In the second half of the 19th century, the city of Asheville grew at a momentous speed. With this growth came an increasing need to build social services to support the region’s growing population. In answer to this, a small group of friends organized. All women, they were fathered by city-builders, war heroes, and successful
Buncombe County Special Collections (BCSC) at Pack Memorial Library will be closed on Tuesday, Oct. 19, and Thursday, Oct. 21, and starting in November will be making minor changes in their operating hours. Continue reading to learn more about these changes. BCSC partners with YMI Cultural Center The upcoming Oct. 19 and Oct. 21 closures
On September 29, 2021 the Buncombe County Library system celebrates the 60th anniversary of integration. The 828 Digital Archives for Historical Equity Project has been working closely with Buncombe County Special Collections to digitize documents from the Asheville-Buncombe Library Collection and research the history of segregation and integration in the libraries in order to commemorate
This summer, Buncombe County Special Collections was lucky enough to host three student interns; two who worked directly in Special Collections, Nancy and Zoe, and a third, Corrina, who worked with a local community organization, but spent most of her time in the archives. The internship was facilitated by the City of Asheville Youth Leadership
MS338 The North Carolina Room staff joined with North Asheville Branch Library to begin our first community-drive history project based through a Buncombe County Library Branch. Classes were held at Pack Library to instruct interested volunteers on how to interview. To date, 43 oral interviews have been taken and all transcriptions of the interviews can
MS362.004 Zoe Rhine, North Carolina Room librarian, began researching the faculty of Stephens-Lee High School in 2017 with the goal of gathering more information about the faculty’s educational attainments, what and how they were able to continue master’s degree programs, what schools they attended, as well as what happened to the teachers after the integration
MS362.002 Following the North Carolina Room’s Roundtable Discussion on May 18, 2017 at the Wesley Grant Center (described below), oral interviews began taking place with various residents of Asheville’s black communities. The focus is on present or past residents of Southside neighborhood, but also includes residents of other neighborhoods, such as Shiloh, Stumptown, Montford and