Summer has arrived to campus, no matter what the seasonal calendar says! It has been, as it always is, a busy year of processing manuscript collections, staffing our Reading Room, teaching with primary sources and rare books, creating catalog records, growing the Center’s digital collections, navigating technology upgrades, and countless other tasks.

The Center aims to connect the people and communities and Southeast North Carolina to the sources of their history and culture by collecting materials, providing access to those materials, sharing collections with the campus and broader region, encouraging and engaging scholarship on the region, and supporting and partnering with regional cultural heritage groups. You can see some of this history and culture, as well as the work we do to make it accessible, in blog posts completed by the Center across the year, discussing a variety of topics including:  

• Government Information librarian Elisabeth Garner wrote a series of posts about the North Carolina Manual’s history and content, starting here.
• University Archivist Adina Riggins wrote about records management at the University: how employees can tackle their records and the assistance that the University Archivist can provide. Also, if you’re reading this in May, check out June’s State Archives workshop specifically for higher education records management.
• Center specialist Isabella Walker used those University records to write about vocational education and the unexpected history of football on campus.
• Special Collections Specialist Nicole Yatsonsky complied clips from WHQR’s Sounds Local episodes that highlighted interviews with Black artists in honor of February’s Black History Month.
• Special Collections Librarian Rebecca Baugnon highlighted the materials available in Special Collections overall, and graduating student worker Sarah Creel shared holiday cards preserved in scrapbooks from the Reverend Edwin E. Kirton Family Private Papers collection.
• Public Services Archivist Samantha Crisp highlighted all kinds of materials, including two posts of fashion images in honor of Fashion Week on campus and (underrated?) film Muppets from Space, shot in town.

While the blog goes on hiatus for the summer, we will be continuing our work behind the scenes, providing access to collections through the Reading Room - by appointment - and preparing for August. I know it doesn’t seem like it but any academic librarian knows, the first day of classes is right around the corner! 

Flashback to a hundred years ago—it's the summer of 1926 and you’re riding the trolley from downtown Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach. The car rattles along the tracks, the air thick and humid, a warm breeze reaching you every now and again. As you cross Bradley Creek, the sun sets in the west behind you. You can hardly tell, though, as a second sun seems to rise from the ocean in the darkening distance.

But that’s no sun—that's Lumina [pictured¹].

When Lumina opened near the end of the Wrightsville Beach electric trolley line in 1905, over a thousand incandescent bulbs lit up the new entertainment pavilion. Built by Hugh MacRae, owner of the local electric utility, he hoped its brightness would encourage more people to use electricity. It did allow ships to navigate by it and was soon nicknamed "The Palace of Light."

Lumina had three levels of recreational activities for white leisure-seekers, like bowling at the ground floor lanes, dancing in the second-floor ballroom [pictured²], or taking in the sweeping ocean views from the top-level promenade. From there, you could also watch movies on the large, over-water screen [pictured³] or look down upon the dance floor below. The pavilion also featured restaurants, dressing rooms, and a dress code for the ballroom that staff enforced diligently.

After 1940, the pavilion faced several difficulties, like the closure of the trolley, increased automobile access to the beach, and newer entertainment options. It was damaged by Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and continued to decline through the 1960s, until it was finally condemned in 1972 and later demolished in 1973. The pavilion was located near what is now the Sandpeddler Inn & Suites on S. Lumina Avenue.

Though gone for over 50 years, Lumina continues to be a fond memory for those who once visited "The Palace of Light." A North Carolina historical marker (D-97) for Lumina, dedicated in 1992, can be found on Waynick Boulevard between Nathan Street and Iula Street.

