Chronology

Charles Baskerville announces two new elements, carolinium and berzelium

Baskerville's research at the university on thorium and other rare earths led him in 1903 to announce two previously unknown elements, which he named carolinium and berzelium.

Frank Nash publishes Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary

Nash collected his articles on the town from the Charlotte Observer and the North Carolina Booklet into a book, printed in Raleigh by Edwards & Broughton. It was reprinted in 1953.

A Phi Beta Kappa chapter is established at the university

As dean of the faculty, Eben Alexander, himself a Phi Beta Kappa member from Yale, helped establish a chapter of the honor society at the University of North Carolina in 1904.

Phillips Russell graduates from the university and helps found the Golden Fleece

Russell edited the student paper the Tar Heel and was one of the founders of the honorary society Golden Fleece before graduating in 1904.

Charles H. Herty teaches chemistry at the university

Charles H. Herty, a Georgia chemist who had already devised a new way of gathering turpentine from pine trees, came to UNC in 1905 as Smith Professor of General and Industrial Chemistry. He stayed until 1916, serving as dean of the School of Applied Science from 1908 to 1911 and on the athletics committee.

Isaac Hall Manning is dean of the UNC School of Medicine

As dean for 28 years, Manning improved the school's departments, faculty, facilities and entrance requirements.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

T. Felix Hickerson returns to Chapel Hill as an instructor in mathematics

A year after taking his Ph.B. at the university, Thomas Felix Hickerson came back to Chapel Hill in 1905 for graduate work in mathematics and engineering and taught as an instructor in mathematics. He stayed on the faculty until 1952.

William de Berniere MacNider organizes UNC's first Department of Pharmacology

MacNider, a Chapel Hill native and 1903 graduate of the medical school's first class, organized the university's first Department of Pharmacology and led it as professor.

John Sprunt Hill endows the North Carolina Collection

John Sprunt Hill gave the university library money for collecting historical and literary material about North Carolina, the start of what became the North Carolina Collection.

Subject: UNC Libraries

James Finch Royster joins the university's English department

James Finch Royster came to the university's English department in the fall of 1907 and taught there for seven years.

N. W. Walker revives the UNC summer school

Walker, professor of secondary education since 1905, revived the university's summer school in 1907 and directed it for twenty-seven years. In 1921 he became acting dean of the School of Education.

Subject: University Summer School

Frank Nash serves as mayor of Hillsborough

During Nash's four years as mayor the town laid its first concrete sidewalks, and plans for a public library began to take shape.

Andrew Henry Patterson becomes the university's professor of physics

Andrew Henry Patterson, an 1891 graduate of the university, came from the University of Georgia in 1908 to be professor of physics and held the chair for the rest of his life.

Frank Nash serves as attorney for Orange County

Nash was the county attorney for four years, while also an elder of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and chairman of the county Democratic executive committee.

Andrew Henry Patterson becomes dean of the School of Applied Science

From 1911 Patterson was also dean of the university's School of Applied Science, a post he held until his death in 1928.

Carl Durham begins work at Eubanks Drug Store in Chapel Hill

Carl Durham, born in 1892 in the White Cross community of Orange County, went to work at Eubanks Drugstore in Chapel Hill in the summer of 1913. He qualified as a pharmacy apprentice by 1916, studied pharmacy at UNC, served in the Navy Hospital Corps in 1918 and came back to Eubanks as a pharmacist.

Edward Kidder Graham serves as acting president while Venable is in Europe

Graham, head of the English department and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Chapel Hill, acted as president in 1913 during President Francis P. Venable's absence in Europe.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Edwin Greenlaw joins the UNC faculty

Greenlaw, a Renaissance scholar, came to the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1913 at the age of 39.

Edward Kidder Graham is elected president of the university

The board of trustees elected Graham president by unanimous vote in 1914, succeeding Francis P. Venable. He had been at Chapel Hill since 1899, first as librarian and then through the English department to the deanship.

