Category: Collection Spotlight

  • The Legend of John Henry

    John Henry: The Steel Driving Man

    Created by UNC students, this website hosted by ibiblio provides an introduction to the legend of John Henry using resources from the Southern Folklife Collection. You can listen to music inspired by the folk hero, read news about John Henry in academic scholarship, and explore extra materials for more learning if you’re interested.

    The Legend

    John Henry, a hero in Southern folklore, is known to be a formerly-enslaved man born in the mid-19th century who became a laborer for the railroads after the Civil War. As the story goes, John Henry was challenged to race against a steam drill to test his strength as a steel-driver; he heroically defeats the machine, but dies from overexertion shortly after completing the challenge. The legend originated in oral tradition around the 1870s and evolved into numerous versions as it spread across the country. You can read different versions of the legend here!

    The Man

    The real John Henry is thought to have been born in either North Carolina or Virginia and was a singer, banjo player, and dedicated laborer. During the Reconstruction era, John Henry was hired by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway to hammer holes into rocks and was known as the most powerful man to work the rails, hammering 10 to 20 feet of rails every day (head to this page on the site to learn more about the steel-driving process). He died shortly after racing against a steam drill from either exhaustion or a stroke.

    The Music

    An inspiration for laborers for many generations, John Henry is a symbol of strength and perseverance who has been embraced by countless groups as a working-class hero. You can listen to popular songs inspired by the folklore here, and make sure to read through the analysis if you want to learn more about the musicians and populations who were moved by John Henry’s story!

    More Folklore

    If you like the legend of John Henry and are looking for more folk stories, head over to the folklore tag to browse similar items in the ibiblio catalog.

  • Learning Languages

    Interested in learning about a different language, or even learning some vocabulary and basic phrases? ibiblio hosts a few websites that are designed to teach languages to English speakers. Here is a collection of online dictionaries and informational sites that will help you learn about different languages and their culture and history!

    Learn Tamil

    Tamil is a language that is primarily spoken in India and Southern Asia and has over 66 million speakers worldwide (Britannica). It is the oldest language in the Dravidian language family and its earliest form has similarities to ancient Sanskrit.

    Learn Tamil is a resource suitable for students of all ages who want to learn Tamil. The guide starts with an introduction to the Thamil Alphabet and works through verbs, cases, numbers, negatives, and other vocabulary. There is also a resource page where you can find links to games, movies, and books that will help you learn Tamil.

    Catalan Dictionary

    Catalan is a Romance language that is native to Spain and regions near the Pyrenees Mountains (Wikipedia). It uses the Latin alphabet and has about 9.5 million speakers worldwide. Most Catalan speakers are bilingual and speak both Catalan and Spanish.

    This is an open-source English-Catalan dictionary with over 20,000 entries and a conjugator tool for conjugating verbs. Users can search for words in English and view results in Catalan, or vice versa.

    Koine Greek

    Koine Greek, also known as Biblical Greek, was the main form of Greek from about 300 BCE to about 600 CE (Wikipedia). It was often used in writing and it is most widely known for its use in the Christian New Testament and the Septuagint, which is the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

    The Little Greek website provides pronunciation guides, verb tables, and grammar and vocabulary resource recommendations. There are also examples of Koine Greek being used in biblical translations so users can see what the phrases would look like in English.

    More Resources

    ibiblio hosts sites that provide information about Gaelic languages, Old English, and Japanese, and more. You also can browse the Languages and Culture tag, which features over 15 unique languages and has materials for learning about cultures from all around the world!

  • North Carolina History

    ibiblio is maintained at UNC-Chapel Hill, and being based in NC, it has a large collection of resources on North Carolina history. I’ve compiled a list of historical websites related to events or periods in North Carolina that span over two centuries and range from east to west. Read about them below to find something to explore!

    Excavating Occaneechi Town

    Created by UNC Press, this site from 2003 was updated in 2021 and details the historic Occaneechi tribe and archaeologists’ excavation of their village. There is a ton of information about the artifacts that were found and an interesting background section on the history of the Occaneechi.

    Oxford Orphanage

    The Oxford Orphanage of Oxford, NC (now the Masonic Home for Children) was the first permanent orphanage in North Carolina. It was founded in the mid-nineteenth century and sought to educate and care for poor and orphaned children. You can read about the long history of the orphanage, view photos, and read staff interviews all on the site.

    Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    The first burial at the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery was in 1798, and it is still an important part of UNC’s campus today. Produced by UNC students, this page houses photos and resources related to the cemetery, a summary of its history, and a list of historical burials.

    Broken Arrow: Goldsboro, NC

    Check out this site to learn more about the two hydrogen bombs that were accidentally dropped on Faro, NC in 1961. Luckily the bombs did not detonate, but the full story is worth a read!

    WWI Detainees in Hot Springs, NC

    This archive features photos by Adolph Thierbach, a detainee of the Mountain Park Hotel where German civilians were being held between 1917 and 1918. He documented the time he spent in Hot Springs and later created a photobook to organize all of his pictures. Many photos, along with translated captions, are available thanks to the Madison County Library of North Carolina.

    Documenting the American South

    DocSouth is an initiative sponsored by UNC Libraries with materials on Southern history and culture that are great for students, teachers, researchers, and history enthusiasts. There are collections about the Civil War, colonial settlement, the evolution of Christianity in Southern Black culture, the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and so many more topics. You can browse more specific subjects with their index as well!

    Further Reading

    To learn more about North Carolina, you can browse the North Carolina Culture tag in ibiblio’s catalog.