For more information on Lumina and Wrightsville Beach history, visit the CSENCAH reading room to view these published works:

• Wrightsville Beach: A Pictorial History by Greg Watkins, 1997
• Cape Fear Lost by Susan Taylor Block, 1999
• Hometown Memories--Wilmington Tales: A Treasury of 20th Century Memories by Bob Lasley and Sallie Holt, 2002
• Lumina: Illuminating the Forgotten Past by the UNCW Department of Sociology, 2003

Image Sources:

Teaser: "Lumina" Wrightsville Beach, N.C., James Evans Postcard Collection

1. Lumina by Moonlight, Wrightsville Beach, Wilmington, N.C., James Evans Postcard Collection
2. Interior of Lumina Dancing Pavilion at Night, Wrightsville Beach Near Wilmington, N.C., James Evans Postcard Collection
3. Movies "Over the Waves" at Lumina, Wrightsville Beach, N.C., James Evans Postcard Collection

You can view these images and more in the digital collection of the James Evans Postcard Collection.

The City of Wilmington’s roots in the film industry reach back to at least 1983, when producer Frank Capra, Jr., selected several local spots as filming locations for his project, Firestarter. The Center’s collections offer a treasure trove of information on the film industry in North Carolina, featuring documents such as scripts, casting headshots, posters and publicity material, original artwork, and production files for both feature films and television shows.

One of the Center’s most extensive collections related to the film industry is MS 175 Fincannon and Associates Script Collection. Fincannon and Associates, a casting agency based in Wilmington, was founded in 1979 by Craig Fincannon, later assisted by his brother, Mark. The company has been involved with numerous major motion pictures and television shows over its 40-plus years of operation, collaborating with major industry leaders such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Dino DeLaurentiis.  

One such project was 1999’s Muppets from Space, filmed locally at Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, located out near the airport. Shooting began in the fall of 1998. It was the second Jim Henson production to be shot in Wilmington, after Elmo in Grouchland, which wrapped earlier that summer. Muppets from Space centers on the character Gonzo, who discovers his extraterrestrial origins after years of referring to himself as “a whatever.” In addition to Screen Gems Studios, other filming locations included the Dixie Cement Company and Fort Fisher; the house shared by the Muppets in the film was located on North Seventh Street. Stars such as Jeffrey Tambor, Andie MacDowell, and Ray Liotta traveled to Wilmington to shoot scenes alongside local cast members and extras. The film must have been a fun challenge for Fincannon and Associates to cast, due to the large number of cameo appearances made by major celebrities (for which the Muppets franchise is well known).

Below are some samples of documents from the production, all reproduced from the Fincannon and Associates Script Collection. If you’d like to learn more about this region’s connection to the film industry, check out the Center’s subject guide, Hollywood East: Film in Southeast North Carolina. Or you can visit our reading room to view these original documents in person. 

As anyone who has spent time in the secluded, closed stacks of a university archive will know, boxes upon boxes of sometimes-unorganized, sometimes-processed collections are interspersed within the shelves of special and rare books. Since September, I have been assisting with reprocessing the Herman Blizzard Rotary Archive, the archive of the Wilmington Rotary Club, which was established in Wilmington in 1915 as the first Rotary club in the area.

Prior to last semester, I knew vaguely of Rotary clubs, in that I knew they existed, but that was where my knowledge of the subject ended. Thanks to my work on the collection these last several months, I can now say that I am well-versed in their organizational functions and humanitarian causes.

My role with Special Collections has focused primarily on identifying what's contained in certain segments of the collection, and then organizing that information in a way that will make it accessible to someone who is not as familiar with it as I now am. Basically, that means I have spent an extraordinary amount of time working in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets the last six months, as you can see here:

There’s a lot of variety in the contents of the collection; most of it being various types of paper goods, but also a lot of artifacts. Particularly, there are numerous trading banners from Rotary clubs all over the world. I think this is one of my favorite parts of the collection, and of Rotary as a whole. As someone who studies and works with material culture, I love the tangible nature of giving a banner to a guest. Two people might not speak the same language, but Rotary connects them and allows them to experience the other’s culture, carrying a little piece of it home.

While here, I've also worked with the club's minutes, newsletters, handbooks, rosters, photographs, and material related to District 7730 and Rotary International. Because the collection is so broad, I’ve stumbled across many memorable items. Personal favorites have included a file folder containing three different books about the Uruguayan beef industry, a trading banner declaring Fremont, Michigan, to be “the baby food capital of the world” (pictured below), and many humorous, occasionally gossipy letters between members.