People: Francis Preston Venable

James Finch Royster leaves the university for the University of Texas

Royster, who had been teaching the journalism course Edward Kidder Graham created, left Chapel Hill for the University of Texas, one of the faculty Graham could not keep during his year as acting president.

People: Edward Kidder Graham

Edwin Greenlaw heads UNC's English department

Appointed chairman of the English department in June 1914, Greenlaw built it from eight faculty members to 37 by 1925, when he left for Johns Hopkins.

Edwin Greenlaw becomes managing editor of Studies in Philology

Greenlaw took over the university's journal Studies in Philology in 1915 and reorganized it as a quarterly.

UNC gives James Sprunt an honorary doctor of laws

The university, where Sprunt served as a trustee, awarded him an honorary LL.D.

Mary Lindsay Thornton becomes librarian of the North Carolina Collection

Fresh out of library school, Mary Lindsay Thornton took charge of the university's North Carolina Collection, then about 1,500 items kept in a small upstairs corner room of the library building that later became Hill Music Hall. She led it for forty years.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Sturgis E. Leavitt teaches Spanish at the university

Leavitt came to the university in fall 1917 as assistant professor of Spanish, was named Kenan Professor in 1945, and retired in 1960.

The university buys Stephen B. Weeks's North Carolina library

After Weeks died in May 1918, the university bought his collection of about 9,000 books and pamphlets on North Carolina. The purchase roughly doubled the North Carolina Collection's book holdings and became its nucleus.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Chase takes charge of the college and then the faculty after two deaths

Chase was appointed acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts after President Edward Kidder Graham died in October 1918, and chairman of the faculty after Marvin H. Stacy died in January 1919.

People: Edward Kidder Graham · Marvin Hendrix Stacy

Edwin Greenlaw becomes dean of the Graduate School

Greenlaw became the third dean of UNC's Graduate School and led it until he left for Johns Hopkins in 1925.

Dudley D. Carroll leads UNC's School of Commerce

Carroll came to UNC as professor of economics in 1918 and became dean of the School of Commerce, which he helped plan, holding the post for thirty-one years.

Edgar Wallace Knight joins the UNC faculty

Knight, who had taught education at Trinity College, joined the University of North Carolina faculty in 1919, and Chapel Hill remained his home from then on.

Luther Hodges leads the UNC student council and his senior class

Hodges worked his way through the University of North Carolina, where he was president of the student council and of his senior class. He graduated in 1919.

Harry W. Chase is elected president of the university

The trustees elected Chase president of the University of North Carolina in June 1919. He had taught at Chapel Hill since September 1910 and had been chairman of the faculty since that January.

The university awards Francis D. Winston an honorary doctor of laws

In 1920 the University of North Carolina gave Francis D. Winston, a member of the class of 1879 and a longtime trustee, an honorary LL.D.

Carl Durham serves on the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

While working as a pharmacist, Durham sat on the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen from 1921 to 1930 and on the Chapel Hill school board from 1924 to 1938.

James Finch Royster returns as Kenan Professor of English Philology

After seven years in Texas, Royster accepted the Kenan Professorship of English Philology, which he held until his death. Covington says President Chase recruited him back from Austin.

People: Harry Woodburn Chase

Louis Graves becomes the university's first journalism professor

Louis Graves came back to Chapel Hill in 1921 as the University of North Carolina's first professor of journalism. He resigned in 1924 to give his time to his newspaper.

Edgar Wallace Knight serves on the Chapel Hill School Board

Knight was a member of the Chapel Hill School Board for thirty years.

James Finch Royster becomes dean of the College of Liberal Arts

Royster became dean of the College of Liberal Arts in 1922 and introduced the major-minor system, sectioning of students by ability, and an advisory system that later grew into the General College.

Robert Ervin Coker becomes professor of zoology at UNC

Coker, who had worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, accepted a professorship of zoology at Chapel Hill.

