This edition of the Center's blog focuses on the North Carolina state publication entitled Fostering Perspectives. As the title suggests, it offers a variety of articles related to the perspectives of those who work within the state's foster care system. This publication is published twice per year, generally in spring and fall.  Its publication is sponsored by the NC Department of Health and Human Services and the Family and Children’s Resource Program.  Here at the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives & History, we receive it in print and electronic form.  The following paragraphs summarize information from the May 2025 edition, specifically from Dr. Sarah Norris, Ed.D, MBA, M.Ed. Chief Program Officer with Crossnore Communities for Children, based out of Winston-Salem and Crossnore, NC, about the current state of foster care in North Carolina and the Bridging Families Program which is a "family-focused and team-based model of care designed to directly address the obstacles to family reunification."

In Dr. Norris’ article, “Bridging Families©, The Way Home-One Step Toward Child Welfare Transformation,” she begins by stating that “the child welfare system is in deep crisis.” Essentially, the system as it is currently set up was never meant to face the overwhelming challenges that are presented today, regarding the foster care system.  The Bridging Families© program came to light in 2021 after much thought and reflection, being “grounded in research and practical application…” Quite rapidly, funders began donating money to the program that expanded across three of Crossnore’s primary locations in the western part of North Carolina.  The model was formally adopted by the NC DHHS as “the state’s only endorsed professional foster parenting model with the support of a 2-year, $1.8 million state contract, alongside an additional $3.75 million investment from the Leon Levine Foundation.”

The Bridging Families© approach “positions (foster parents) as full-time, professional partners working alongside the birth families and their children throughout the process.” Since the goal for children in foster care is reunification with their birth parent(s), the program seeks to support families by removing “common structural barriers like fragmented services, inconsistent and limited visitation, and adversarial co-parenting dynamics by embedding professional parenting within a therapeutic, team-driven framework.” Bridge Family parents are fully compensated and act as “an extension of the case-planning team,” along with DSS social workers.  Additionally, “over the next several years, the Bridging Families© model will expand across North Carolina through the work of the Bridging Families© Institute, which provides training, coaching, consultation, and readiness support to child placement agencies committed to implementing the model with fidelity.”

Additionally, the Fostering Perspectives publication typically includes a section entitled "Writing Contest" where questions are asked by the editors and children in foster care are free to write in with their responses. For this edition the question asked the children how they were able to speak up and advocate for themselves at a time when they needed to. One child, aged 9, spoke about how when he gets mad, his “foster mother Christina will always help me by telling me to get to the ‘calm down’ corner or take deep breaths. After I calm down sometimes, we play a board game or do fun things…. whenever I am sad, my foster mother will always ask me what’s wrong and I will tell her what happened so she can understand and help me out.” There are several more responses included in this edition, from various children currently in foster care, at different ages with differing stories to tell.

Overall, Fostering Perspectives is an important publication that the state of North Carolina provides to citizens, specifically those who are interested in or currently navigating the intricacies and challenges of foster care.  The Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives & History currently has editions of this publication in print dating back to 2012. It is also available online from our library catalog: Fostering Perspectives. If you are interested in reading through these editions in person, please feel free to visit the Center’s Reading Room during open hours, Monday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

This post continues from an earlier post, that centered on The North Carolina Manual. We’ll now look at the 1913 edition of The Manual specifically. This edition was published by the North Carolina Historical Commission, made up of members such as J. Bryan Grimes, chairman from Raleigh, and D.H. Hill, also from Raleigh. Hill, you may recall, has a library named after him at North Carolina State University. The 1913 edition offers readers some interesting pieces of information from that time, and we will be highlighting this in today’s post. For instance, in 1913, Governor Locke Craig earned a whopping $5,000 for his annual salary; the then-Attorney General earned $3,000. There were 41 official Standing Committees in the state Senate during this time, notably Committees on "Insane Asylums, Institutions for the Blind, Institutions for the Deaf, and on Shellfish." The House had a similar Standing Committee for “Shellfish" and a committee on "Oyster Interests." 

There is brief mention of "Pensions for Confederate Veterans" and for those Confederate veterans who were "totally blind and disabled," the law allowed $120 per year, per veteran, which totaled $13,280.00 in the year 1907. For years 1911-1912, the number of teachers in the state totaled 11,914 and the average monthly salary of all teachers was only $35.80.  Additionally, the veterinary division of the Department of Agriculture was responsible for developing an anticholera serum" and, according to the 1913 edition, "ninety-five percent of the hogs vaccinated escaped cholera….and it is expected that the scourge of cholera will be much abated." One other item of note from the 1913 edition mentions a "Hall of History" that was created in 1903 as part of the NC State Museum. It housed "a collection of objects illustrating every period of the life of North Carolina, as Province, Colony, and State…particularly rich in objects of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods and that of the Civil War…already exceeding $1,500 in value." Regarding these materials, The NC Historical Commission stated that they "are thoroughly protected against injury by moths or other insects and are set before the public in the most attractive way."

