O. Max Gardner

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1929 A workmen's compensation law that Frank Graham and Harry Wolf helped write passes Sixteen earlier bills had failed, but with Governor O. Max Gardner's backing the 1929 General Assembly passed a no-fault workmen's compensation act. Frank Graham lobbied for it, and he and economics professor Harry Wolf helped draft it; the governor's support kept textile interests from objecting to Graham's role. People: O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), p. 395
2. September 1929 Chase refuses a mill official's demand that Frank Graham be fired After the Southern Textile Bulletin wrongly placed Graham at a Communist Labor Day rally, an official of the company that owned Gastonia's Loray Mill asked Governor Gardner to have him dismissed. In the reply Gardner passed along, Chase said Graham had been in New York and that faculty had the same right as other citizens to form and voice opinions, and he would resist any censorship of those seeking change by lawful means. People: Frank Porter Graham, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 406-407
3. September 1929 Chase seeks money for a school of public affairs to train state and local officials Chase asked Governor Gardner to help find about $30,000 a year in private money for a school to train city and county officials, public health and public safety officers and others, saying none existed in the South. Albert Coates's Institute of Government soon took up the same mission. People: O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), p. 400
4. February 20, 1930 Chase resigns to become president of the University of Illinois The evening before, a full-dress reception at the Carolina Inn marked ten years since Chase's inauguration, with Governor Gardner already holding his resignation. When the Illinois trustees elected Chase the next day, Gardner announced it from Raleigh. The Illinois post reportedly paid $20,000, twice his salary. People: R. B. House, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 402-404
5. May 1930 The university loses 20 percent of its next year's state budget A month after Chase warned Governor Gardner that the university was at a crisis, $175,000 was cut from its budget for the coming year, a 20 percent reduction deeper than any Chase had seen as president. People: Harry Woodburn Chase, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), p. 411
6. June 9, 1930 Trustees elect Frank Porter Graham president of the university Meeting in Howell Hall during commencement, the trustees voted without nominations. R. D. W. Connor led the first ballot 26 to 20, but Graham took a majority of 47 on the fourth, and the vote was made unanimous. Found walking by Battle Park and brought in, Graham asked that Connor be chosen instead, then accepted. People: R. D. W. Connor, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 412-414
7. June 10, 1930 Commencement is held outdoors at the Davie Poplar, and Chase receives an honorary degree With Memorial Hall torn down, the 339 graduates received diplomas at a stage by the Davie Poplar, seated on the old hall's benches as loudspeakers in the trees carried John H. Finley's address. Honorary degrees went to Ellen Glasgow, Martha Berry, Francis P. Venable and Governor Gardner, and Gardner conferred one on Chase that the trustees had voted without consulting the faculty. People: Ellen Glasgow, Francis Preston Venable, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 412-415
8. 1931 The legislature creates a commission on improving the state's laws, with Coates as secretary The 1931 General Assembly set up a commission of justices, judges, lawyers and law school representatives to recommend changes to the laws, with Albert Coates as executive secretary and a report due in 1933. People: O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 106
9. 1931 The state takes over Orange County's roads and most of its prisoners The 1931 act moved every public road outside town streets to state upkeep and made the state responsible for longer-term prisoners, ending one of the county's oldest duties. The Gardner survey had found Orange spent $48,076 on its 412 miles of roads in 1929. People: O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 208
10. September 8-10, 1931 Coates opens his first statewide school for law officers in Manning Hall About fifty police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, clerks and judges, growing to seventy-five or more, met for three days under the police chiefs' association, the first meeting of city, county, state and federal officers under one roof. Governor Gardner called it the most promising movement the university had begun. People: Henry Horace Williams, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 107
11. November 26, 1931 The Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower is dedicated at UNC The bell tower given by John Motley Morehead III and Rufus Lenoir Patterson II was dedicated to the university on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1931, with Governor O. Max Gardner giving the dedication address. Morehead had proposed a tower to President Harry Woodburn Chase in the 1920s and been turned down on three sites. People: Harry Woodburn Chase, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Documenting the American South, Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina: Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, UNC (Chapel Hill)
12. September 9-10, 1932 Albert Coates convenes the Institute of Government's first statewide school for public officials About six hundred officials and citizens from nearly every county came to Chapel Hill for a two-day meeting Coates had promoted all summer. Frank Graham opened the Friday evening session in Gerrard Hall and Harvard law dean Roscoe Pound gave the closing address on Saturday, when the organizing committee approved hiring Coates as director with a staff. People: Frank Porter Graham, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 121
13. November 29, 1939 House Speaker William Bankhead dedicates the Institute of Government building On the eve of Thanksgiving a standing-room crowd in Hill Music Hall heard Bankhead, Governor Clyde Hoey and President Frank Graham praise Coates, with eight of the state's eleven congressmen and former governor O. Max Gardner on hand. A reception followed in Graham Memorial, and guests stayed for the Virginia football game the next day. People: Clyde Roark Hoey, Frank Porter Graham, Albert Coates, Gladys Hall Coates, O. Max GardnerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 182
14. March 22, 1952 University trustees give Albert Coates the O. Max Gardner Award By unanimous vote the trustees named Coates the faculty member of the Consolidated University who had done most that year for the welfare of humanity, under the award created by the late governor's will. Coates accepted it for the Institute, and it carried $10,000. People: O. Max Gardner, W. Kerr ScottSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 219
15. May 1953 Gardner Hall, named for O. Max Gardner, opens with the new business school buildings Gardner Hall, named for former governor O. Max Gardner, was one of three new School of Business Administration buildings set between the Library and South Building, with Carroll and Hanes halls. The University Placement Service moved into it, and the formal dedication of the three buildings was set for May 25, 1953.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, May 5, 1953, page 1