University trustees create the Thomas Ruffin Professorship of Law for Henry Groves Connor, who declines it

In 1922 the trustees created the Thomas Ruffin Professorship of Law for federal judge Henry Groves Connor, who turned it down, as he had turned down a law professorship at the university in 1899.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Albert Ray Newsome joins the UNC history faculty

Newsome, a 1915 UNC graduate, returned to Chapel Hill from graduate study at Michigan as an assistant professor of history and stayed until 1926.

Henry Groves Connor lectures in the university law school

Federal judge Henry Groves Connor lectured in the University of North Carolina law school in the summer of 1923. He came back to Chapel Hill for the same purpose in 1924 and fell ill there.

Subject: UNC School of Law

John Sprunt Hill chairs the trustees' buildings committee

As a university trustee, John Sprunt Hill chaired the committee on university buildings during the campus building program of 1923 to 1931.

The Chapel Hill Weekly publishes its first issue

Louis Graves published the first issue of his newspaper, the Chapel Hill Weekly, on March 2, 1923. He owned and edited it until 1954.

Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

The Order of Gimghoul completes its castle at Piney Prospect

The Order of Gimghoul completed a gothic castle at Piney Prospect, the spot where legend placed Dromgoole's fatal duel and burial.

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

Rupert B. Vance joins the UNC sociology faculty and the Institute for Research in Social Science

After taking his doctorate at UNC in 1928, Vance was appointed to the staff of Howard W. Odum's Institute for Research in Social Science and the Department of Sociology. He was named Kenan Professor in 1945.

People: Howard W. Odum

The university names Bingham Hall for Robert Bingham

In 1929 the university named Bingham Hall on its Chapel Hill campus for Robert Bingham, class of 1857, an alumnus who often spoke at campus events and helped reopen the university in 1875.

People: Robert Worth Bingham

Herman G. Baity serves as dean of UNC's School of Engineering

Baity, head of sanitary engineering since 1928, was dean of the School of Engineering from 1930 until 1936, when the sanitary engineering department moved to the School of Public Health. He chaired it there until 1955.

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Phillips Russell returns to Chapel Hill to teach creative writing

After years as a newspaperman in New York and London, Russell came back in 1931 and taught writing at the university for twenty-five years, first in the English department and then in the School of Journalism. The Atlantic Monthly called his class, often held outdoors under the trees, one of the four best in the country.

Elizabeth Henderson Cotten becomes assistant to J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton at the Southern Historical Collection

Six years after moving to Chapel Hill as a widow, Elizabeth Henderson Cotten began work as J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton's assistant in building the Southern Historical Collection in the university library, and became its first curator.

People: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton

Subject: UNC Libraries

Carl Durham serves on the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Durham joined the Orange County Board of Commissioners in 1933 or 1934, probably in the seat R. A. Eubanks gave up in April 1933 to become Chapel Hill postmaster, and served until 1938, when he was elected to Congress. In 1935 he proposed and secured $22,000 in federal aid for a rural electrification line in the Calvander-Orange Grove area, and in 1937 he was elected a UNC trustee.

S. H. Hobbs Jr. heads UNC's Department of Rural Social Economics

Hobbs, who had taught in the department since 1916, headed it from 1933 until it merged with the Department of Sociology in 1939.

The Carolina Playmakers stage a Shaw-Henderson Festival

The Carolina Playmakers held a Shaw-Henderson Festival in Chapel Hill honoring Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw's authorized biographer. It featured Shaw's You Never Can Tell, the play whose 1903 amateur performance had first drawn Henderson to Shaw.

Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 46 events

Subject: Carolina Playmakers

Albert Ray Newsome heads the UNC history department

When R. D. W. Connor left to become the first Archivist of the United States, Newsome returned to Chapel Hill to head the history department and teach American history. He ran the department until poor health made him give up administrative duties in 1950.

