During the 1800s, some free people of color and formerly enslaved people emigrated out of North Carolina. Many went north or to Haiti, and quite a few went to Liberia. Join host John Horan, former intern LaWanda McCullor and podcast regulars, Annabeth Poe and Katie Crickmore on this episode. Listen as the crew focuses on several letters and wills h…

What would you think about a concert that was pure silence? Or an event that hosted four different performances all at once? These sort of avant-garde performance pieces were commonplace at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College. Founded in 1933 by John A. Rice and Theodore Dreier, Black Mountain College operated as an experiment of “education in …

Before the Revolutionary War began, a movement unfolded in the backcountry of North Carolina, sparking the short-lived but influential War of Regulation. In the first episode of our series “From Regulators to Revolution,” Annabeth Poe and Katherine Crickmore are joined by Nathan Schultz, the Site Director of Alamance Battleground, as they discuss t…

Have you ever conducted research at the State Archives of North Carolina, or any other archival institution for that matter? It’s a unique thrill when you discover history in your hands and read the words of the past as written by the people who lived it. Even when you know the basics about what you’re going to research, you never know exactly what…

This week on Connecting the Docs, host John Horan welcomes Reference archivist Katherine Crickmore, former Digitization Archivist Chauna Carr, and Records Description Unit head Joshua Hager to investigate the validity of popular North Carolina legends. First, Katie tackles the mysterious disappearance of Theodosia Burr, daughter of American Vice Pr…

Our final episode in our school-centric series takes us to Charlotte, home to one of the most famous legal cases involving school integration. By the time it reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Swann v. Mecklenburg addressed whether school systems could legally use busing routes to create more integrated school populations (or if they had an obligation…

In the second and third episodes in our Class is in Session series, we focus on hearing from American Indian students about how they navigated school segregation and desegregation inside and outside of the classroom. Using a combination of government records and oral histories, join host John Horan and producers Josh Hager and Annabeth Poe for an o…

In the second and third episodes in our Class is in Session series, we focus on hearing from American Indian students about how they navigated school segregation and desegregation inside and outside of the classroom. Using a combination of government records and oral histories, join host John Horan and producers Josh Hager and Annabeth Poe for an o…

Welcome to Season 5 of Connecting the Docs! We start this season with a trip to the classroom as we focus on three topics relating to North Carolina schools and education history. In our first episode of the series, we take a look at the history of Rosenwald Schools in North Carolina. Join host John Horan, podcast intern Lawanda McCullor, and produ…

Welcome back to the final series of Season 4, “Uncovered Stories.” In this series, you’ll hear about incredible records that archivists uncovered during work assigned for other, sometimes unrelated projects. These discoveries add new significant research topics to collections held by the State Archives for decades and shine a light on people and su…

Welcome back to the final series of Season 4, “Uncovered Stories.” In this series, you’ll hear about incredible records that archivists uncovered during work assigned for other, sometimes unrelated projects. These discoveries add new significant research topics to collections held by the State Archives for decades and shine a light on people and su…

Welcome to the final series of Season 4, “Uncovered Stories.” In this series, you’ll hear about incredible records that archivists uncovered during work assigned for other, sometimes unrelated projects. These discoveries add new significant research topics to collections held by the State Archives for decades and shine a light on people and subject…

Have you ever wanted to ask an archivist why your photos are fading away? Or why only some records are digitized? Or whether they actually wear white gloves when handling old records? Well, good news! In this episode, our archivists will answer questions just like these that have been sent in from listeners like you! Inspired by the annual #AskAnAr…

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the NC Trails System Act, and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is celebrating with the Year of the Trail campaign, where all types of trails are being celebrated across the state. Join us as we conclude our three-part series exploring the “sights, sounds, and people” of North Carolina’s trail syste…

Happy Holidays! We all have heard of presidential pardons for turkeys at Thanksgiving. Of course, we know that since the first state constitution in 1776, North Carolina governors have had the ability to declare executive clemency to people. But have you heard of a governor pardoning a possum? In this episode we are joined by Records Description Ar…

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the NC Trails System Act, and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is celebrating with the Year of the Trail campaign, where all types of trails are being celebrated across the state. Join us as we continue our three-part series exploring the “sights, sounds, and people” of North Carolina’s trail syste…

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the NC Trails System Act, and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is celebrating with the Year of the Trail campaign, where all types of trails are being celebrated across the state. Join us as we embark on a three-part series where we explore the “sights, sounds, and people” of North Carolina’s trail…

As the conclusion of our Resiliency series, this episode shifts our focus from stories of the resilience of individual North Carolinians to information on how the State Archives can help government agencies throughout the state remain resilient in the face of disasters. In this episode, Records Description Unit Supervisor Josh Hager welcomes Record…

