Howard W. Odum

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 14 dated events in the chronology →

1. Summer 1920 A Red Cross-funded summer institute trains social workers at the University 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 ChaseSearch 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. 217
2. 1920 Howard W. Odum comes to Chapel Hill to lead UNC's School of Public Welfare and sociology department 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.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Howard Washington Odum Papers, 1908-1990s (#03167), finding aid
3. 1922 Howard W. Odum founds the Journal of Social Forces at UNC Two years after coming to UNC, Odum founded and edited the Journal of Social Forces, the journal now titled Social Forces.Search the index · Swarthmore College (archived): Robert C. Bannister, Howard Odum, Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 5
4. 1924 Odum's new institute makes county government its first study 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 BransonSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 78
5. June 30, 1924 Odum's Institute for Research in Social Science is organized at UNC 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.Search the index · The Odum Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill: Odum History
6. Spring 1927 Chase has an institute researcher's study of Winston-Salem Black businesses destroyed 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. OdumSearch 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. 367-368
7. March 1927 James Weldon Johnson speaks at the YMCA's Institute of Human Relations 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 HamiltonSearch 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. 362-364
8. 1928 Rupert B. Vance joins the UNC sociology faculty and the Institute for Research in Social Science 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. OdumSearch the index · NCpedia: Vance, Rupert Bayless
9. March 1928 Chase's memorandum warns faculty against advocacy that embarrasses the university 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 GrahamSearch 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. 381-383
10. 1929 Odum's institute wins a $240,000 Rockefeller grant 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.Search the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 101
11. May 1932 The Rockefeller Foundation grants Odum's Institute for Research in Social Science $30,000 a year 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.Search the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 137
12. June 1932 UNC names W. C. Jackson dean of a new School of Public Administration 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 CoatesSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 137
13. 1936 UNC Press publishes Odum's Southern Regions of the United States 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.Search the index · Internet Archive: Southern regions of the United States (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina press, 1936)
14. November 8, 1954 Howard W. Odum dies in 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.Search the index · Swarthmore College (archived): Robert C. Bannister, Howard Odum, Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 5