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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
Entries
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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The university opens a summer course in library work
By 1904 the university had begun a summer course of instruction in library work, meant to train librarians as workers with books rather than custodians. Louis Round Wilson taught library methods in the 1905 Summer School.
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Louis Round Wilson has a Craftsman house built on East Rosemary Street
Louis Round Wilson, the university librarian, had a large Craftsman-style house built at 607 East Rosemary Street in 1911, an early example of the Arts and Crafts mode in Chapel Hill.
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The university organizes a Bureau of Extension under Louis Round Wilson
Set up as Venable left for Europe in mid-1913 and run by university librarian Louis Round Wilson with no budget of its own, the bureau started programs to take the university's work into the state; the trustees endorsed it in January 1914.
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The Bureau of Extension begins correspondence courses for credit
Under Louis R. Wilson, the university's new Bureau of Extension began organizing correspondence courses for credit during the 1914-15 term. It had already widened its free advice for teachers to help town officials with water systems and streets.
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The SATC is demobilized and half its men leave Chapel Hill
Demobilization of the Students' Army Training Corps was completed on December 10, 1918, ending military control of the campus, and half of the SATC men left on the next train. Faculty judged the arrangement a failure because the university had answered to two masters.
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Trustees and faculty back a $150,000 student building as Edward Kidder Graham's memorial
A joint committee of trustees and faculty, meeting in the governor's office in mid-December, agreed to raise $150,000 privately for the student activities building Graham had hoped for, to stand where Person Hall was. Albert Coates ran the drive and by the end of January 1919 announced $20,000 pledged by students, $14,500 of it in one night.
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Louis R. Wilson and W. C. Coker are raised to Kenan professorships
At the 1920 commencement meeting the trustees made librarian Louis Round Wilson and botanist William C. Coker Kenan professors, in the same action that recognized Horace Williams.
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Louis Round Wilson's survey finds thin library collections in Orange County's white schools
A questionnaire of Orange County's 48 white schools for 1921–22, including the Chapel Hill and Hillsboro graded schools, found seven with no library and 3,692 volumes for 1,586 pupils, slightly more than two books per pupil. Ten of the 25 teachers who answered said the books were used "not very much"; Wilson published the results in January 1923.
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The University of North Carolina Press is founded
On June 12, 1922, university librarian Louis Round Wilson, nine other faculty members and three trustees founded the University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South. Its first book, William C. Coker's study of water molds, appeared in 1923, and William T. Couch became director in 1932.
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Robert W. Madry becomes the University's full-time publicity man
Persuaded by Louis Round Wilson that the University had to tell its story better, Chase hired Madry, an alumnus then writing for the New York Herald, as its first full-time publicity man.
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William T. Couch joins the University of North Carolina Press as assistant director
Couch, who had moved to the Chapel Hill area in 1917, began at the press in 1926 as assistant director under Louis Round Wilson and took over as director in 1932.
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The new University Library, later Wilson Library, is dedicated
UNC dedicated its new University Library, designed by Arthur Cleveland Nash, on October 19, 1929, weeks after students began using the building that fall. It served as the main campus library for decades, was named for librarian Louis Round Wilson in 1956, and after a 1984 to 1987 renovation became the home of UNC's special collections.
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Coates publishes his first history of the Institute of Government, paid for by DeWitt Wallace
In place of a speaking tour, Coates wrote a 76-page account of how the Institute grew out of his law classroom, issued under the Popular Government name in the National University Extension Association's studies series. Wallace paid for 30,000 copies for national distribution, and on the advice of Louis R. Wilson and W. T. Couch, Coates took out the profanity before it went to press.
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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.