Resiliency is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties, or, to put it simply, fortitude. In the previous episode, we heard four stories of North Carolinians showing resiliency in the face of historic hurricanes, but hurricanes aren’t the only type of bad weather our state has faced. This episode showcases four more stories …

North Carolina is no stranger to hurricanes. According to the National Hurricane Center, North Carolina is number 4 on the list of states most affected by hurricanes and throughout the state’s recorded history, hurricanes have been responsible for nearly 1,000 total fatalities and over $15 billion in damages. Yet time and time again, the citizens o…

Appalachian music has a rich history in western North Carolina. Native American and African American music cultures melded with the ballad-singing traditions of Scots-Irish settlers in the 1700s. In the years that followed, western and piedmont musicians crafted signature styles of banjo picking in old-time and bluegrass music. Today, the sounds of…

The dialect traditionally spoken in the western parts of North Carolina goes by many names—Smoky Mountain English, Southern Mountain Talk, and Appalachian Dialect, to name a few. In this episode, oral history interns Fiona Allen and Bree Dumont lead host John Horan and guests Brooke Csuka and Josh Hager on a lexicological journey through this most …

For this episode our HBCU/MIHE summer intern Tyanna West chats with renowned historian and author Dr. David Cecelski about Abraham Hankins Galloway, an abolitionist, union spy, and North Carolina state senator from Brunswick County. Cecelski’s biography, The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War, illuminates a portrait of this…

Each summer the Outer Banks History Center welcomes an intern to its archives on Roanoke Island. Named after the History Center’s founder and legendary Outer Banks historian, David Stick, the annual internship offers students pursuing graduate degrees in library science the opportunity to engage in a range of projects. In this week’s episode, the 2…

Inspired by the bestselling novel and film adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing, Connecting the Docs explores true stories that happened in the wild marshes of eastern North Carolina. This episode dives deep into oysters and oystering, a major industry of the state for more than a century. In 1891, conflict between local fishermen and northern opport…

Content warning: This episode includes potentially sensitive issues including suicide and death. Listener discretion is advised. Inspired by Where the Crawdads Sing—the bestselling novel by Delia Owens and now-streaming film—Connecting the Docs explores true stories that happened in the coastal communities of eastern North Carolina. In this episode…

Inspired by Where the Crawdads Sing—the bestselling novel by Delia Owens that is now a major motion picture—Connecting the Docs explores true stories that happened in the wild marshes of eastern North Carolina. This episode, the first of a three-part series, is an examination of the resilient, dynamic Black communities that inhabited this land in t…

The True Crime genre seems to have exploded in popularity in recent years, but, truthfully, people have always had a fascination with sensational crime stories. Long before podcasts, musicians transformed these true crime tales into popular songs that have been sung and passed along for hundreds of years. In this special Halloween episode, referenc…

In this final episode of our first series for season 3, we reach the end of our journey in the life of an archival record. As you’ve been listening to the past two episodes, you may have asked yourself – but what’s the end goal? Where is all of this work – retention, scheduling, appraisal, processing, imaging – heading? In today’s episode, Chauna C…

Those of you who have visited the State Archives may be familiar with the sight of boxes containing processed records in orderly rows of labelled, acid-free folders. But you may wonder: how do these records go from their unprocessed state upon transfer to the arranged and described collections that you encounter in the search room? How do archivist…

Welcome back to Connecting the Docs! In this brand new season, we have several mini-series covering a range of topics including a look west with information about “Mountain Speak” and a series on the true stories of Coastal Carolina inspired by the film, Where the Crawdads Sing. We open season three in Raleigh, with our first series, “The Journey o…

In this special hour-long episode and season finale of Connecting the Docs: Unprocessed, State Archivist Sarah Koonts and Becky McGee-Lankford, assistant state records administrator, introduce us to America250, the nationwide commemoration to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding. North Carolina’s programming will highlight hist…

In this episode of Connecting the Docs: Unprocessed, two former editors of , Bob Cain and Joe Beatty, join host John Horan to discuss the foreign collections within the State Archives of North Carolina. They discuss the decision to travel to the United Kingdom and collect these documents, an effort that went through fits and starts throughout the 2…

In this episode of Connecting the Docs: Unprocessed, host John Horan and oral history interns Michelle Witt and Madison Riley discuss the history of two dams and the lakes they created. The story of Fontana Dam and Lake as a tourist destination in western North Carolina is well documented, but this episode goes underneath the surface and uncovers t…

This episode tells the story of three North Carolinian communities and their intersection with highways and the urban renewal projects of the mid-20th century. The first story we explore is the experience of Durham’s Hayti neighborhood and the dismantling of a self-sustaining Black community. The next act of neighborhood destruction comes to us as …