Additionally, in 1913 the NC State Library held "no works of fiction, unless they be by North Carolina authors, or portray North Carolina life…" There were 32,246 total volumes in the library in addition to 5,852 "Government Books." Instruction as we know "library instruction" today, was in its nascent stages. The Chairman of the Library Commission for the state would "give a course in library methods as a regular department of the Summer School of the State University." It was a course taught for those who were librarians in public school libraries. 

The 1913 Manual also discusses a few different schools and colleges from 1913. The North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College, now known as UNC Greensboro, was originally established in 1891 and its main purpose was "to give young women such education as shall fit them for teaching; to give instruction to young women in drawing, telegraphy, typewriting, stenography, and such other industrial arts as may be suitable to their sex and conducive to their support and usefulness." It should be noted that this institution was only open to enrolling "the white women of North Carolina." None other than Andrew Carnegie himself donated the money to build the library at this institution. Appalachian State University and East Carolina University, previously known as Watauga Academy or Appalachian Training School, and East Carolina Teachers Training School respectively, were also mentioned in the 1913 edition of the NC Manual, listing number of enrolled students, leaders of the schools, and how many acres the schools possessed in the early 1900s, among other information. Finally, the State School for the Blind and the Deaf was established in 1845, and by 1913, had "a very neat and convenient library that was constructed, entirely fireproof, at a cost of $5,000…" per the Manual. There were two schools for the deaf and blind; one for white children and one for "the negro deaf and blind children of the state…which has grown to be the largest and best equipped school for the negro deaf and blind in the South." 

Many more details about these and other schools are listed than can be described here, but we invite you to contact us at UNCW Library to learn more.

In October, the Center for Southeast NC Archives and History is excited to host an open house! Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 30, from 4-5:30pm and come join us!

In the Center’s Reading Room (Discovery Hall 2095), we will have items on display related to our collecting areas: government information, manuscript collections, rare and special publications, and University records. Our team will be on hand to chat about the Center’s collections and services – we are available for use by faculty, staff, students, community members, and all kinds of information-seekers looking for information about the history of Southeast North Carolina!

We will also be celebrating the library’s 60th year of being part of the Federal Depository Library Program, which helps the public access federal government information. 

Folks from all around may find this open house helpful: students, faculty, staff, community members of all kinds. Our collections document the University and its history and Southeastern North Carolina encompassing New Hanover County and the surrounding region including Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, Pender, Onslow, and Sampson counties. 

Off-campus visitors may find this information about visitor parking on campus useful. Please email csencah@uncw.edu with any questions. 

Light refreshments will be served. Please stop by, for 5 minutes or 50 – and bring your research questions! 

The history of North Carolina is interesting, varied, and far-reaching, insomuch as it dates to our initial ties with England, well before Independence was declared. As a native of “the Old North State,” I have come to appreciate that history. If any North Carolinian ever faced the need or desire to learn about the history of this great state, then The North Carolina Manual would be one of the best resources to use. Fortunately, here at the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History, we have almost every edition of The North Carolina Manual in print, ranging from the years 1913-2008.

According to J.D. Lewis, from his site The North Carolina Manual, The Manual was first printed in 1874 as a result of post-Civil War Reconstruction “and the resulting total rework of the North Carolina State Constitution in 1868.”  During that time, many North Carolinians were elected to public office for the first time and had no real concept of how state government operated. These newly elected officials needed a resource to consult that would provide “essential information about all branches of government, of which they were now a part.” The provenance and subsequent publication of The Manual is interesting, and merits a brief retelling of its own, before highlighting the contents and specific editions of The Manual in future blog posts.

As stated earlier, The Manual was first published in 1874, but the appropriations that were needed to continue printing it were not reauthorized. Not until 1903 was its second iteration published. At that time, it was authorized to be printed on a biennial, or every other year, basis. Again, according to Lewis, the manual was to contain the Constitutions of the United States and North Carolina, and “the names of all the Governors and other executive officers of the State, Judges of the Supreme and Superior Courts, members and officers of the two Houses of the General Assembly, with such other chronological and statistical information as may be deemed useful.”

There were to be 1,000 copies printed of The Manual and each Senator and Representative were to receive four each. One copy would also go to each officer of both houses of the General Assembly. A copy would be given to each State officer, including Judges of the Supreme Court and Superior Courts, one to the Governor of each state, and the NC State Library would receive ten copies. Any remaining copies would “be equally distributed in the several counties of the State to such parties as the said Secretary may elect.” It was also resolved “that in no edition of said ‘Manual’ after the first shall any name be reprinted except the names of those actually in office.”

In 1913, with the printing of that edition of The Manual, the General Assembly appropriated funds allowing for a thorough researching of the history of North Carolina’s government “since the early colonial era.”  There was, however, one stipulation included with the appropriations needed for that research: that in subsequent printings, most of that history would not be reprinted. As Lewis shares, the early twentieth century saw many changes within North Carolina’s government, namely, the creation of new agencies, boards, and commissions to help support a rapidly growing population. As we will see in future posts about it on this blog, The Manual became a vital resource for those serving in public roles, at both state and local levels.