Contributors to the Development of the Exhibits


A Short History of the Exhibits’ Development

The Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits grew from the efforts of the North Carolina Collection in 1999 to develop web pages displaying primary and secondary source material documenting the rise of the tobacco industry in Pitt County, North Carolina (around 1900). To help capture the socio-economic impact of tobacco on local society, work was begun in January 2000 to transcribe all data from the 1900 Pitt County census into an on-line searchable format.

As the tobacco project work began, interest grew at Joyner Library for expanding this project into digital history exhibits on other aspects of eastern North Carolina history. In the fall of 2000, the library hired a digital project manager to oversee this expanded endeavor. Three exhibits focusing on the 1900 era were identified to begin this work: the ECU Centennial Exhibit, the Steamers Exhibit, and the Pitt County Digital Tobacco History Exhibit. Graduate student assistants and work-study students began the work of digitizing and assembling the digital materials you see today.

ECU will celebrate its Centennial year in 2007. The current ECU Centennial Exhibit includes documentation concerning the controversy on where the school should be located as well as material about the first graduating class. The Steamers Exhibit pertains to steamboat lines serving the Cashie and Roanoke rivers and the Albemarle Sound during the late nineteenth century. The Exhibit's letters, written by the Askew brothers to their father, document the family’s steamer endeavors, including construction of the Bertie, which was based in Windsor, North Carolina.

The September 2001 public launch of the first three exhibits reflects Phase 1 of the work on these three topics. In October 2001, Phase 1 of a fourth exhibit, on John Lawson, was added to the this collection of digital exhibits. The first three exhibits focus on the turn of the twentieth century, while the John Lawson exhibit highlights the beginning of the eighteenth century. John Lawson's legacy in eastern North Carolina is examined via such documents as court records, an account of his dramatic death, and images of hundreds of actual plant specimens collected by Lawson and preserved in England.

More material has been identified for digitization in each of these four initial exhibits. Joyner Library at East Carolina University also looks forward to addressing more topics in new eastern North Carolina digital history exhibits in the coming years.

Digital Editorial Board
In October 2000 this Board was formed to help guide the development of the exhibits. The Board oversees all major aspects of exhibit work including exhibit topics, best practices, and other strategic planning issues. Board members include:

Carroll H. Varner
Director, Academic Library Services, East Carolina University (ECU). Chair of the Digital Editorial Board.

Deana Astle
Associate Director for Collections Department, Joyner Library, ECU. Board member.

Pam Burton
Head of the Systems Department, Joyner Library, ECU. Board member.

Jonathan Dembo
Manuscripts and Rare Books, Joyner Library, ECU.

Margaret Foote
Formerly Acting Associate Director and Head of Cataloging, Joyner Library, ECU, Board member 2000-2001.

Jean Hiebert
Assistant Professor, Joyner Library, ECU.

John Lawrence
Associate Director for Administration & User Services, Joyner Library, ECU.

Jan Mayo
Head of Cataloging, Joyner Library, ECU0.

Gail Munde
Formerly Associate Director, Joyner Library, ECU. Board member 2000.

Ann Stocks
Electronic Resources Librarian, Assistant Head of the Systems Department, Joyner Library, ECU.

Diana Williams
Digital Projects Manager, Joyner Library, ECU

Maury York
North Carolina librarian, Joyner Library, ECU.


Principal Investigators
Principal Investigators lead digital exhibits from conception to web publication and maintenance. These individuals or groups of individuals provide scholarly direction for the Exhibits. Their work includes selecting items for digitization, writing introductory research notes for each exhibit, and writing introductions to the categories of material within each exhibit. This information appears above the digitized item under the heading “Notes.” Principal Investigators to date include:

Mary Boccaccio
Curator of the East Carolina Manuscript Collection, Joyner Library, ECU. Principal Investigator for the Steamers Exhibit, 2000; and Principal Investigator for the ECU Centennial Exhibit, 2001.

Vincent J. Bellis
Professor Emeritus of Biology at ECU Principal Investigator for the Naturalist category (images of herbarium specimens) in the John Lawson Exhibit.

Suellyn Lathrop
University Archivist, Joyner Library, ECU. Principal Investigator for the ECU Centennial Exhibit, 2000-2001.

E. Thomson Shields, Jr.
Associate Professor of English and Director of the Roanoke Colonies Research Office at ECU. Principal Investigator for the John Lawson Exhibit, 2001.

