North Carolina Collection Showcase Exhibit
With the start of a new semester, Special Collections has installed a brand-new exhibit throughout Joyner Library! This exhibit highlights the departments that curate/work with Special Collections materials, and showcases a wide variety of items from our collections. To celebrate the new exhibit, we will be featuring a series of blog posts about each of the participating departments. Let’s kick things off with the North Carolina Collection!
The second largest repository of North Caroliniana in the state, Joyner Library’s Langford North Carolina Collection offers access to a wide array of resources documenting the development of North Carolina, with special emphasis on eastern North Carolina.
In support of its initial mission to train teaching professionals, ECU began collecting materials relevant to North Carolina from its founding, eventually establishing space for these on the second floor of the former Whichard Library Building in the 1940s. The growing collection later gained expanded accommodations in in the new J.Y. Joyner Library in 1954 and its first full-time librarian in 1962. Another significant milestone came a few years later with the hiring of Marguerite Wiggins, whose efforts alongside Director Wendell Smiley added significantly. In 1996, then NCC Librarian Maurice York welcomed patrons into the North Carolina Collection’s present space on the third floor of the expanded Joyner Library. The collection was soon after named in honor of Verona Langford Joyner, a local businesswoman and benefactor of East Carolina University.
Holdings of the North Carolina Collection are found in a variety of formats, including colonial and state documents, current and historical periodicals, newspapers, books, maps, and genealogical reference sources. Additionally, NCC is home to the NC Roberts Collection, consisting of books set or written in North Carolina and the Ronnie Barnes Collection with emphasis on African Americans in North Carolina.
In celebration of the many diverse and interesting treasures to be found in the North Carolina Collection, staff members Jennifer Daugherty, NCC Librarian, Kristen Daniel, Instruction Librarian and Fred Harrison, NCPI Manager call attention to the following six items now on display inside Joyner Library.
Particularly interesting is an 1864 broadside encapsulating a poem by L.T. Shultz, Sergeant with the New York Infantry. The poem recalls the Union raid late in the war that destroyed a portion of the Weldon Railroad in retaliation for an earlier attack on Union Solders by Confederates.
Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance spent a lifetime fabricating his identity as a Cherokee Indian. His 1928 autobiography brought him fame but soon led to his downfall. His complex story is noted for exemplifying challenges minorities faced in escaping racial attitudes of the time.
For lovers of Pitt County history, Jessamine Shumate’s 1953 broadside entitled “Chronology of Pitt County” is a must see for its stylized maps with depictions of local historical elements.
NCC continues to collect rare 18th century materials relevant to historical state figures, including a treatise by former Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs, serving North Carolina from 1753 until 1765. Featured in the current exhibit is an essay on trade in Ireland during 1729-31.
Also of note is James Davis’ “A Collection of Public Acts of the Assembly of the Province of North Carolina… 1752”. Davis was North Carolina’s first official government printer.
From 1983, Louise Shivers’ “Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail” defines so much of the rich and varied material in the NC Roberts Collection. The novel was turned into national motion picture production in 1987, set in eastern North Carolina and the town of Robersonville.