Sixth grade students at West Elementary School in Kings Mountain, 1959-60. Contributor: Kings Mountain Historical Museum
We are very excited to announce that our site has expanded to include four new sets of primary source teaching resources available for any teachers, researchers, or curious explorers to use. Each of these sets focuses on a particular topic in North Carolina history and includes a curated selection of 15-20 primary sources from our 300+ partners around the state. Within each set is a blend of visual materials (photographs, videos), written materials (newspaper articles, speeches, letters), and audio materials (interviews, oral histories) from the DigitalNC collections.
Each set also comes with short context blurbs for each item, as well as general background information, a timeline, a set of discussion questions, and links to genre-specific worksheets (ex. How to Analyze a Newspaper Clipping). While some of these topics are more concentrated in particular regions, our goal is to connect these broad themes in history to local examples that students can recognize. Here’s a look at the four initial primary source sets:
From the 1971 Gohisca yearbook from Goldsboro High School. Contributor: Wayne County Public Library
While you may be familiar with some of the national stories around school integration after Brown v. Board of Education, this teaching set samples North Carolina yearbooks, photographs, newspapers, and oral histories to ground this topic in familiar places. It draws primarily on our collections from historically Black high schools, many of which were closed during this period (though their alumni associations remain strong!). This collection also implements local materials from the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Supreme Court case over busing.
A cartoon from The Front Page in Raleigh, N.C. (1980). Contributors: Duke University & UNC Charlotte
This set was inspired by the popular NCPedia page, “Analyzing Political Cartoons,” which explains some of the strategies for understanding cartoons in their historical context. Here, we’ve selected examples from over a century of newspapers that include topics such as the 1898 Wilmington Coup, women’s suffrage, economics, and a few contemporary political issues. Each example comes with a bit of historical context and some background on the newspaper itself.
Textile workers marching in Gastonia, N.C. in 1929. Contributor: Gaston County Museum of Art & History
North Carolina’s history of labor is inextricably tied to the legacy of the textile industry. This set uses photographs, memorabilia, speeches, and newspaper clippings of two famous examples—the Loray Mill strike of 1929 and the activism of Crystal Lee Sutton—to weave together an understanding of North Carolina’s economy and culture through one of its major industries of the 20th century.
A postcard from the American Tobacco Company cigarette plant in Reidsville, N.C. Contributor: Rockingham County Public Library
It would be impossible to fully understand the history of North Carolina in the 20th century without talking about the tobacco industry. This set uses photographs, newspapers, videos, and oral histories to explore the lives of tobacco farmers and factory workers as well as the major families who controlled the vast tobacco wealth. Additionally, it includes examples of how the industry affected culture, including a new generation of advertising that attempted to combat public health concerns.
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.
The most viewed single item on DigitalNC was this photo:
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.
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.”
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 Advancedescribes the Wiggin’s Mill bridge floating away in a “freshet” in June 1891.
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.
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!
After seeing excellent “Dog Days of Summer” blog posts from our friends at NC State and Duke, we couldn’t resist following up with a few of our favorites from the many dog photos on DigitalNC.
No North Carolina-related dog feature would be complete without a Plott Hound. This photo from the Haywood County Public Library shows not just any Plott Hound, but the original: “Dan” was the first Plott Hound to be registered after the United Kennel Club recognized the breed in 1946.
The prize for cutest dog photo on DigitalNC has to go to this one, puppies in a basket, from the William Hoke Sumner collection at UNC-Charlotte.
This young man with a pack of Basset Hounds is heading to a dog show in Pinehurst in 1935. Photo from the Tufts Archives.
No hunting party would be complete without a dog. This photo, from the Davie County Public Library, shows a group at the Coollemee Plantation.
As this 1951 photo from the Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount attests, there is no better reading companion than a dog.
And no dog loved books more than Jim the Library Dog, a fixture on the front seat of the Rockingham County Bookmobile as it traveled around the county in the 1930s. Photo from the Rockingham County Public Library. You can see Jim in action in the silent film showing the bookmobile that we recently shared online.
But our favorites have to be the dogs we spot occasionally in old yearbooks. Apparently UNC-Chapel Hill was a hotbed of canine education in 1977. We found two dogs in the Yackety Yack from that year. The photo at top is identified as Sarah Abercrombie, a senior from Dixmont, Maine, while the bottom photo shows Poco Medford, a graduate student from Carrboro. We trust that both Sarah and Poco put their education to good use and went on to long and distinguished careers.
Governor Robert W. Scott receives a “Bob Jr.” license plate in this footage of his inauguration and subsequent celebrations. Contributed by the State Archives of North Carolina.
