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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–13.Back to highlights

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13 dated events
1893Reconstruction and the New South
  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  2. Edwin Alderman leaves Greensboro to teach at the university

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Alderman, an 1882 graduate of the university and a founder of the State Normal in Greensboro, accepted a teaching position at UNC in 1893.

  3. The university opens a Summer School for Teachers and Students to women and men

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The four-week school under Edwin A. Alderman admitted both sexes for a $5 fee and enrolled seventy-five, with academic and teaching departments staffed by university professors and teachers from the State Normal and city schools. It was one of four summer schools the university ran that year.

    People: Dixie Lee Bryant · Edwin Anderson Alderman

    Subject: University Summer School

  4. Edwin Alderman serves as president of the university

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Alderman was named president in 1896 and held the office until 1900, when he left to lead Tulane University. His inauguration, first set for University Day 1896, was put off into 1897 because of that year's heated political campaigns.

  5. President Edwin Alderman gives South Building a stone doorway copied from Westover

    Construction or physical change · South Building, UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    During his presidency Edwin Alderman added a carved stone pedimented doorway to South Building, modeled on the one at Westover, the colonial James River mansion in Virginia. With the new well temple, it was an early step toward the Colonial Revival that later ruled campus building.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

    Subject: South Building

  6. Edwin Alderman is inaugurated as president in Gerrard Hall

    Appointment, election or service · Gerrard Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    About a hundred legislators and Governor Daniel L. Russell rode a special train from Raleigh through sleet for the ceremony, where Kemp P. Battle presented Alderman and the new president spoke for an hour and a half on the university as the people's school. The lawmakers were made honorary members of the Di and Phi societies and met with school superintendents who had come to honor one of their own.

    People: Daniel Lindsay Russell · Kemp Plummer Battle

    Subject: Gerrard Hall

  7. The class of 1897 gives the university a bust of Robert E. Lee

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    On Class Day the seniors presented a bust of Lee, which President Alderman accepted with a speech of praise, and the band afterward played Dixie.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

  8. Edward Kidder Graham wins the Mangum Medal

    Award or honor · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Added to the commencement orators after Horace Williams showed Alderman one of his papers, Graham won the top senior speaking prize with an address on "the economic man" that foresaw business coming to rule Southern life. He reworked the theme over the next decade into his argument for the university's service to the state.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Henry Horace Williams

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  9. Edward Kidder Graham returns to Chapel Hill to manage the library

    Appointment, election or service · University library, UNC, Chapel Hill

    After a year teaching at a Charlotte private school, Graham came back at Alderman's request to run the university library, and before the year was out Alderman made him an instructor in English at $700 a year.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  10. The class of 1899 gives a bronze bust of Zebulon Vance and plants ivy from Lee's tomb

    Naming or commemoration · South Building

    On Class Day the seniors, led by Julian S. Carr Jr., presented a bronze bust of Vance, and that afternoon planted on the South Building a sprig of ivy from Robert E. Lee's mausoleum.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

    Subject: South Building

  11. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  12. President Alderman resigns to head Tulane University

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Offered the Tulane presidency in April 1900 at more than twice his Chapel Hill pay, Alderman resigned in May despite the trustees' pleas. The book suggests thin state funding after the 1898 campaign, when Democrats promised the church colleges not to seek more for the university, weighed on his decision.

  13. Edward Kidder Graham is inaugurated president in Memorial Hall

    Appointment, election or service · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    A procession of about 1,400 marched to Memorial Hall, where Chief Justice Walter Clark gave Graham the oath and Governor Locke Craig presided. Graham's address cast the state university as the instrument of democracy. Three former presidents walked with him in the procession.

    People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Francis Preston Venable · Kemp Plummer Battle · Locke Craig · Walter Clark

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  14. University Day marks fifty years since the 1875 reopening

    Naming or commemoration · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    More than ninety representatives of American colleges joined a procession from the Alumni Building to Memorial Hall, where former commissioner of education Philander P. Claxton spoke. In his first address to the university, Governor McLean called it the head of the state's school system and asked it to help smooth religious and social divisions.

    People: Harry Woodburn Chase · Edwin Anderson Alderman · Francis Preston Venable · Angus W. McLean

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  15. The first of the new women's dormitories, later Alderman Residence Hall, opens

    Founding or opening · UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    Built in 1937 with Public Works Administration money, the university's new women's dormitory, later named for Edwin Alderman for his support of women's education, was occupied by September 1937. Two more women's dormitories, later Kenan and McIver, opened in September 1939.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026