Special Collections: Searching for Primary Documents at ECU: Digital Collections

The ECU history collection documents our University as it grows and changes: from early documents of the East Carolina Teachers Training School to more recent materials that document the life, culture, academic environment and ongoing evolution of East Carolina University.

Seeds of Change: Evolution of Post-War Eastern North Carolina contains images from a collection of photographic negatives donated to Joyner Library from the Daily Reflector, a Greenville, North Carolina-based newspaper. This collection contains images taken by the Daily Reflector between 1947 and 1967 that represent trends and changes that impacted the social and economic fabric of the eastern region of North Carolina during this period of major change.

These recorded interviews feature military officers and personnel, missionaries, North Carolina leaders and politicians, teachers and tobacconists. Often, individuals who donate their personal papers also participate in the oral history program, supplementing the East Carolina Manuscript Collection and allowing researchers to access not only papers and documents, but also personal recollections and reminiscences.

Documenting the role women have played in history, the Women’s History Collection contains primary sources related to social conditions, women’s role in the workplace and cultural perceptions of gender, particularly in North Carolina.

This collection traces the history and culture of African Americans particularly in the Eastern North Carolina region. The collection highlights African American groups on campus, the civil rights movement, the African American laborers' role in the Southern economy, and the African American community. The items in this collection are drawn together from across library's holdings to form a broad cross-section of items in this topic.

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The History Collections of the William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library focuses on materials relevant to the history of health care. Collections include historical materials from medicine, nursing, the allied health sciences, dentistry, pharmacology, public health, and domestic health. Materials of worldwide interest dating from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first century are already part of this growing collection. Primary care practices in eastern North Carolina are a focus of the History Collections.

A major focus of the Library's collections has been the preservation of papers of individuals who served in the armed forces. This digital collection includes letters, diaries, photographs, and scrapbooks of enlisted men and officers who participated in the global struggles that affected our nation and the periods of peace between these conflicts.