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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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13 dated events match your filters.

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
1913Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Eugene C. Branson shows students how to survey their home counties

    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill

    During a five-day stay as Graham's guest at Bulrushes, the Georgia rural sociologist led classes and seminars and coached the Johnston County club on gathering facts about illiteracy, tenancy, crops and the tax burden, a report meant to serve as the model for the other county clubs.

    People: Edward Kidder Graham

  3. Trustees create a chair of applied economics and rural sociology for Eugene C. Branson

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Graham won approval to hire Branson at the top faculty salary of $2,500 and promised him a large office in the Peabody Building; Branson said he would come that fall and proposed starting a study of Orange County right away.

    People: Edward Kidder Graham

  4. E. C. Branson takes up rural economics and sociology and starts the North Carolina Club

    Founding or opening · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Eugene Cunningham Branson arrived in Chapel Hill in September 1914 as Graham's new professor of rural economics and sociology. He at once gathered the students' county clubs into the North Carolina Club to study conditions back home.

  5. Branson's University News Letter publishes its first issue

    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill

    E. C. Branson's University News Letter, a weekly one-page sheet packed with facts about North Carolina gathered by him and his students, first appeared in mid-November 1914 with a run of four thousand copies. Its items were widely reprinted by the state's papers, and circulation grew to fifteen thousand.

    People: John Sprunt Hill

  6. J. Cheshire Webb is named Orange County's food administrator

    Appointment, election or service · Orange County

    On September 20, 1917, State Food Administrator Henry A. Page appointed J. Cheshire Webb of Hillsborough food administrator for Orange County, with R. A. Eubanks as administrator for Chapel Hill. The record says no mill in the county broke a Food Administration rule.

    People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

  7. Eugene C. Branson urges county teachers to back the food conservation drive

    Hillsborough

    At a court house meeting of teachers and school committeemen called by J. C. Webb, Branson explained why food conservation mattered, and Mrs. Isaac Manning described her work in the south end of the county. Forty-two teachers attended, and the meeting laid the plan to register every woman at her school house on October 27.

    People: J. Cheshire Webb

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  8. Orange County women sign the food pledge at their school houses

    Protest or organizing · Orange County

    On Saturday, October 27, 1917, committees at every school house in the county registered the women of the district and asked each to sign the Food Administration pledge. A house-to-house canvass of every housewife followed from October 29 to November 4.

    People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

  9. The Council of Defense extends into township community councils

    Protest or organizing · Orange County

    At a court house meeting on June 15, 1918, J. Cheshire Webb organized community councils of defense for each of the seven townships, choosing the township over the school district as the unit. Their charge was to support every war activity without forming new organizations.

    People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  10. The university publishes the North Carolina Club's study of county life

    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The extension program issued a 188-page report on the counties built on the North Carolina Club's research, in which E. C. Branson called county government the least creditable institution in the country. The study later fed the 1920s county government reforms.

    People: Albert Coates · Eugene Cunningham Branson

  11. Chase keeps E. C. Branson at Chapel Hill with a Kenan professorship

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    When the University of Virginia tried to hire the rural sociologist to rebuild his program in Charlottesville, Chase made Branson a Kenan professor with $1,000 more in pay, and he stayed.

    People: Harry Woodburn Chase · R. D. W. Connor

  12. Eugene C. Branson proposes calling the planned social science school the School of Public Welfare

    Chapel Hill

    Branson had urged a school of social science on Graham in 1916. In 1919, worried that "social science" sounded like socialism to North Carolinians, he proposed the name School of Public Welfare, which John Sprunt Hill endorsed, and suggested Hill endow it.

    People: John Sprunt Hill · Harry Woodburn Chase · Edward Kidder Graham

  13. Orange County raises $2,075.84 for Armenian relief

    Health or relief action · Orange County

    An Armenian Relief campaign led by Dr. E. C. Branson ran from February 21 to March 6, 1919, and raised $2,075.84. Much of it came through the county's white and Black schools; Nellie Russell led Hillsborough Township.

    People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

  14. Odum's new institute makes county government its first study

    Publication, speech or performance · Institute for Research in Social Science, UNC, Chapel Hill

    The Institute for Research in Social Science chose county government as its first project, with E. C. Branson leading researchers who examined forty-three counties. Odum shared the findings in 1925 with Governor McLean's study commission, and McLean put county finance reforms to the 1927 legislature.

    People: Eugene Cunningham Branson

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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 1, 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