#EverythingNC: History

Materials reflecting the history of Eastern North Carolina and its people are acquired in an effort to build upon the North Carolina Collection's strength as an important research facility available to the people of Eastern North Carolina.

The North Carolina Collection has materials on each the state’s 100 counties. The collection attempts to acquire every published regional, county, and town history for North Carolina. The NCC also collects family histories, architectural guides, photographs, maps, city directories and phone books, and some published government records.

The collection consists of North Carolina county, regional, and municipal/community histories, studies of and guides to the flora, fauna and natural history of the state, reminiscences, heritage books, selected guidebooks (historical and geographical descriptions rather than tour guides), architectural histories and inventories, histories of individual institutions and organizations (e.g., churches, civic organizations, businesses), early textbooks, rosters and histories of battles within NC borders, social histories of specific ethnic groups in the state (Cherokee, African Americans, Melungeons, etc.) and periods (antebellum, Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Indian Removal). The collection also includes city directories and manufacturer’s directories.

NCpedia highlights North Carolina's unique resources, people, and culture to enrich, educate and inform. It is coordinated and managed by the North Carolina Government & Heritage Library.

The encyclopedia is a special project of the John Locke Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1925 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

A guide created by UNC-CH's Park Library staff. This guide lists African American newspapers published in North Carolina from the 19th-century through the present.

Newspapers.com North Carolina Collection. 3.5 million pages of digitized content from over 1,000 NC county newspapers. Access through NCLIVE.

GHL's extensive collection of North Carolina newspapers on microfilm.

The Asheville Area Photographic Collection contains materials gathered during a 1976 survey of the city of Asheville, NC, that focuses on areas targeted for demolition and change, people at work, occupations that are unusual and disappearing, area homes, streetscapes, and portraits of many individuals included in the Southern Highlands Research Center Oral History project conducted during the same time frame.

Photographic views of Hendersonville and the surrounding area taken by members of the Barber family, who have lived in the area since the 1880's. The content is largely Hendersonville and environs, with many views of Asheville and the French Broad River.

Thousands of photographs from the State Archives collections.

A collection of early 20th century photographs that provide a glimpse into the life, culture, and natural landscape of the southern Appalachian mountains, in and around western North Carolina. The collection includes images by popular Great Smoky Mountains National Park photographers George Masa and Jim Thompson, as well as lesser-known photographers, like T.H. Lindsey, R.A. Romanes, A.L. Ensley, and George Sherrill.

This collection of 3,249 photographic prints documents the work of the U.S. Forest Service Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, NC. These photographs from the Experiment Station cover the years from 1897 through 1952.

The historical map collection from the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University, has over 80,000 maps and images online. The collection includes rare 16th through 21st century maps of America, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific and the World.

This collection is an extensive group of Civil War maps, including both manuscript maps and printed maps with manuscript annotations and engineers' drawings of military construction, housed in the Manuscripts Department of The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina. This web site includes maps representative of the entire southern region, with particularly large groupings of North Carolina and Virginia maps. Most of the maps are dated 1861-1865. Other states that are included are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

NC OneMap is a public service providing comprehensive discovery and access to North Carolina's geospatial data resources.

This site has histories for North Carolina highways. The website was created many years ago and looks dated and new content is not being added. However, the histories provide hard to find information and are used by GHL reference staff.

A comprehensive, online collection of historic maps of the Tar Heel State. Featuring maps from three of the state's largest map collections -- the North Carolina State Archives, the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks History Center.

Find thousands of large-scale maps of American towns and cities, searchable by address and GPS coordinates. Sanborn® fire insurance maps are the most frequently consulted maps in libraries. The maps chart the growth and development of thousands of America towns and cities across a century. Because of this scope, urban specialists, social historians, architects, geographers, genealogists, local historians, and others will find the maps a valuable tool.

Civil Rights Greensboro provides access to archival resources documenting the modern civil rights era in Greensboro, North Carolina, from the 1940s to the early 1980s. The project includes correspondence, reports, speeches, photographs, newspaper clippings, and oral histories held at five cultural heritage institutions in North Carolina. In addition to new transcripts created for the project, Civil Rights Greensboro also houses approximately 125 oral history transcripts that formerly comprised the Greensboro VOICES website.

