Jason Tomberlin

Listen To Professor Robert Allen Talk About North Carolina Downtowns

UNC’s Dr. Robert Allen was recently featured on WUNC’s The State of Things. In the interview Dr. Allen talks about “Main Street, Carolina,” a digital project that “uses sophisticated maps and statistics to create a database of towns and cities throughout North Carolina during the 20th century. It’s designed so that schools, libraries, businesses and individuals can have more detailed access to community history.”

The project used many different resources from Wilson Library, including many of the North Carolina Collection’s Sanborn fire insurance maps, city directories, and other local history resources.

Listen to the interview at: http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/Meet_Robert_Allen.mp3/view

Professor Robert Allen and UNC Library Honored for Innovation in Digital History

Check out the announcement about Professor Robert Allen and UNC Library’s recent award: the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History, given by the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Allen, Library honored for innovation in digital history

Professor Allen and the Library received the award for “Going to the Show,” a searchable digital archive, which brings together thousands of artifacts about movie theaters in the state –photographs, newspaper ads and articles, city maps and directories, old postcards and architectural drawings – to document and illuminate the way movie-going became one of the most important social practices of the early 20th century. It also highlights the ways that race conditioned the experience of movie-going for all North Carolinians.

The digital project features material from around the state, but many of the original items that were used, including newspaper clippings, postcards, city directories, and Sanborn maps, come from the North Carolina Collection.

Special Showings of Gridiron Glory for Community, Nov. 19

The Wilson Special Collections Library will offer the community two lunchtime showings of Gridiron Glory on Friday, Nov. 19, at noon and 12:30 p.m., in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room.

The archival film clips in Gridiron Glory feature highlights from Tar Heel football games past, including footage of football legends Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and “Famous Amos” Lawrence. The action is called by Woody Durham, “Voice of the Tar Heels,” who recorded the play-by-play in the Wilson Library sound preservation studio.

The films are drawn from the University Archives in Wilson Library, where they are part of the records of the UNC Football Office. In the 1930s, the Football Office began filming games in order to help coaches evaluate and train players and review strategic plays. Many of the films provide unique camera angles and views of the games not captured by broadcasters.

Gridiron Glory was shown during football pre-game festivities on October 2 and 30.

Feel free to bring your lunch and enjoy the show on Friday, Nov. 19!

For detailed information, see the following link: http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/news/index.php/2010/11/football-films-for-unc-community/

A Veterans Day Look Back at “The Great War”

In honor of Veterans Day, let’s take a look back at North Carolina’s involvement in World War I:

“North Carolinians and the Great War”

“‘North Carolinians and the Great War’ examines how World War I shaped the lives of different North Carolinians on the battlefield and on the home front as well how the state and federal government responded to war-time demands. The collection focuses on the years of American involvement in the war between 1917 and 1919, but it also examines the legacies of the war in the 1920s.”

You can also take a look at the following postcards from the World War I-era from the North Carolina Postcards digital project:

World War, 1914-1918 — North Carolina

The Black Student Movement at UNC

The Black Student Movement was established by African American students in November of 1967 as a result of their dissatisfaction with the campus NAACP chapter as well as the slow growth of the African American student population at UNC. UNC’s Virtual Museum, a growing online exhibit that focuses on UNC history, has just published an exhibit that recounts the story of the Black Student Movement at Carolina.

North Carolina Politics In The 1890s

In this morning’s Raleigh News and Observer, political columnist Rob Christensen, who was commenting on yesterday’s elections, pointed out that the last time the North Carolina General Assembly was led by Republicans was “in 1898 when lawmakers arrived in horse and buggy or by train.”

Why did Christensen bring up the 1890s? What happened then? Why do we still remember the change? You can read more about it at LEARN NC’s North Carolina history digital textbook:

Politics and populism (Chapter 7)

North Carolina Currency “Hoard” At Colonial Williamsburg

The following is from a news release by Colonial Williamsburg:

“The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has acquired a large collection of colonial paper currency issued by North Carolina prior to the American Revolution.

“Comprised of more than 6,600 notes in varying denominations issued between 1748 and 1771, the stash of cash was worth about 7,176 pounds sterling in 1775. If legal tender today, the currency would have purchasing power of more than $750,000…

“Named the ‘Cornell Hoard,’ the money was collected originally by Samuel Cornell, a transplanted New Yorker who became a wealthy merchant after moving as a young man to New Bern, N.C. in the mid-1750s. In addition to his activities as a merchant, Cornell also was involved in high risk currency speculation as evidenced by the hoard of colonial currency.”

Read more about this collection of NC currency at: http://www.history.org/foundation/press_release/displayPressRelease.cfm?pressReleaseId=1592

To see a portion of the North Carolina Collection’s currency holdings, see the following digital collection: “Historic Moneys in the North Carolina Collection”

Gridiron Glory

Visitors to UNC’s pre-game festivities on Oct. 30 can catch a special glimpse of Tar Heel football history. A showing of archival film clips in Wilson Library will feature highlights from games past, including footage of football legends such as Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and “Famous Amos” Lawrence. In addition, Woody Durham, the “Voice of the Tar Heels,” provides narration to the clips.

“Gridiron Glory” will run in a twenty-minute continuous loop in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room during the University’s Tar Heel Town. Showings will begin at 12:30 and will continue until 3:30. The showings are free and open to the public.

Find out more about the event at this link: http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/news/index.php/2010/09/football-films/