After all of this time spent with the collection, I now feel invested in the continued success of the Wilmington Rotary Club. However, as one might expect from the kind of person who happily spends hours out of their week typing notes into Excel, I’m not much of a socializer. My current plan is to get my dad to join and then report back. Wish me luck!

To learn more about the Wilmington Rotary Club, be sure to check out the Herman Blizzard Rotary Archive finding aid, or view digitized collection material in the Herman Blizzard Rotary Archive digital collection.

This post was contributed by Hannah Gaydeski, a student worker in the Center's Public Services unit.

The Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History holds a mysterious manuscript item entitled “Diary (author unknown)” written from 1859 to 1864. I first consulted this diary during the Fall 2025 semester, when I researched Victorian hair jewelry for my final project for the English department’s Victorian Literature class. Given that this diary was labeled as having a significant overlap with the Civil War, I was hopeful that there might be some mention of hair jewelry or hair wreaths, which were connected to the era's mourning practices. I did come across a mention of “wreaths” on January 28, 1859. This was obviously not a focus of the diary, but it did contain some valuable insights. 

The author of the diary was a schoolteacher at the Glen Anna Seminary, and had just arrived for her first semester. The author documents her daily activities. She focuses on irregular but necessary activities, such as laundry or food preservation. My interest quickly expanded to other mentioned instances of material culture, such as wax replicas, painting, and letter-writing. As to the physical properties of the diary, it is bound in a cloth hardcover. The pages have browned and the ruling has faded. Towards the end of the diary there is a small envelope and a poem, with an accompanying dried flower wrapped between the slit envelope. At the very back there is a blotting paper. Some pages at the end of the diary have been cut out, but the final known entry is contained in its entirety on the last page. 

I was curious about the author’s identity and conducted a quick internet search for the school, as the author had not signed her name to the  book. This turned up two digitized Glen Anna Seminary catalogs, one of which dates from 1858-1859, which overlaps with the diary’s creation. The school, a girl’s seminary, was described as “not sectarian. There are nine branches of the christian [sic] church represented, and we have teachers of different denominations." I expanded my research to include instances of the author’s interpersonal relationships at this point, hoping to uncover her identity. The documentation of her friendships and the information in the catalog led me to believe that the author was one “Miss Maggie Clewell.” The diary author could not be P.L. Lathrop, Jennie Jenks, S.T. Ray, nor S.A. Burch, as the author had written about all of these women. This left the two assistant pupils, or Maggie Clewell, the “Teacher of Mathematics and English Branches” as potential authors. Clewell seemed the most likely choice as she had made mention of teaching algebra before. Furthermore, a second search turned up a related collection in our archives! The Clewell Family Collection (MS 365) contains manuscripts relating to Margaret (Maggie) Clewell Jenkins and her brother, Francis Christian Clewell. The diary’s author had mentioned writing to “Frank,” a common nickname for Francis. 

After cross-referencing with the Clewell Family collection, I determined that the diary was definitely connected to this collection. This collection contains a family history entitled Endurin’ The War and a series of letters from Francis (Frank) Christian Clewell written to his family during his service in the Civil War and up until his death in 1867. Frank’s letters are not originals, unlike the diary, but were instead transcribed on a typewriter some time afterwards. Whoever transcribed the letters included notes describing family relations, errors in the accounts, and even physical descriptions of the paper that the letters were written on! This editor confirmed that Maggie taught at the Glen Anna Seminary and was Frank’s sister. The editor also mentioned that she married a Robert Alexander Jenkins, Jr. From this, I was able to successfully cross-reference events between the letters and the diary. It would appear that the diary and letters were separated from each other at some point after being donated to UNCW Library and were never reunited, since connecting the diary to the family collection would require a familiarity with the family. Both collections state the “method and date of acquisition unknown,” but the digitization of other records has happily provided enough evidence to connect the collections back to each other. 

