Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
The NCC collects a variety of material geared towards children, including ephemera, like the coloring book below, and a wide array of children’s literature.
Illustrated by Vernessa Riley Foelix. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Travel and Tourism Division, Department of Commerce, 1989. My favorite page from the coloring book is the one shown above, showing a scene of Blackbeard looting.
And in order to get a sense of the children’s literature we collect, you can view the catalog listings for “North Carolina — Juvenile fiction” at this link.
We’ve got a postcard featuring an exhibit about African Americans in North Carolina at the 1907 Jamestown Exhibition. The NC State Legislature granted $5,000 to develop the exhibit.
You can see other NC postcards from the Jamestown Ter-centennial Exposition here.
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a syndicated column called “My Day,” and they are brief, diary-like entries that contain her observations and experiences. This column twice featured her opinions of the South. On February 4, 1950, she commented broadly on the “signs of poverty and unhappiness” that occur in the South. And she specifically references a trip to UNC Chapel Hill and a visit to Danziger’s coffee shop in her column dated February 6, 1950. (Clicking on the links will bring you to George Washington University’s digital collection of Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” columns.)
Her words were not taken lightly: We’ve got a pamphlet by W.E. Debnam titled, “Weep No More, My Lady: Southerner Answers Mrs. Roosevelt’s Report on the ‘Poor and Unhappy South.” These responses were originally broadcast on the radio on February 8th and 9th, 1950 before being printed.
Jason Tomberlin’s recent post on Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to Danziger’s featured a photo from her February, 1950 visit. I’m reposting the photo here.
The first twelve volumes (published 1912 – 1924) of the Carolina Alumni Review are being digitized by UNC’s Scribe scanner and will be freely available online through the Internet Archive. You can view them here.
Established in December 2007, the Scribe Digitization Program is a partnership between the UNC University Library and the Open Content Alliance, which hosts the Internet Archive. The Scribe (a high-speed scanner) and associated software applications developed by the Internet Archive facilitate high-volume conversion of bound materials to digital format. All books digitized by the UNC library are hosted by the Internet Archive and are freely available online.
The Scribe is being used to digitize titles from UNC’s North Carolina Collection and Rare Book Collection that have no copyright restrictions. Items from the NCC that have been digitized include NC county histories, NC religion-related items, NC city directories, and NC biographies. When an item has been digitized, a link will appear in that item’s record in the Library’s catalog (see an example here). As of today, more that 4,400 titles have been digitized. You can access all of the titles UNC has made available through the Internet Archive here.
Digitized titles are full-text searchable, and can be viewed in a variety of different formats. Be sure to check out the “Flip Book” function!
On behalf of the NCC’s Photographic Archives, North Carolina Miscellany is proud to announce the release of their new digital collection, the Hugh Morton Collection of Photographs & Films!
Click on the image above to be taken into the collection, and be sure to also check out their blog, A View to Hugh.
We recently uploaded the first postcard of Pilot Mountain to the North Carolina Postcards digital collection. Otherwise known as as Mt. Pilot to the viewers of The Andy Griffith Show, Pilot Mountain is a popular destination for rock climbers and one of the state’s most distinctive geological features.
Pilot Mountain is a monadnock – a small mountain that abruptly rises out of an otherwise planar surface. It’s name derives from the translation of its Native American name, which means “guide” or “pilot.” Because the mountain was visible from great distances, it became a popular landmark for people traveling. The name signifies the mountain’s role.
In honor of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth year, I thought I’d mention two more sources that discuss the myth and controversy of Abraham Lincoln’s paternity.
The Abraham Enloe Papers that are housed in the Southern Historical Collection contain a copy of a letter written in the 1960s that claims that North Carolinian Abraham Enloe fathered Abraham Lincoln out of wedlock. And Edward Steers’ book, Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President devotes an entire chapter to dismissing the claims that Enloe was Lincoln’s father.
As a native of the Land of Lincoln, I respectfully decline taking sides in the debate. If you’d like to, feel free to leave a comment. (We all remember the brouhaha of a previous post, Abe Lincoln’s Carolina Roots.)
During the month of August, we uploaded several new towns to North Carolina Postcards:
Holly Springs, Wake County
Hookerton, Greene County
Huntersville, Mecklenburg County
Palmyra, Halifax County
Rock Branch, Harnett County (later became Olivia)
Rockwell, Rowan County
Rosemary, Halifax County (later became Roanoke Rapids)
Caleb Bradham invented a cola containing pepsin in New Bern, 1893, which was originally known as “Brad’s Drink.” He formerly christened it Pepsi on August 28, 1898. So have a cold Pepsi and a pack of nabs today while you enjoy these two Pepsi postcards.