Correspondence between Crenshaw and Friends (many from North Carolina) who were conscripted into the Confederate Army and sought help in gaining their release during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865).

New South Voices provides access to more than 700 transcripts of interviews, narratives, and conversations documenting life in the Charlotte, North Carolina region in the twentieth century, including the experiences and language of recent immigrants to the area. These interviews are part of the Oral History Collections in the Department of Special Collections at J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte.

The Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies is a coalition of historical societies, museums, historic sites, associations and commissions located throughout the state that are dedicated to preserving and promoting history in North Carolina. Find information about the 100+ members across North Carolina.

Find North Carolina historic sites, grouped by region.

The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface. Although the current focus of DLAS is sources associated with North Carolina, there is considerable data contained herein relating to all 15 slave states and Washington, D.C., including detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color.

A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently, DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs. Projects include "The Church in the Southern Black Community"; "First-Person Narratives of the American South"; and "North Carolinians and the Great War".

The North Carolina Runaway Slave Advertisements project provides online access to all known runaway slave advertisements (more than 2300 items) published in North Carolina newspapers from 1751 to 1840. These brief ads provide a glimpse into the social, economic, and cultural world of the American slave system and the specific experience within North Carolina.

Makes available more than 175,000 digital images documenting the social and cultural development of Greensboro from Reconstruction to World War II. Textiles, Teachers, and Troops is a collaborative project among seven cultural heritage institutions in Greensboro.

A joint project between the University of North Carolina Wilmington's William M. Randall Library and the Cape Fear Museum.

The materials digitized include sound recordings, oral histories, civil war letters, and images focusing on the Appalachian region, Appalachian State University, children’s literature, art, and theater.

Exhibits cover a range of topics including UNC's confederate monument "Silent Sam", political memorabilia, capitol punishment, and hillbilly music.

The Digital Heritage Center works with cultural heritage institutions across North Carolina to digitize and publish historical materials online. Explore original materials from 222 libraries, museums, and archives across North Carolina, including yearbooks from Elizabeth City State University, North Carolina Central University, Fayetteville State University, and more.

Explore more than 17 mililon items from libraries, archives, and museums.

Find projects on many subjects including advertising and consumer culture, African American history, documentary photography, and women's history.

Find collections about Pitt County tobacco; Daily Reflector; Agriculture, Architecture, Eastern NC Postcards and more.

HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Documenting NC State and North Carolina through historic photographs, architectural drawings, yearbooks, archival materials, and more. Projects focus on the built environment, agriculture, and university history.

The major digital collections of primary resources and scholarship produced by the N.C. A&T community and maintained by the library, including text, audio, videos and images. Projects include the North Carolina Runaway Slave Advertisements, 1751-1840, the A&T Register from 1915 through 2009, and College Bulletins and Catalogs.

The North Carolina Digital Collections contain over 90,000 historic and recent photographs, state government publications, manuscripts, and other resources on topics related to North Carolina. The Collections are free and full-text searchable, and bring together content from the State Archives of North Carolina and the State Library of North Carolina.

The digital collections emphasize North Carolina and the American South. Topics include the experience of African Americans, the Civil War, the arts, economics, and politics.

The digital collections emphasize the history of the University and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region of North Carolina, particularly in the twentieth century, and include photographs, manuscripts, publications, oral history recordings, and more. Projects include: Historic Charlotte Postcards from the Mary Boyer Collection; Wilkes Family Papers; and Bryant McMurray Motorsports Photographs.

Projects include: Canton Champion Fibre Company; Cherokee Phoenix (newspaper); Great Smoky Mountains; and Western North Carolina Regional Maps.

Digitized eight-volume set published in 1917.

These portrait presentations, memoir proceedings and histories are scattered throughout the more than 360 volumes of the North Carolina Reports and are not easily accessible. Thus, these significant documents have been compiled into one collection, the Biographies and Histories of the North Carolina Supreme Court—a collection that provides researchers with enhanced access to unique and important documents that chronicle the history of the Court and its Justices.

Find information, videos, photographs, and more about historic places in North Carolina. This travel and tourism site is produced by NC state government.

Searchable database of historical highway markers in North Carolina. May be searched by county, marker id or subject. Results include an essay on the significance of the site.