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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 1–14.Back to highlights

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14 dated events
1920Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. A Red Cross-funded summer institute trains social workers at the University

    Founding or opening · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Before he left Emory, Howard Odum persuaded the American Red Cross to pay the summer faculty of a training institute on campus for social workers, teachers, nurses, ministers, probation officers and Red Cross, YMCA and YWCA staff. Chase let a woman instructor assist but not lead a course.

    People: Howard W. Odum · Harry Woodburn Chase

  3. Howard W. Odum comes to Chapel Hill to lead UNC's School of Public Welfare and sociology department

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Odum, a Georgia-born sociologist who had been dean of liberal arts at Emory, arrived in Chapel Hill in 1920 to direct the School of Public Welfare and the Department of Sociology. He taught at UNC for the rest of his life.

  4. Howard W. Odum founds the Journal of Social Forces at UNC

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Two years after coming to UNC, Odum founded and edited the Journal of Social Forces, the journal now titled Social Forces.

  5. 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

  6. Odum's Institute for Research in Social Science is organized at UNC

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The Institute for Research in Social Science was organized at Chapel Hill on June 30, 1924, for the cooperative study of social problems arising from state and regional conditions. Odum founded it with help from the Rockefeller Fund, and it is now the Odum Institute.

  7. Chase has an institute researcher's study of Winston-Salem Black businesses destroyed

    Law, policy or court · Institute for Research in Social Science, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Robinson E. Newcomb, a Brookings graduate student working with the Institute for Research in Social Science, had pieced together Black wage data from pay stubs outside R. J. Reynolds plants. After trustee James A. Gray Jr., a Reynolds vice president, complained, Chase and Odum gathered every copy, and Chase assured Gray he had seen to the destruction of the draft and notes. One copy survived at Brookings.

    People: Howard W. Odum

  8. James Weldon Johnson speaks at the YMCA's Institute of Human Relations

    Publication, speech or performance · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Harry F. Comer's weeklong institute, approved by Chase, brought speakers on race, labor and world affairs. Johnson, NAACP executive secretary, spoke in Memorial Hall and met classes. History chair J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton walked out when Howard Odum introduced him as 'Mister Johnson' and protested to Chase, while a Tar Heel editorial by David Donald Carroll welcomed the visit.

    People: Howard W. Odum · J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton

    Subject: Memorial Hall · University YMCA

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

    Chapel Hill

    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

  10. Chase's memorandum warns faculty against advocacy that embarrasses the university

    Law, policy or court · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Under attack from textile editor David Clark, Chase sent Howard Odum, Dudley D. Carroll and Frank Graham a discussion memo on proper activities for social scientists. Faculty whose causes involved colleagues in general embarrassment should leave, he wrote; in North Carolina such causes included certain taxes, labor organizing, racial equality and socialism.

    People: Howard W. Odum · Dudley Dewitt Carroll · Frank Porter Graham

  11. Odum's institute wins a $240,000 Rockefeller grant

    Property or economic transaction · Saunders Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    The Institute for Research in Social Science secured $240,000 from a Rockefeller foundation for studies of social and child welfare, crime and justice, taxation, industry and cooperatives.

  12. The Rockefeller Foundation grants Odum's Institute for Research in Social Science $30,000 a year

    Property or economic transaction · Institute for Research in Social Science, UNC, Chapel Hill

    The foundation announced a yearly grant of $30,000 to support the work of the university's Institute for Research in Social Science under Howard Odum. Covington says the announcement came the same day Coates held his first conference of public officials.

  13. UNC names W. C. Jackson dean of a new School of Public Administration

    Founding or opening · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Graham and Odum announced Jackson, history chair at the Woman's College in Greensboro, as dean of the school Odum had planned for three years with a small state allocation. Graham urged Coates to fold the Institute into it and made him one of its trustees, but Coates kept apart; short of state money, the school was dissolved after Jackson returned to Greensboro as chancellor.

    People: Howard W. Odum · Frank Porter Graham · Albert Coates

  14. UNC Press publishes Odum's Southern Regions of the United States

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    The University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill published Odum's Southern Regions of the United States, a 664-page study of social conditions across the South prepared for the Social Science Research Council's Southern Regional Committee.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

  15. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  16. Howard W. Odum dies in Chapel Hill

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Odum died in Chapel Hill on November 8, 1954, while still at work on several books, after 34 years on the UNC faculty.

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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