[Update: Thanks to Hannah's research, Special Collections staff were able to reunite this orphaned diary with its parent collection in April 2026. It can now be found as part of MS 365 Clewell Family Collection (finding aid linked below)]

Sources

• MS 365 Clewell Family Collection
• Catalogue of the officers and students of Glen Anna Seminary, at Thomasville, North Carolina 1858/1859

Further Reading

• The Church and Private Schools of North Carolina: A Historical Study, by Charles Lee Raper (1898)
• Transcripts of Clewell family letters posted to the blog Spared and Shared 7
• "Women's Colleges in North Carolina, a Postal History," by Tony L. Crumbley, from the North Carolina Postal Historian vol. 36, no. 3 (Summer 2017)

If you're looking for inspiration for UNCW Fashion Week, check out these images of historical resources from the Center's Special Collections. This post highlights our manuscript and archival collections. Part 1 of this series features inspiration images from the Center's book and periodical collections. 

Want to see any of these resources in person? You can find them in the CSENCAH reading room on the 2nd floor of the library. Contact us for more info!

Original costume designs from MS 181 Hannah Solomon Block Collection

Foundational costume corset worn by actress Linda Darnell in The Walls of Jericho, 1948

WWAY news clips related to the fashion industry in the 1980s

Wilmington Downtown Riverfront Modeling of Gowns from Fashion Designer Tim Cobb, 1983 (more info)

Southeast North Carolina Clothing Retailer Discusses Fall Fashions, 1985 (more info)

Fashion icons from the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society Photograph Collection, presented courtesy of the LCFHS

If you're looking for inspiration for UNCW Fashion Week, check out some of these historical resources from the Center's Special Collections. This post highlights images from our book and periodical collections. Part 2 of this series features resources from the Center's manuscript and archival collections. 

Want to see any of these resources in person? You can find them in the CSENCAH reading room on the 2nd floor of the library. Contact us for more info!

Engravings from Godey's Lady's Book, 1850 (more info)

Color woodblock prints depicting Japanese dignitaries from an 1823 book of Japanese court costumes (more info)

Costume designs from Butterick's Masquerade and Carnival: Their Customs and Costumes, 1892 (more info)

Color engravings from Petit Courrier des Dames, Journal des Modes, Paris, 1839 (more info)

For decades, Southeast North Carolina has had a diverse and culturally rich community of artists that call the region home—or ones that just stopped by to say hello! From 1984-1998, WHQR Public Radio’s program Sounds Local featured interviews with musicians, painters, actors, and more, highlighting local exhibits, area performances, and new creations. 

In honor of Black History Month this month, Special Collections has chosen a selection of Sounds Local episodes that include segments with Black artists talking about their work and lived experiences. The audio of each episode can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlinked date. 

January 17, 1986 – Minnie Evans (1892-1987)

Interview with artist Minnie Evans, North Carolina Museum of Art Curator Mitchell Kahan, and former St. John's Museum of Art Director Alan Aiches regarding Evans, her work, and an exhibit on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art. 

October 13, 1989 – Nnenna Freelon (1954- )

WHQR's Saturday morning jazz host, Maggie Pate, interviews vocalist Nnenna Freelon about her background and career as a singer, during her year-long residency at Brunswick Community College. 

October 11, 1991 – Jawole Zollar (1950- )

Interview with artistic director Jawole Zollar about the performance by Urban Bush Women dance troupe of Praise House, a tribute based on the life of Minnie Evans as part of "In Praise of Minnie Evans: A Community Celebration" held in Wilmington. 

October 18, 1991 – Jimmy Heath (1926-2020)

Interview with jazz saxophonist Jimmy Heath about his career as a musician and composer ahead of the celebration of his 65th birthday with the Heath Brothers Quartet in Thalian Hall. 

August 03, 1996 – Cynthia Tyson (1954-2004)

Interview with writer Cynthia Tyson on her jazz musical, Bessie, Billie and Me, directed by Tyhm Kennedy and sponsored by the Wilmington Jazz Collective, on stage at Kenan Auditorium at UNC Wilmington.

October 17, 1998 – Doug (1936-2006) and Frankie (1937-2024) Quimby

Interview with Doug and Frankie Quimby, The Sea Island Singers, ahead of their Gullah performance at UNC Wilmington's Kenan Auditorium for a Tapestry Theatre Company benefit.