People: R. D. W. Connor

Carl Snavely becomes head football coach at UNC

Snavely came to Chapel Hill from Bucknell University in 1934. His first UNC team won seven games, lost one and tied one, and included George Barclay, the university's first football All-American.

Edgar Wallace Knight is named a Kenan professor

The university recognized Knight's teaching and scholarship with a Kenan professorship in 1934.

Jim Tatum is named an All-Southern tackle at UNC

Tatum enrolled at UNC with the persuasion and financial aid of his uncle William Donald Carmichael Jr. He played tackle under Chuck Collins and Carl Snavely, was named All-Southern in 1934, also caught for the baseball team, and graduated in 1935.

People: Carl Snavely · William D. Carmichael Jr.

Elizabeth Henderson Cotten supervises the WPA guide to the Southern Historical Collection

Cotten was production supervisor of the Works Progress Administration project that produced the Guide to the Manuscripts in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina, published in 1940.

Subject: UNC Libraries

R. E. Coker chairs UNC's zoology department

Coker chaired the zoology department from 1935 to 1944 and at the same time chaired the Division of Natural Sciences.

S. H. Hobbs Jr. buys an Orange County farm for agricultural experiments

The rural sociologist acquired a farm in Orange County in 1936 to use for agricultural experimentation.

T. Felix Hickerson stays in Chapel Hill when the School of Engineering is dissolved

When the university's School of Engineering was dissolved in 1936, Hickerson chose to stay in Chapel Hill in the mathematics department rather than move to Raleigh. He received a Kenan professorship in 1945 and retired in 1952.

Carl Snavely leaves UNC for Cornell after the Graham Plan dispute

Snavely did not see eye to eye with university president Frank Porter Graham, whose Graham Plan would have reduced the place of big-time football at UNC and across the Southern Conference. Snavely left Chapel Hill in April 1936 to become head coach at Cornell University.

People: Frank Porter Graham

Betty Smith edits a collection of plays with Frederick Koch and Robert Finch

Smith coedited Plays for Schools and Little Theatres with Koch and Finch in 1937 and wrote a catalog of one-act plays.

Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 46 events

People: Frederick H. Koch

Dudley D. Carroll chairs the Orange County Building and Loan Association

Carroll was a director of the Orange County Building and Loan Association from 1920 to 1950 and chaired its board from 1937. He also chaired the county draft board and the county ABC board.

William de Berniere MacNider serves as dean of the UNC School of Medicine

MacNider succeeded Charles Staples Mangum as dean of the medical school in 1937 and resigned the deanship in 1940 to return to research.

People: Charles Staples Mangum

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

Jim Tatum returns to UNC as director of freshman athletics

After following Carl Snavely to Cornell as an assistant football coach and head baseball coach, Tatum came back to Chapel Hill in 1939 as UNC's director of freshman athletics.

People: Carl Snavely

R. E. Coker is named a Kenan professor

The university gave Coker a Kenan professorship in 1939.

A memorial tablet for Robert Bingham is installed in Memorial Hall

A memorial tablet in Robert Bingham's name was installed in the university's Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill on October 12, 1939.

Subject: Memorial Hall

William D. Carmichael Jr. returns to Chapel Hill as the university's finance officer

Carmichael left a New York Stock Exchange partnership and came back in 1940 to serve the consolidated University of North Carolina as finance officer. As finance officer, comptroller and then vice-president he raised money from the legislature, foundations, corporations and individuals.

Horace Williams dies and is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Williams died at eighty-two and was buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. He left all of his property to the university in trust, the income to pay for fellowships in philosophy.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Jim Tatum coaches UNC football for a single season

Tatum was UNC's head football coach for one year in 1942. He then joined the navy and learned the split-T formation as an assistant to its founder, Don Faurot, at Iowa Pre-Flight.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, written in Chapel Hill, is published

Smith wrote the novel in a one-room house on North Street in Chapel Hill, rising about half past five and working against the chimney wall to keep warm. Harper published it on 17 August 1943 and it sold more than 150,000 copies within two weeks.

