Tuesday, March 10, 2015

100th Anniversary - Scrapbook from 1981

MLK and United Church Pastor
Gaylord Noyce
The 100th Anniversary Scrapbook is an aging loose-leaf binder with almost 300 pages of photocopied material assembled in 1981 (probably by church historian Ann Elleman). It surfaced some years ago during an investigation into the contents of the back room of Pilgrim House. For years I delayed work on the scrapbook because of the perplexing task that organizing its content would present. It is now being made publicly available for the first time.

This scrapbook is one of the three primary historical documents in existence that record the narrative of Community UCC and the predecessor churches that led to the present church located at the corner of Dixie Trail and Wade Avenue. (The present church building served as home to an E&R Church  prior to the existence of Community UCC.)
Integrated Vacation Bible Scool at Umstead Park in mid 1950s.
United Church of Raleigh led the process of integrating the
State Parks System. Here we see black and white children
participating in an activity that would now most likely be
considered demeaning to Native Americans.
The 100th Anniversary Scrapbook includes pages that are highly varying in format. The majority of the pages are made up of newspaper clippings. Since the size of the clippings varies greatly, these images cannot be presented in a fashion where all clippings are reduced to the same size (as in most photo albums). To do so would render the large clippings unreadable, and would render small photos as being large and blurry. For that reason you'll need to read carefully the section below on how to browse the scrapbook efficiently and effectively. You can spend many hours browsing through this volume. And any time spent doing so will lead to a better understanding of the origins of CUCC and its remarkably complex history. Enjoy!

We provide a couple of different ways of viewing the CUCC 100th Anniversary Scrapbook compiled in 1981:
  • Image Folder (Google Drive): You can go directly to a Google Drive folder that includes all the scrapbook contents and provides thumbnail images for all clippings. When viewing the folder, you'll see the list view and grid view buttons at the top right of your browser window. You can toggle back and forth between "grid" view and "list" view. In "list" view you can see the title for each image. So "list" view allows you to browse by title.
  • Photo Album (Google): You can also go to a Google+ photo album of the clippings. This view displays larger thumbnails but no titles.
-- Lavon Page, March 2015