NOTES FROM RAMSEY LIBRARY ; 2007-2

BLACK HISTORY MONTH AT RAMSEY LIBRARY

Take just a moment to visit a very special new web page featuring Black History Resources in D. Hiden Ramsey Library’s Special Collections. You’ll find an excellent slide show crafted by the library’s Web Services Librarian Brandy Bourne drawing on Special Collections’ images and the expertise of Curator of Special Collections Helen Wykle.

http://bullpup.lib.unca.edu/library/projects/slideshow.html

Collection: Heritage of the Black Highlanders
photographs, oral histories, and ephemera (late 1800s – 1970s)

Lucy S Herring Collection
personal correspondence, photographs and papers of educator Lucy S. Herring

Voices of Asheville Oral History Collection
abstracts and transcripts of recordings held in Special Collections

“Making Congregation out of Segregation: the African American Culture and Community in Asheville, early 20th century” research conducted by student, Jenny Wallace

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THE HIGHLAND MESSENGER

The next time you’re by Ramsey Café for a coffee and Danish, or if you just need a break, be sure to stop by the current newspaper area on the main floor of Ramsey Library. There you’ll find four pages of the Highland Messenger newspaper of 1841, vol. II, issue 15, an early Whig newspaper published in Asheville, North Carolina, representing one of the earliest newspapers to be printed in western North Carolina. Only the North Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser and the Carolina Gazette, both Rutherfordton, NC newspapers, appear to be earlier. The pages (two, front and back), in remarkably good condition, contain a prospectus of the newspaper, want ads, local information on slaves, education, women’s rights (or non-rights), medical practice, political commentary, humor, and other topics of current interest and entertainment. The early newspaper, published weekly, was priced at two dollars and fifty cents per annum in advance (or “THREE dollars if payment be delayed of the receipt of the 10th number from the time of subscribing.”) The circulation is unknown, but it is known that the city of Asheville around 1841 had a population of approximately 500 people. In 1860 the population had more than doubled to approximately 1,100. The newspaper, which began in 1840 and apparently persisted until 1848, when it ceased, would have been published during a time of rapid growth and change in the city. During its brief life the newspaper was also published as the Asheville Messenger, later to be called, simply, The Messenger, from July 22, 1842, to February 3, 1843. The last known issue of the paper was on August 17, 1848.

The newspaper was donated in a matted and framed condition which was not archival. The decision was made to remove the paper from its original housing and to place it in a better archival housing that would allow for the two sides of each of the pages to be seen. Little regarding the provenance of the newspaper is known. Andrew Fischel, nephew of Richard Richards passed the framed paper to his uncle and Richard “Dick” Richards presented the item to the university in September of 2006. Small tears and holes had been repaired with archival tape, but other than these minimal degradations and the loss of pages [?], the newspaper is in remarkable condition for its age. Fragments were removed from the original frame, enclosed in museum glass, framed so that both sides of the two pages might be viewed, and the whole frame, mounted for public viewing by the UNCA facilities staff.

http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/richards/richards_highland_messenger.htm