Frederick Koch dies and is buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Koch, who taught dramatic literature and playwriting at UNC for twenty-six years and organized the Carolina Playmakers, died on August 16, 1944 and was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Samuel Selden succeeded him as chair of the Department of Dramatic Art and director of the Playmakers.

People: Samuel Selden

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Carolina Playmakers

Carl Snavely returns to coach UNC football

Snavely came back to Chapel Hill in 1945 after being assured that his program would have the full support of the administration. His 1946 to 1949 teams, built around Charlie Justice and returning servicemen, won two Southern Conference championships and played in three bowl games.

People: Charlie Justice

Terry Sanford serves as assistant director of UNC's Institute of Government

After the Second World War Sanford returned to Chapel Hill, completed a law degree in 1946 and served two years as assistant director of the Institute of Government before opening a law practice in Fayetteville.

Subject: Institute of Government

James Welch Patton becomes director of the Southern Historical Collection

Patton succeeded J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton as director of the Southern Historical Collection at the UNC library and taught a North Carolina history course each year while he held the post.

People: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton

Subject: UNC Libraries

Carmichael serves as acting president of the consolidated university

Carmichael was acting president in 1949 and 1950, after Frank Porter Graham resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate.

People: Frank Porter Graham

The Southern Part of Heaven is published

William Meade Prince wrote and illustrated The Southern Part of Heaven, a book about growing up in Chapel Hill. Its title became a common nickname for the town.

Charles E. Maddry returns to First Baptist Church, Hillsborough, for his last pastorate

After his years with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Charles Edward Maddry served his final pastorate at the First Baptist Church in Hillsborough.

Carl Snavely leaves UNC after three losing seasons

Disputes over the size of the recruiting budget and Snavely's difficulty moving from the single wing to the split T weakened the program. After losing seasons in 1950, 1951 and 1952 he left UNC with a record there of 59 wins, 35 losses and 5 ties.

UNC names Cobb Dormitory for Collier Cobb

The university named its new Cobb Dormitory in honor of the geologist Collier Cobb, who had taught at UNC for forty years.

Fletcher M. Green chairs the UNC history department

Green, a Kenan Professor since 1946, chaired the University of North Carolina's Department of History from 1953 to 1960. He retired in 1968.

The university awards William Picard Jacocks an honorary doctor of laws

The University of North Carolina, where Jacocks had graduated in 1904, gave him an honorary doctor of laws degree while he was living in Chapel Hill in retirement.

Jim Tatum returns to Chapel Hill as head football coach

Tatum came back to UNC in 1956 at a substantial cut in salary and reorganized and expanded the university's Educational Foundation, the source of its athletic grants-in-aid. He had the only losing season of his career that year, 2-7-1, and followed it with 6-4 records in 1957 and 1958.

The Friends of the Library honor Elizabeth Henderson Cotten

At its 1958 meeting the Friends of the Library, which Cotten had helped organize and served as first secretary, gave her a citation for her work for the university library.

Subject: UNC Libraries

William S. Powell becomes curator of the North Carolina Collection

Powell, who had joined the university library's North Carolina Collection in 1951, was named its curator after Mary Lindsay Thornton retired.

People: Mary Lindsay Thornton

Subject: UNC Libraries

Portrait painter Clement Strudwick dies and is buried in Hillsborough

Clement Read Strudwick, who had painted in a workshop behind his parents' Hillsborough home, died on February 26, 1958. His funeral was held in the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and he was buried in the Hillsborough cemetery.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Mary Claire Engstrom and her husband buy the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough

In 1959 Mary Claire Engstrom, who had earned a UNC doctorate in English literature in 1939, and her husband, UNC French professor Alfred G. Engstrom, bought the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough. From then on she turned her research to the history of Hillsborough and its surroundings.

