Digital Greensboro

03/11/2026

Today's milestone: 90,000 items and counting!

02/27/2026

Daphine Doster Mastroianni standing in front of nurses' quarters, attired in white hospital uniform with nurse's cap.

Daphine Doster Mastroianni (1906-2000) of Monroe, North Carolina, served in New Zealand, Fiji, and India with the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) from 1942 to 1945. After the war, Mastroianni continued her nursing career with the United States Public Health Service, the Arkansas Health Department, and later as dean of University of Arkansas School of Nursing. Daphine Doster Mastroianni was born in Monroe, North Carolina, to a railroad worker and a nurse, and was raised in Gibson, North Carolina. After high school, she attended the North Carolina College for Women (now the UNCG), where she studied music. After graduating in 1927, Mastroianni worked as a music teacher at Cherryville High School and later Kings Mountain High School. She enrolled at John Hopkins School of Nursing and graduated in 1936. She worked as a surgical nurse for 3 years in the operating room of John Hopkins and later Berea College Hospital in Berea, Kentucky. Mastroianni also did public nursing in Richmond, Kentucky, and Bowling Green, Kentucky. Mastroianni joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1942 with a unit from Johns Hopkins Hospital, the 18th General Hospital. She went through basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then served as a surgical nurse in New Zealand and Fiji from 1942 to 1945. In 1945 she was transferred to Calcutta, India. She returned to the United States and was briefly assigned to Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Following her discharge, Mastroianni received her master's in public health from the Minnesota School of Public Health. She worked for 24 years with the United States Public Health Service providing loans and personnel to aid states. During that time she worked for two years in the Arkansas Health Department. From 1952 to 1953 she served as acting dean of the school of nursing at the University of Arkansas while developing a 4 year bachelor of science program in nursing. In 1992 she married Joe Mastroianni, whom she had originally met during World War II. Daphine Doster Mastroianni died on 3 August 2000.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/84931

02/26/2026

Sheet music for Smile away the blues from 1922.

First line of song: "Just smile away the Blues When you feel lonely Just smile away the Blues." First line of chorus: "Every body has his troubles On that we all agree"

Music part of the Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/40889

02/25/2026

Siler City High School class of 1950.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/24562?ln=en&p=february+25&v=uv #?xywh=1192%2C841%2C1252%2C964&cv=27

02/24/2026

We have a new toy. This Zeutschel scanner replaces a 14-year veteran unit in our department and will allow us to a better job with books, scrapbooks and other fragile items, and oversize materials!

02/24/2026

Photograph from the McLaurin Park dedication in 1986.

Photograph part of the N. Freeman Jones, Jr. Papers. The collection includes photograph albums, scrapbooks, and digital images relating to the career of Dr. N. Freeman Jones, Jr. (1928-2007) as an educator in Rockingham County, N.C. from the 1950s to 1990s. Jones' tenure included the years transitioning from segregation to integration. The collection includes numerous photographs of students, faculty, and events at Lincoln Consolidated School and Happy Home Elementary School in Ruffin. Photographs in the collection were digitized and identified by Carol D. Jones, daughter of Dr. Jones.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/601893

02/23/2026

Things should be looking a bit more calm at Digital Greensboro now. We're largely done cleaning up odds and ends that came up during the migration...
https://pages.digitalgreensboro.org/status/cleaning-up-post-migration/

02/23/2026

Birthday party for Milton H. Barnes, January 1973. Caption on reverse reads: "Gift coat from Deb [Deborah H. Barnes]"

Photograph part of the Deborah H. Barnes Collection. Dr. Deborah H. Barnes was born Greensboro, N.C., the daughter of Dr. Milton H. Barnes (1925-1949) and his wife Shirley McRae Barnes. She attended UNC Chapel Hill and received her undergraduate degree from Tuskegee Institute in 1978. She was awarded an M.A. in African American literature from N.C. A&T State University in 1987 and a Ph.D. in English from Howard University in 1992. Barnes was the first tenured African America faculty member at Gettysburg College, where she taught from 1992 to 2002. After Gettysburg. Dr. Barnes was a faculty member at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, N.C. A&T State University, Jackson State University in Mississippi, and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has also been a Visiting Research fellow at the International Civil Rights center and Museum in Greensboro. The collection consists of photographs of Dr. Barnes, her family, and her work, and includes numerous images of the Clinton Hills and Benbow Park neighborhoods in Greensboro. See also the Shirley McRae Barnes Collection (https://gateway.uncg.edu/islandora/object/community:CC0088) and the Deborah Barnes Papers at Gettysburg University (https://www.gettysburg.edu/special-collections/pdfs/ms/ms-112.pdf).

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/25841

02/20/2026

Esther Gilbert poses on skis while on leave at Kanko Hotel in Akakura, Japan, in February 1946. (Photo taken from Esther Gilbert Scrapbook).

Esther Gilbert of Norwich, Connecticut, served as a staff assistant with the American Red Cross in the Pacific Theater of World War II from July 1944 to March 1946. Esther Gilbert of Norwich, Connecticut, attended Norwich Free Academy and then Lasell Junior College in Aubundale, Massachusetts before finding work at New England Telephone and Telegraph. However, with the outbreak of war, she joined the Red Cross, serving as a field representative for eastern Connecticut and also as a member of the Boston, Massachusetts, chapter of the Red Cross. Gilbert was sent overseas in the summer of 1944, arriving as an American Red Cross staff assistant in Australia on 10 July 1944. She was successively stationed in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne from July 1944 to April 1945. She was then sent to the Philippines after a short stop in New Guinea, where she was stationed successively in Tacloban and Manila until November 1945. Gilbert arrived in Tokyo on 28 November 1945, and remained in Japan through March of 1946.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/85844

02/19/2026

A woman demonstrates how to use the puppets for a marionette show to two women at Dudley High School. The marionette show was sponsored by the Junior League at Greensboro Senior High School and by the student council at Dudley High School. IN COPYRIGHT. Copyright Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection. Greensboro History Museum has permission to use in exhibits and publications. Commercial use restricted.

Photograph part of the Martin's Studio Collection housed at the Greensboro History Museum.

https://www.digitalgreensboro.org/record/31634

02/19/2026

02/19/2026