blasting-Powder for Democrats and Conservatives (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1872
- Southern Illustrated Age (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1875
- The Episcopal Methodist (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1867-1868
- Raleigh Episcopal Methodist (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1869-1870
- Raleigh Christian Advocate (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1894-1899
- Daily Examiner (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1874
- The Raleigh Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1890
- The Daily Evening Visitor (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1890-1894
- The Raleigh Evening Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1905-1906
- The Raleigh Daily Times (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1912
- The Raleigh Daily Tribune (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1897
- The Sentinel (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1866-1867
- The Union Herald (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1919-1922
- Raleigh Weekly Telegram (Raleigh, N.C.) – 1871
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
Elementary school class portrait on steps of an unidentified building
The William Franklin Warren Durham City School Slide Collection, featuring almost 600 lantern and Kodachrome slides, is now available on DigitalNC. This collection is from Durham County Library, and show images of Durham city schools, both White and African-American, from the 1930s and 1940s. The slides include images of classroom scenes, school celebrations, exterior shots of school buildings, a high school class trip to Williamsburg and Richmond, VA, group portraits of sports teams, portraits of teachers and school administrators, and more. Schools highlighted include Hillside High School and Durham High School, as well as many elementary and junior high schools that no longer exist. Rosenwald schools are also featured in the images. In addition there are slides from various school presentations that report district valuations and statistics, and images of other locations in Durham such Duke University, downtown Durham, mills and factories, the Durham Athletic Park, and residential neighborhoods, including Hope Valley. These slides provide rich documentation of segregated Durham school life through the Great Depression and World War II.
Elementary school students taking care of class rabbits
The slides were most likely taken by William Franklin “Frank” Warren (1887-1979), the superintendent of Durham city schools from 1933-1947. In the early twentieth century, Durham’s schools were organized in two separate systems, the county schools and the city schools. Durham city schools originated with the establishment of a graded school system in 1882, with the first white graded school opening in 1882 followed by the first Black graded school in 1885. As elsewhere in the South, the schools at this time were segregated.
Durham High School girls’ gym class
Click here to browse all of the slides in this collection, and here to take a look at Durham County Library’s finding aid. Learn more about Durham County Library by visiting their partner page or website.
Students studying at the library