Maury York
North Carolina librarian, Joyner Library, ECU. Principal Investigator for the Pitt County Digital Tobacco History Exhibit, 2000.

Volunteers
Adrienne Boniface
Laszlo Szabo
Mark Pike

Students
       Graduate Research Assistants
        Heather Cain
        Elizabeth Hodges
        Bakhodir Ismatov
        Matthew Lawrence
        Matthew Miller
        Noel Mitchell
        Rob Thompson

       Undergraduate Students
        Alexis Davis
        Teshanna Dickens
        Thomas Doyle
        Rachael Durkee
        Sarah Fox
        Noah Folsom
        Kenny Gray
        Carletta Hill
        Crystal Kuegel
        LeAnn McKoy
        Moses Mitchener
        Kinsey Moore
        Phil Shutt
        Justin Vaughan
        Chi Yiu

Graphics/Collage
Laurie Godwin

North Carolina Collection
Susan Butler
Bryna Coonin
Valerie Garner
Fred Harrison
Barry Munson
Nancy Shires
Maury York

Manuscripts and Rare Books
Jonathan Dembo
Martha Elmore
Susan Midgette
Suellyn Lathrop
Lynette Lundin

Systems
Kim Blanton
Dawn Beckwith
Brian Hall
Rita Khazanie
Michael O'Connor
Ralph Scott
Bob Smith
William Thiesen
Melissa Williams
Barbara Worthington

Digitization Center
Vikram Ahmed
Michael Reece
Diana Williams

Sources for Digitized Material
The staff of the Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits gratefully acknowledges the following providers of materials for digitization:

Government Offices
Office of Register of Deeds, Pitt County Courthouse, Greenville, NC
Provided photocopy of map of Greenville Tobacco Warehouse District, 1913, Map Book 1, p. 35, used in the Tobacco digital history exhibit.

North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Office of Archives and History
Provided permission to use excerpts from The Colonial Records of North Carolina in the John Lawson digital history exhibit.

Individuals
Mr. Stephen E. Bradley, Jr.
Provided permission to use excerpts from his abstracts of Early Records of North Carolina in the John Lawson digital history exhibit.

Ms. Betsy Gohdes-Baten
Provided copies of photographs submitted with the National Register nomination for the Tobacco Warehouse District in Greenville, NC. These are used in the Tobacco digital history exhibit.

Levis Allen Churchill
Provided 1900 Pitt County transcription creating a census database that included name, race & family number for each head of household that we used to start our full census effort.

Marjorie Hudson
Provided permission to use her article "Among the Tuscarora: The Strange and Mysterious Death of John Lawson, Gentleman, Explorer, and Writer," from the North Carolina Literary Review, in the John Lawson digital history exhibit. In April 2002, she published Searching for Virginia Dare: A Fool’s Errand.

Roger Kammerer
Provided permission to use the rendering of the cupola used in the Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits collage.

E.Thompson Shields
Provided permission to use his article Paradise Regained Again: The Literary Context of John Lawson’s A New Voyage to Carolina,from the North Carolina Literary Review, in the John Lawson digital history exhibit.

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Tucker, Greenville, NC
Provided original photo, used in the ECU Centennial digital history exhibit,of five young students from the opening years at the Eastern Normal.

Libraries and Museums
Joyner Library, Greenville, NC
The bulk of the items were digitized from holdings in Joyner Library's Manuscripts and Rare Books (including the University Archives, the East Carolina Manuscript Collection, and the Rare Book Collection), the North Carolina Collection, and the General Stacks.
http://www.lib.ecu.edu

New York Public Library, New York, NY
Provided permission to use tobacco drawing by Ms. Nicholas Jose Rapun in the Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits collage, for which they hold copyright.
http://www.nypl.org/

The Natural History Museum, London, UK
At the request of Joyner Library in 2001, the Picture Library of The Natural History Museum in London digitized the herbarium specimens collected by John Lawson to be used in the John Lawson digital history exhibit. The museum has provided permission for Joyner Library to use these images for educational purposes including in our Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits. East Carolina University's College of Arts and Sciences funded the cost of the initial imaging by the Picture Library.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

Newspapers and Periodicals
The Daily Reflector, Greenville, NC
Provided original bound volumes of the 1894 and 1895 Eastern Reflector used in the Tobacco digital history exhibit.
http://www.reflector.com/

North Carolina Literary Review
Provided permission to use two articles from the 1992 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review in the John Lawson digital history exhibit. More articles on Lawson appear in the September 2002 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review
http://www.ecu.edu/nclr/