Additional episodes featuring Black artists can be found by browsing the WHQR Public Radio Archive finding aid and listened to online via the WHQR Public Radio Archive Digital Collection. 

To learn more about artist collections held by Special Collections, browse the following subject guides: 

• The Arts in Southeast North Carolina
• Hollywood East: Film in Southeast North Carolina
• Southeast North Carolina Writers

In 1999, Dr. H. William Gillen donated a collection of over 1,500 texts on the history of medicine to Randall Library’s Special Collections department, which is now part of the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History. Dr. Gillen was especially interested in neurology, and as a result of this interest, there are a surprising number of books in our collections focusing on sexually transmitted diseases and their effects on the brain. One of the more fascinating titles from this part of the collection is Corky the Killer: A Story of Syphilis, written and illustrated by Dr. Harry A. Wilmer and published by the American Social Hygiene Association in 1945.

At the time this book was published, World War II had resulted in a surge in sexually transmitted diseases among American servicemembers. Psychiatrist Harry A. Wilmer, a gifted artist and humorist and a pioneer in the advent of group therapy, had recently experienced some success with his illustrated book Huber the Tuber, which aimed to explain the disease of tuberculosis in plain language that anyone could understand. Believing that he could build on this success to help meet the critical public health crisis of venereal disease, Dr. Wilmer partnered with an organization known as the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA), a national nonprofit that aimed to, among other things, “advocate the highest standards of private and public morality; to organize the defense of the community by every available means against the disease of vice; and to conduct on request inquiries into prostitution and venereal disease.”

Corky the Killer is presented one passage at a time, with each passage accompanied by a relevant illustration by Dr. Wilmer and a paragraph of medical commentary by Wilmer and/or the ASHA. The villain of the story is Corky, an anthropomorphized syphilis spirochete, who accompanies an army of his brethren on a mass invasion attempt in “Man-World,” with towns and villages representing the various parts of the human body that syphilis is known to attack.  The leader of the spirochete army is General Paresis, a commander known for delusions of grandeur.  

The “good guys” consist of the Foreign Body Investigators (FBI), aka the “G-Men,” as well as the Bloodhounds, a tactical police force dispatched to eradicate the invaders. Corky is ultimately captured by the bloodhounds, and the book ends with Corky’s execution in the “Soap and Water Chamber of Torture.”

Corky the Killer is a unique piece of World War II propaganda, particularly because of its heavy reliance on patriotic rhetoric. This isn’t surprising, given the fact that the U.S. government was engaged in a targeted public health campaign to combat venereal disease during the war. Posters like the one below portrayed spreading venereal disease as being tantamount to sabotage and treason.  

In keeping with this spirit, Dr. Wilmer and the ASHA take care to draw a direct connection between preventing the spread of syphilis and winning the war. Sometimes this is done through symbolism. For instance, this quote on page 8 regarding effective treatment for syphilis: “It is just as useless to treat the sore as it is to barricade a bomb-pitted road after the invading army has passed over it.”  Other passages draw a more explicit connection between STD prevention and the war effort, such as this snippet from page 18 of the book:

The book helps improve sexual hygiene, but its misogynistic rhetoric is overt – and worthy of study. The ASHA and the U.S. government certainly were not shy about targeting sexually active women in their STD prevention propaganda - a quick internet search will reveal dozens of examples of WWII-era posters and leaflets that objectified women and blamed them for both the spread of disease and hampering the war effort. It’s important to note that even though there are no female characters, and especially no sex workers, depicted in Corky the Killer, the ASHA has clearly chosen to use the book’s medical commentary as a platform to promote their anti-prostitution agenda. See, for instance, this quote from the last page of the book:

The Center’s public services unit assists students and faculty in a wide variety of disciplines who are working on projects related to some aspect of local history or engaging in research with primary sources. Primary sources like Corky the Killer can be incorporated into a variety of courses, because they illustrate the interdisciplinary applications of historical research – in this example, drawing connections between public health, political science, gender and sexuality studies, communication studies, biology, and medicine. Reach out to us if you’d like to brainstorm some ways that the Center’s collections can support your research or teaching!