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Local figure

Guion Griffis Johnson

Guion Griffis Johnson worked at UNC’s Institute for Research in Social Science from 1924 and held a string of Chapel Hill civic posts: PTA president in 1937–1938, wartime rationing, civil defense and war-records work for Orange County, and president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches in 1950. She wrote Ante-Bellum North Carolina (1937).

Source: UNC Libraries: Guion Griffis Johnson Papers, 1838-1987 (finding aid)

1900–1989 · Dates from the Library of Congress · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗

4 works about Guion Griffis Johnson are indexed here, as are 3 works by Johnson.

Search these 4 works Research sources View indexed works ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Rationing and price control in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, 1942–19451942–1945 · From 1942 to 1945 local boards and volunteers ran wartime rationing and price control in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough. Early in 1942 the Chapel Hill board could allot only a handful of tires, and a run on sugar led grocers to limit each customer. The board's Community Service Committee, chaired by Guion Griffis Johnson, ran a program the Office of Price Administration called a model for the Southeast, and in October 1943 some 1,225 volunteers issued 9,947 copies of War Ration Book No. 4. The OPA penalized a market for selling above ceiling prices, thieves robbed the Hillsboro ration board office of coupons in 1945, and the Hillsborough board closed its office after November 30, 1945.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 9 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Guy B. Johnson begins work at the Institute for Research in Social Science Guy B. Johnson and his wife Guion Griffis Johnson began working at UNC's new Institute for Research in Social Science in 1924. He was one of its original research assistants. People: Guion Griffis JohnsonSearch the index · History on the Hill (UNC Libraries): Creator of the Month, Guion Griffis Johnson
  2. Guion Griffis Johnson serves as president of the Chapel Hill PTA Guion Griffis Johnson was president of the Chapel Hill PTA in 1937–1938. In October 1937, while president, she was elected secretary-treasurer of the twelve-county PTA district at a meeting in Durham; the finding aid lists her as a district officer in 1938–1939.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Guion Griffis Johnson Papers, 1838-1987 (finding aid) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, September 24, 1937, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, October 22, 1937, p. 5
  3. UNC Press publishes Guion Griffis Johnson's Ante-Bellum North Carolina The University Press published Johnson's 900-page social history of North Carolina from 1800 to 1860, the work of thirteen years in legal records, letters, plantation books, diaries and newspapers, covering class, family, religion, slavery, the free Black population, health and the press.Search the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 24, 1937, p. 3
  4. Guion Griffis Johnson leads home-front work in Chapel Hill and Orange County During World War II Johnson chaired the Community Service Committee of the Chapel Hill War Price and Rationing Board, was public relations officer for the Orange County Office of Civil Defense, and collected war records for Orange County.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Guion Griffis Johnson Papers, 1838-1987 (finding aid) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, January 22, 1943, p. 6; Chapel Hill Weekly, October 15, 1943, p. 3
  5. Guion Griffis Johnson lectures in the Navy V-12 program at the University Johnson taught as a lecturer in the Naval V-12 program at the University of North Carolina in 1943–1944.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Guion Griffis Johnson Papers, 1838-1987 (finding aid)
  6. OPA officials come to study Chapel Hill's rationing board community service program Mrs. Philip L. Crowlie, the Office of Price Administration's 'first official housewife', came with state, district and regional OPA officials to study the community service program of the Chapel Hill War Price and Rationing Board, which the OPA had already called a model for the Southeast. They heard three hours of committee reports at a meeting run by Mrs. Guion Johnson, who directed the program. People: Guion Griffis Johnson, Robert W. MadryThe Chapel Hill Weekly, October 15, 1943, p. 3
  7. Volunteers issue 9,947 copies of War Ration Book No. 4 in Chapel Hill and Bingham townships Some 1,225 volunteers gave about 1,512 hours to issue 9,947 War Ration Books No. 4 at the five school buildings of Chapel Hill and Bingham townships: the Chapel Hill school, the Orange County Training School, and the Carrboro, White Cross and Orange Grove schools. About 2,000 people missed the registration, and a second one was held November 19 at the Town Hall. People: Guion Griffis Johnson, Moody W. DurhamThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 5, 1943, p. 1
  8. Delegates meeting in Chapel Hill form the North Carolina World Peace Forum At the invitation of the Chapel Hill Community Club, fifty people representing forty state organizations and women's clubs met in Chapel Hill and formed the North Carolina World Peace Forum to build informed public opinion on international affairs. With Chancellor R. B. House as president it held a full-day session in Gerrard Hall on April 7, 1948. People: R. B. House, Guion Griffis Johnson, Irving E. BirdseyeSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 15, 1948, p. 1
  9. Guion Griffis Johnson is president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches After returning to Chapel Hill from Atlanta in 1947, Johnson served on the boards of the Chapel Hill Community Council and Community Club. Her papers' finding aid says she was president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches in 1950; at the council's annual meeting on April 23, 1950, the News of Orange reported, A. C. Howell was elected president to succeed the Rev. D. W. Yates and Mrs. Guy B. Johnson vice-president.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Guion Griffis Johnson Papers, 1838-1987 (finding aid) · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 11, 1950, p. 1