Almost one year ago, we asked our partners for nominations of audio and video media from their collections to digitize, using funding from the Digital Public Library of America. From all corners of North Carolina came suggestions for moving images and sound. Some items were well documented, with descriptions or finding aids [?] in tow. Others were accompanied with the words “We think this is … but we really have no idea.” Thanks to George Blood, L. P., who digitized these items for us, and Andrea Green, our former Community Digitization Manager, we ended up with over 140 physical items digitized from 11 institutions.
Here’s an overview of what’s been added to DigitalNC to our new Sights and Sounds collection (some of our partners will be posting their digitized media on their own digital collection sites instead). Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more posts taking a closer look at some of our favorites.
Braswell Memorial Library
Throughout the 1990s, Mary Lewis Deans spearheaded an ambitious and well-documented oral history campaign in Nash County. She and her colleagues spoke with long-time residents about rural farming life, military service during World War II, segregation, and family traditions. Deans was businesslike yet friendly, no-nonsense and yet genuine. Listen to and read Deans’ oral histories.
From Davie County Public Library comes a two-part series on Davie County History, and a home video of local personality Louise Graham Stroud, who performed monologues as her self-created character, “Miss Lizzie.”
Cynthia Watts (left) interviews actress Joan Bennett in one of the Arts in Durham films contributed by the Durham Public Library.
Durham Public Library
Love Durham? Love the Arts? Love the late 70s? Some of our staff favorites come from Durham Public Library’s collection of “Arts in Durham” films. Produced by the Durham Arts Council, these films showcase local bands, dance groups, visual artists, and more. We’ll definitely be blogging about our favorite moments. Durham Public Library also contributed a taped lecture by Dr. Charles Watts on the history of Lincoln Hospital, and two-part coverage of the Durham County Centennial Parade of 1981.
Edgecombe Memorial Library
Tobacco Perspectives is an amateur recording of a two-night event in the early 1980s during which a historian, a political scientist, and representatives from farm, industry, and public health agencies lectured on the tobacco industry both past and present.
Rockingham County Public Library
We’ve already announced the bookmobile film from Rockingham County, but we’re still looking for someone who can identify the school that’s shown. In this film boys and girls eagerly peruse and check out books from local librarians. It’s even got Jim, the library dog.
State Archives of North Carolina
We were pleased to join for the first time with the State Archives during this project, as they chose a number of films that document the state’s history. Among the films from the Archives that we’ve added online are coverage of Governor R. W. Scott II’s inauguration and U. S. Coast Guard Appreciation Day (1970).
No Handouts for Mrs. Hedgepeth, 1968, documented a Durham family living below the poverty line. Contributed by the North Carolina Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
From 1962-1965, the North Carolina Film Board produced films tackling some of the most pressing issues in North Carolina: race relations, education, and economic opportunity. Eight of those films join others from the North Carolina Collection and Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill on DigitalNC. As might be expected, some are about UNC and Chapel Hill. Fans of the Hugh Morton Collection will also see several films believed to have been filmed by Morton or his colleagues. There’s even footage of Mildred the Bear.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
In 1960, Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey became the first chair of what is now the Department of Africana Studies at UNC-Charlotte, which contributed three items related to her career. A scholar, educator, and community icon, one of these shows children in a classroom being taught by Maxwell-Roddey’s students. The others show a night of live poetry and music.
This week we have another 40 newspaper titles and thousands of issues up on DigitalNC, including over 1,000 issues from The Messenger and Intelligencer from Wadesboro, the birthplace of Piedmont blues musician Blind Boy Fuller (read a brief biography about Fuller here). In this post we have some interesting new information regarding the blues legend’s birth!
Via John Edwards Memorial Foundation Records (PF-20001), Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library
Blind Boy Fuller was born Fulton Allen to parents Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker in Wadesboro, North Carolina, but the actual date of his birth is very much up for debate. The date of July 10 seems to be generally agreed upon, but the actual year tends to differ. While there are some sources that put it at 1904, folklorist Bruce Bastin puts Allen’s date of birth at July 10, 1907 based on statements from the North Carolina State Commission for the Blind, the Social Security Board, and the Durham County Welfare records. However, his 1941 death certificate states that he was 32 years old when he died, putting the year of his birth at 1908.
Rockingham Post-Dispatch, July 28, 1921
What we found makes things a little interesting. After the family relocated to Rockingham sometime in the early 1900s, his father posted a notice in the July 28, 1921 issue of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch that would suggest that none of these are accurate. The notice supports the idea of a July birthday but implies that, being 16 years old, he would have actually been born in 1905.
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.
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.
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.
