The North Carolina State Archives recently announced the release of the North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project.
This is a completion of a two year project, funded by an LSTA grant provided by the State Library of North Carolina. It includes 23,483 digital images of papers dating from 1752 to the 1890s, including the collection of 18th century newspapers the State Archives has on microfilm. It also is keyword searchable!
The digital newspapers collection includes the North Carolina Gazette (New Bern) and various newspapers from Edenton (1787-1801), Fayetteville (1798-1795), Hillsboro (1786), New Bern (1751-1804), and Wilmington (1765-1816). In addition, the project includes the full run of two politically opposed newspapers from Salisbury, the Carolina Watchman (1832-1898) and The Western Carolinian (1820-1844).
Finally, the project also includes three lesson plans, derived from these newspapers, entitled “Idealized Motherhood vs. the Realities of Mother hood in Antebellum North Carolina”; “Teaching About Slavery Through Newspaper Advertisements”; and “‘A Female Raid’ in 1863, or Using Newspaper Coverage to Learn More About North Carolina’s Civil War Home Front.” All three lesson plans were developed by LEARN NC and are also available on the LEARN NC website.