Black Mountain College was an experimental school located in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The college was established in 1933 by John A. Rice and others, many of whom were former students and faculty from Rollins College in Florida. The purpose of the college was to educate the whole person, with an emphasis on the role of the arts and creative thinking. Black Mountain College itself was owned by the faculty, with students playing a significant role in the decision making process. Despite the fact that Black Mountain College could rarely offer faculty more than room and board, a number of important teachers and artists were drawn to the school as part of the regular faculty or to participate in the school's Summer Institutes. In addition, the success of several of the college's students helped to further the college's reputation in the area of the arts and the avant garde. The school was also one of the first in the South to be integrated, with both African American students and teachers. The character and focus of Black Mountain College shifted over time, according to the make-up of the faculty and students. Personal and ideological conflicts were common and sometimes lead to major changes in the college community. Lack of funds added to the stress of the situation, as did the school's physical isolation and its sometimes strained relations with the local population. Eventually, the student enrollment and available funds dwindled until the college was forced to close in 1956.

The North Carolina State Archives is the primary repository of materials relating to Black Mountain College, including the official college records and over twenty other collections of varying sizes relating to the college. Many of these collections include materials published by the college but, until now, there has been no comprehensive listing of all of the Black Mountain College publications available at the North Carolina State Archives. The purpose of this project is to provide such a cross-collections list and to create a virtual collection of BMC publications to allow researchers and the general public to enjoy these unique and interesting materials. Currently this digital collection only includes materials from one Black Mountain College collection, the Black Mountain College Research Project, but we hope to add more materials from other collections soon. A finding aid for the BMC Research Project is available on our website.

One of the most popular iconographic collections at the North Carolina State Archives is the series of photos and negatives produced between 1929 and 1970 by the Conservation and Development Department, Travel and Tourism Division. Photographers working for or contracting with Travel and Tourism documented interesting events, people, cities, towns, industries, and agriculture across the state. They also captured the state's rich natural beauty and cultural heritage in their photographs of environmental features, cultural events, and festivals. Originally used in advertising campaigns to market the state as a travel destination (North Carolina was known as "Variety Vacationland") and business friendly environment, today the photographs and negatives are popular as a rich an excellent resource detailing the state's history and mainstays of agriculture and manufacturing, particularly between 1938 and 1949, the period covered by the bulk of the collection.

North Carolina Family Records Online is comprised of North Carolina family history materials from the holdings of the North Carolina State Archives and State Library of North Carolina. The online collection currently contains a selection of over 200 Bible Records (lists of birth, marriage, and death information written in North Carolina family bibles) from the 2000+ copies of various donated family Bibles held by the North Carolina State Archives. The State Library's six volume Marriage and Death Notices -- indices of marriage and death announcements appearing in five North Carolina newspapers from 1799 to 1893 -- rounds out this collection. These newspapers include the Raleigh Register, North Carolina State Gazette, Daily Sentinel, Raleigh Observer and News & Observer.

North Carolina Family Records Online has a narrow and very specific scope. The Bible Records from the North Carolina State Archives are a representative sample of their 2000+ holdings. About 230 of those records covering the longest span of time were selected for transcription and digitization -- entries typically record births, deaths, and marriages covering 150 years or more beginning in the early to mid 1700s and often continuing through to the mid 1900s. For a full explanation of the North Carolina Family Records Online project, please go to the collection's home page.

Although the collection is currently rather narrow in its scope, it is our hope that it provides a view of the lives and impact of certain early North Carolinian families that has, until now, been unavailable for research online. And, to further broaden this view, the North Carolina State Archives and State Library of North Carolina are actively seeking to digitize Bible Records that reflect the rich cultural diversity within the state. If you are interested in donating copies of your Bible Records to the North Carolina State Archives for inclusion in this project, and at least one date occurs before 1913, please contact the State Archives.