In this episode, audiovisual materials archivists Vann Evans and Ian Dunn introduce Raleigh photographer Albert Barden (1888–1953). For almost seventy years, curators and archivists have worked to preserve, catalog, and give meaning to his vast collection of photographs, which offer a snapshot of everyday and extraordinary life in North Carolina fr…

Let’s bake history! In this episode, we feature historical recipes from family culinary manuscripts dating to the mid-19th century. Join us as we try cream cakes, blackberry cordial, pickle lily, and tomato catsup. We share our experiences testing these recipes, explore the history behind them, and discuss how culinary manuscripts can offer insight…

This episode tells the story of Bynum, a former North Carolina mill town reinvented as a lively and welcoming artists’ colony. Residents Martha Collins, Ron Hatley, and Ted Williams tell stories about growing up in Bynum when the mill was still in operation. They discuss the conditions for millworkers and today’s environmental activism. They share …

This second episode of the season tells the story of the tobacco industry in Fuquay-Varina, a now booming suburb south of Raleigh. This story is told through the lenses of Morgan Johnson, a former intern at the State Archives and Fuquay native, and Fred Wagstaff, a 94-year-old from Fuquay who worked in the local tobacco fields and markets his whole…

In this second part of episode one, we’ll move to the early 1970s and find a ghost haunting the halls of the Governor’s Mansion. Who reported this ghost to the public? It was none other than the sitting governor himself, Governor Bob Scott. Learn more about the supposed ghost of Governor Fowle, his haunted bed, and the responses from concerned peop…

For the first episode of this season, we tell three of the spookiest stories from the collections held in the State Archives of North Carolina. We’ll first explore the earliest years of colonial North Carolina and find trials for witchcraft in old Albemarle County. You may expect to hear about wrongful convictions and superstition, but instead you’…

In episode 3, “Jim Wilcox Guilty or Not?” our archivists ponder the aftermath of the trials and the enduring mysteries surrounding the famous case. Epilogue at the 25:00 mark: On Nov. 20, 2019, 118 years since Nell's disappearance, archivists Debbi Blake and Chris Meekins visited the Cropsey home in Elizabeth City, NC to see the related artifacts a…

In episode 2, “Charges and Trials”, archivists Debbi Blake and Chris Meekins outline the indictment and testimony in the trials of James Wilcox for the murder of Nell Cropsey. The first trial took place in March 1902 in Elizabeth City and the second in March 1903 in Hertford in Perquimans County. Both verdicts were appealed to the Supreme Court. Se…

The story of young Nell Cropsey is one that has been repeated throughout time. A relationship ends and a woman disappears shortly thereafter. Records maintained by the State Archives illustrate the tragedy as it unfolded in turn-of-the-20th-century Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In episode 1, “Disappearance and Recovery”, our archivists set the st…

In this episode, archivists Debbie Blake, Ellen Brooks, Randon McCrea, and Chris Meekins delve into animal mayhem in the Old North State. Using government journals, maps, newspaper articles and more they explore the stories of animals wreaking havoc in the General Assembly, the streets of Charlotte, and on a porch near the Pee Dee River. Special gu…

This episode continues the story of the Carroll A. Deering. Our archivists, Donna Kelly, Stuart Parks, and Chris Meekins explore how newspapers reported the event; how maps helped show the route taken by the ship; what was found onboard the ship; its eventual destruction once it could not be salvaged or refloated; an official worldwide investigatio…

This episode is about a ship, the Carroll A. Deering, whose crew mysteriously disappeared without a trace off the Outer Banks of North Carolina in late January of 1921. Our archivists, Donna Kelly, Stuart Parks, and Chris Meekins, give background on the ship and her crew; elaborate on the treacherous nature of the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”; and g…

“Frankie Silver: A Woman Hanged” is the story of a gruesome death, prisoner disguise and escape, and the eventual hanging of a young woman found guilty of murdering her husband in 1831. Episode 3, the final in the Frankie Silver series, host Andrea Gabriel talks with archivists Chris Meekins and Debbie Blake about Frankie Silver's escape; pleas for…

“Frankie Silver: A Woman Hanged” is the story of a gruesome death, prisoner disguise and escape, and the eventual hanging of a young woman found guilty of murdering her husband in 1831. Episode 2, host Andrea Gabriel talks with archivists Chris Meekins and Debbie Blake for a recount of Frankie Silver’s trial and appeal. See the documents mentioned …

“Frankie Silver: A Woman Hanged” is the story of a gruesome death, prisoner disguise and escape, and the eventual hanging of a young woman found guilty of murdering her husband in 1831. Episode 1, host Andrea Gabriel talks with archivists Chris Meekins and Debbie Blake as they introduce the characters, time and place, and circumstances of the crime…