DigitalNC: 1941 to 1975 Transylvania Times Issues Now Available. “This batch includes issues from the years 1941 to 1975, adding over 1,000 issues. Published weekly, the paper focuses on education updates (such as at Brevard College and high school), music camps and performances, local and national news, and community events. Featured articles and topics from this batch include the end of World War II and the fight against polio.”
DigitalNC: Issues of The Charlotte News, 1888-1922, Added to DigitalNC. “We’ve added a whopping 10,000+ issues of The Charlotte News to DigitalNC. The paper was published daily, and these issues date from 1888-1922 (minus 1911, which has been on our website since 2012).”
DigitalNC: 1951-1976 Black Mountain News Issues Now Available. “Thanks to a nomination by our partner, Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center, 1,357 issues of Black Mountain News from 1951 to 1976 are now available to view on our website. Black Mountain News is published in Black Mountain which is located in western North Carolina in Buncombe County near Asheville. This batch of Black Mountain News issues builds on our current collection of the paper which originally spanned only from the paper’s first issue on September 6, 1945 to 1950.”
State Archives of North Carolina: Senate Audio, 1993-2005, Now Available in NCDC, and CLIR Recordings-at-Risk Grant Expanded. “As discussed in our behind-the-scenes post on this grant, to make the audio searchable, we first had to listen to 400+ audio files pulled from 64 Dictaphone Veritrac tapes and match up what we were hearing with the information published in the Senate Journals, available through the State Publications collection on NCDC… Using them, we pinpointed the legislative days covered by each file, providing users with both dates and legislative days that they can use navigate the Senate Audio files for 1993-2005.”
Chowan Herald: African American Experience launches on Juneteenth. “A regional tourism initiative designed to connect people with Black heritage and historical sites will kick off Saturday. The African American Experience of Northeast North Carolina highlights the contributions of African Americans while encouraging a better understanding of the region’s cultural heritage.” The site includes a “digital heritage trail” of the sites.
DigitalNC: Yearbooks from the North Carolina School for the Deaf Now Online. “DigitalNC is happy to announce 35 yearbooks from our new partner, the North Carolina School for the Deaf. All of these yearbooks are from said school and cover years between 1915-1971. The North Carolina School for the Deaf was founded in 1891 in Morganton, NC, located in the western part of the state.”
DigitalNC: New Newspaper, Chapel Hill News Leader, Online Now. “Thanks to our partners at the Chapel Hill Historical Society, DigitalNC is now home to 167 issues of the Chapel Hill News Leader. This batch includes issues from May 20, 1954 to December 29, 1955. Covering stories in and around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC, the Chapel Hill News Leader frequently spoke on events at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools and in 1955 federal courts ordered the admission of Black undergraduates to UNC.”
Digital North Carolina: Materials Documenting the Life of Crystal Lee Sutton, Activist and Union Organizer, Now Online. “Crystal Lee Sutton was a union organizer and activist, recognized as the driving force behind the unionization of J.P. Stevens plant workers in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Her story inspired the acclaimed 1979 film, Norma Rae. Items digitized in this collection give firsthand accounts leading up to that notable unionization, including a union cheer and a timeline of events recorded in several meeting recollections with J.P. Stevens management.”
DigitalNC: Jones County Newspaper from 1949-1971 added to DigitalNC. “Thanks to a nomination from the Neuse Regional Library, we’ve added 1,098 issues of the Jones County Journal, a newspaper published out of Trenton, N.C. This is one of only two newspaper titles we have for Jones County. Issues date from volume one, number one, published in 1949 through April 1971. Because the Journal was digitized from microfilm shot with high contrast, many of the photographs are not very clear but the text is quite sharp.” Jones County is one of the least-populated counties in North Carolina, with a population of less than 11,000. By contrast, Wake County has 1.1 million people.
State Archives of North Carolina: New online exhibit honors the Dare Coast Pirates Jamboree. “Staff at the Outer Banks History Center have created a new online exhibit honoring the Dare Coast Pirates Jamboree. This was an annual festival held on the Outer Banks of North Carolina from 1955 to 1964. The Pirates Jamboree was conceived as a method of increasing tourism to the Outer Banks during the spring shoulder season (late April to May).” Not a huge exhibit but I’m always here for pirate jamborees.
DigitalNC: The Jones County Journal, 1949-1961, Added to DigitalNC. “We’re pleased to have added to DigitalNC over 600 issues of the Jones County Journal, dating from the first issue in 1949 through 1961. This paper has been digitized on behalf of the Neuse Regional Library System which serves Greene, Lenoir, and Jones Counties. Due to the quality of the microfilm from which these scans were completed, most of the photographs in the newspaper are of poor quality or completely dark, however the text has rendered clear.”
DigitalNC: The Commonwealth, a newspaper from Scotland Neck, now on DigitalNC. “Over 2000 issues of The Commonwealth, a paper published in Scotland Neck, are now on DigitalNC. The issues span 40 years, from 1882 to 1922, adding a lot of coverage in our newspaper collection from the coastal region of the state.”
Western Carolina University: WNC Tomorrow Black Oral History Project brings 1980s-era recordings to digital age. “Western Carolina University’s Special and Digital Collections at Hunter Library has digitized a collection of interviews conducted between 1986 and 1989 with Black residents from Western North Carolina, all of whom were older than 69 at the time. Recorded as part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project are memories of interactions during segregation, life in the mountains as a Black person and the importance of church and school in the community. Their stories are of days spent sharecropping, service in the military and fighting in world wars, the civil rights movement and integration and other social changes in their lifetimes.”
WRAL: Virtual reality project brings back Black neighborhoods. “Imagine if you could walk through Charlotte [North Carolina]’s Brooklyn neighborhood again, gliding past the homes, businesses and churches cleared by urban renewal more than a half-century ago.That’s the mission of researchers at Johnson C. Smith University, who received a trio of grants to preserve records and histories from several former Black neighborhoods in Charlotte. Their end goal: An virtual reality experience created with historical photos and 3-D models where viewers could experience long-gone neighborhoods.”
State Archives of North Carolina: Get Involved with Talk Like a Local . “In an effort to emphasize holdings in our collection that relate to North Carolina localities, the State Archives of North Carolina is launching a series entitled Talk Like a Local. Our simple intent is to expand on this concept by providing a little background information about how the area was named, sharing an item from our collections, and recording the pronunciation of the place name – preferably spoken by someone native to that region and, where possible, including various pronunciations – all of which will be shared here with our blog audience.”