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Guion Griffis Johnson, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Indexed works

Works about or by Guion Griffis Johnson. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

By Guion Griffis Johnson

Oral history interview with Guion Griffis Johnson, August 19, 1974: interview G-0029-1, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Johnson, Guion Griffis · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Guion Griffis Johnson (1900-1989), a historian of the antebellum South, talked with Jacquelyn Hall and Mary Frederickson in August 1974 for the Southern Oral History Program. She recalls her training, her years at the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina, the standing of women historians in higher education, and the research behind her study of antebellum North Carolina society. Running about an hour; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Guion Griffis Johnson, May 28, 1974 interview G-0029-3, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).

Johnson, Guion Griffis · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Third of four Southern Oral History Program interviews with sociologist Guion Griffis Johnson (1900-1989), recorded May 28, 1974 by Mary Frederickson and running just over two hours. Johnson talks about her Chapel Hill education in the 1920s and her research at Howard Odum's social science institute at UNC, also discussing Gunnar Myrdal, studies of race discrimination, and women in Southern higher education. Issued online by the UNC Library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Guion Griffis Johnson papers, 1873-1987.

Johnson, Guion Griffis, 1900-1989 · 1873

Papers of the historian Guion Griffis Johnson (1900-1989) spanning 1873 to 1987, about 32,600 items in 70.5 linear feet, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4546. Topics include women's clubs and church women's work, the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, Church Women United, civil rights and school integration in the twentieth century, and they also name Guy Benton Johnson.

UNC

About Guion Griffis Johnson

A history of Epsilon Beta Chapter of Chi Omega at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1923-1999.

Clark, Blanche (Blanche R.) · 1999 · Epsilon Beta of Chi Omega House Corp.?

Chapter history of Epsilon Beta of Chi Omega at the University of North Carolina, covering 1923 to 1999 and written by Blanche Clark with Ann Thornburgh. Twenty nine unnumbered leaves with illustrations and a portrait, issued in Chapel Hill in 1999. Guion Griffis Johnson is among the people discussed.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Johnson, Guion Griffis, 1900-1989.

UNC

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this person. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Influential in its time · NC 975.6 JOH Ante-bellum North Carolina: A Social History Johnson, Guion Griffis · 1937

    Guion Griffis Johnson's social history of North Carolina in the decades before the Civil War. Twenty-six chapters run from colonial origins, social classes and rural and town life through courtship and family, schools and colleges, churches and camp meetings, the slave system and the lives of enslaved people, free Black residents, courts and crime, care of the needy, public health, newspapers and the state's intellectual awakening. University of North Carolina Press, 1937; 935 pages.

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Guion Griffis Johnson Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.
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