People: Alfred G. Engstrom

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Jim Tatum dies at Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill

Tatum apparently contracted an overwhelming viral infection while visiting Canada with the coaches Peahead Walker and Frank Howard, and died one week after entering Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. He was buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

People: Peahead Walker

Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital) · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

UNC gives John Lindsay Morehead an honorary doctor of laws

The university honored Morehead, principal officer of the Morehead Foundation, as the architect of the Morehead scholarship plan.

Lillian Hughes Prince leaves funds to the Carolina Playmakers

Lillian Hughes Prince, who had acted in thirty or more Playmakers productions, left considerable funds to the Carolina Playmakers in her will. She died in New York and was buried in Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Subject: Carolina Playmakers · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Mary Claire Engstrom documents 122 Hillsborough sites for the Historic American Buildings Survey

From 1963 to 1965 Mary Claire Engstrom documented 122 old structures and historic sites in and around Hillsborough for the Historic American Buildings Survey. Her research helped many of them reach the National Register, including the Nash-Hooper House as a National Historic Landmark, and helped establish two Hillsborough historic districts.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Mary Claire Engstrom helps found the Hillsborough Historical Society

Mary Claire Engstrom was instrumental in founding the Hillsborough Historical Society, which filed National Register applications for local buildings, led walking tours and published newsletters and journals. It merged with the Orange County Historical Museum in 2007.

Subject: Orange County Historical Museum

A bronze plaque honoring builder John Berry is placed on the Old Orange County Courthouse

A bronze plaque naming John Berry a contributor to the tradition of American architecture was fixed to the 1845 courthouse he built in Hillsborough.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Historic Hillsborough Commission buys the Burwell School

The commission bought the house from the Spurgeon children and began restoring it to look as it had after the 1848 enlargement.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 189 events

Subject: Burwell School

C. Hugh Holman serves as UNC provost

Holman, dean of the Graduate School from 1963 to 1966, served as provost of the University of North Carolina from 1966 to 1968 and later as special assistant to the chancellor.

Phillips Russell publishes These Old Stone Walls

Russell's last book, a collection of stories and historical anecdotes about Chapel Hill, appeared in 1972, two years before he died.

Betty Smith is buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery

Smith died in January 1972 after being moved to a convalescent home in Shelton, Connecticut. A funeral mass was said at St. Thomas More Church in Chapel Hill and she was buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery.

Yonni Chapman leads the North Carolina Memorial Hospital Employees Forum

Chapman, a hematology laboratory technician at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill from 1975 to 1985, served as president of the hospital's Employees Forum from 1978 to 1980 and helped unite coworkers against racial discrimination and unsafe working conditions.

Part of North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 1952 · 34 events

Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

Yonni Chapman and Fred Battle found the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience

Chapman and Fred Battle co-founded the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, which worked on local school politics and on Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

People: Fred Battle · Jesse Jackson

R. B. House dies in Chapel Hill

House died at his home in Chapel Hill and was buried in the local cemetery. He had retired as chancellor in 1957 and taught in the university's English department until 1962.

Carvings of Prince's circus parade move to the Alumni Center

Carvings made from the circus parade illustrations in The Southern Part of Heaven, long displayed at the Carolina Inn, were moved in 1992 to the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.

People: Carl Boettcher

Subject: The Carolina Inn

Yonni Chapman founds the Freedom Legacy Project at UNC

While a UNC history graduate student, Chapman founded and directed the Freedom Legacy Project, a student group that documented the history of racial justice struggles at the university and publicly questioned the Silent Sam statue and the naming of Saunders Hall.

Part of Silent Sam · 20 events

Mary Claire Engstrom dies

Mary Claire Engstrom, born in Kansas City in 1906, died on May 20, 1997. She had lived in Hillsborough and continued her historical research there until her death.