The NDNP is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress with the intention of creating a vast, searchable database of newspapers and other historical documents. You can currently search all of the NDNP issues on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website. Those same issues will be available on our newspaper database, allowing you to search that content alongside the other papers on DigitalNC. The week’s titles are the following:
This concludes the list of newspapers that we are sharing from the NDNP. 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.
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.
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.
N.C. Digital Heritage Center staff members excited about their first visit to the Roast Grill.
One of the best parts of my job is getting out of the office and travelling around North Carolina to visit some of the libraries and museums that work with the NC Digital Heritage Center. We have partners all over the state and it’s always helpful and interesting for us to see their collections in person. Of course, we have to eat along the way, and while we’re always in search of new places to try, there are a few that we return to whenever we get the chance. Inspired by the end of the year “best of” lists, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorites from on the road.
I should say first that this is not supposed to be a list of the best or greatest restaurants in the state. No objective criteria were used at all, it’s simply a collection of places I’ve enjoyed and hope that some of you do, too.
Whenever we visit our partners in Rockingham County, I like to go to Fuzzy’s. It’s a classic, old-fashioned North Carolina barbecue restaurant with good food and great service. Like many barbecue places, they’ve got a variety of food available, but I can only vouch for the chopped pork sandwich, hush puppies, and sweet tea, all of which are outstanding. I also enjoy the classic, big restaurants like Stamey’s in Greensboro and Parker’s in Wilson, but Fuzzy’s is a favorite because of its comfortable, local atmosphere. In an age where unique, regional restaurants are getting harder to find, I’m going to make sure that I treasure North Carolina’s classic barbecue joints for as long as they’re around.
Two asides about barbecue: first, I do not take sides in the Eastern v. Western barbecue debate. Or I should say, I don’t discriminate. I am an equal opportunity North Carolina barbecue enthusiast. I’ve enjoyed great meals in Lexington as well as in Goldsboro and refuse to cast aspersions on either delicious style of preparation. And second, I never hit the road without first checking one of Bob Garner’s essential guides to North Carolina barbecue restaurants. The recent compilation, Bob Garner’s Book of Barbecue, is a great resource.
I’ve never been anywhere quite like the Roast Grill. Tucked away on a side street a couple of blocks from the old state capitol in downtown Raleigh, with its iconic “Hot Weiners” sign out front, the Roast Grill is a classic hot dog joint that hasn’t changed a thing in decades. While I love the atmosphere at Dick’s in Wilson and have had a great chili dog at Royall’s Soda Shoppe in Elkin, the Roast Grill is in a class by itself [update January 2021: permanently closed]. There’s not much on the menu (“Well, we have hot dogs,” they explained on our last visit) and they’re well known for what they don’t have (don’t ask for ketchup). But the hot dogs are terrific and the ambience is impossible to beat.
Located in downtown Winston-Salem, just down the street from the main branch of the Forsyth County Public Library and its outstanding local history collection, the Camino Bakery is one of my favorite places in the state for coffee and baked goods. They take their coffee and espresso seriously and have terrific food, sweet and savory, including great cookies, fantastic quiches and a tomato pie that is reminiscent of top-notch deep dish pizza.
Just down the street from the beautiful Tarboro Town Common, On the Square is a wonderful restaurant offering seasonal American food. It’s not a secret — we got there just before the lunchtime rush, when the line stretched to the door — but it’s definitely worth seeking out next time you’re in Tarboro. I especially liked seeing historic photos on the walls from the M.S. Brown collection at the Edgecombe County Memorial Library, many of which you can now find on DigitalNC.
Lunch Buffet: Orchid Garden, Fayetteville [Update January 2021: permanently closed]
Tucked into nondescript parking lot a couple of miles from downtown Fayetteville, Orchid Garden has some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had. The lunch buffet offers a wide variety of traditional dishes and is a hit with both locals and military staff from nearby Fort Bragg. Last time we were there they were running a special on dungeness crab. Nearly every table in our section was digging in to the long crab legs and from the piles of shells in front of them, some of them had been at it for a while. Our server clearly thought we were crazy when we opted to skip the crab. Orchid Garden is worth seeking out if you’re in Fayetteville. If you go, don’t make the same mistake we did. Get the crab.
Last time I was in Asheville I sent of picture of the French Broad Chocolate Lounge and said that I was working from our western office. If only. In addition to their world-class chocolates, the lounge offers great coffee, several varieties of unpronounceable Mexican drinking chocolate, baked goods, as well as beer and wine. It’s the kind of place you could spend a whole day.
As we continue our work digitizing and sharing North Carolina’s unique cultural heritage, we’ll be on the road again in 2015 and would love to hear your suggestions. Use the comments below to tell us about some of your favorite spots around the state and maybe we’ll see you there in the months ahead.
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.
