M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 16 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

1. January 1936 Milton J. Rosenau comes to head the University's new department of public health Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, long a professor of preventive medicine and epidemiology at Harvard, was announced as head of a new department of public health in the University's medical school, a venture in which the federal government was cooperating. He was living in Chapel Hill by the end of January and spoke on epidemics to physicians in the Hill Music Hall on February 5. Place: School of Medicine, UNC, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hill Music HallSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 10, 1936, p. 1
2. winter quarter 1936 UNC's new Division of Public Health admits its first students Under a December 13, 1935 agreement among the university, the State Board of Health and the Public Health Service, the Medical School opened a Division of Public Health under Dr. Milton J. Rosenau as the training center for an eight-state sanitary district. Four health officer trainees enrolled for the winter quarter, fifty-one health workers had registered by March 28, and forty-six enrolled when classes began in the fall. Rosenau first had his office in Caldwell Hall. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Charles Staples Mangum Place: Caldwell Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 36 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, February 21, 1936, p. 6
3. March 23, 1936 A federally financed public health training course for the Southeastern states opens at the University On March 23, 1936 the new public health division of the University medical school, under Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, began a twelve-week course for 47 physicians, sanitary engineers and sanitary inspectors from Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. The Weekly reported that the Government had chosen Chapel Hill as the teaching center for the Southeastern district, paid for largely with Social Security money allotted by the states. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Charles Staples Mangum Place: University of North Carolina medical school, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, March 27, 1936, p. 1
4. September 1937 Parasitologist Harold W. Brown joins the University's public health division Harold W. Brown, who had been with the United States Public Health Service and stationed at Savannah, joined the faculty of the University's division of public health under Milton J. Rosenau that fall, as it enrolled 42 students. People: Harold W. Brown, M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau Place: University of North CarolinaSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1937, p. 1
5. 1938 The Graduate School lets the Division of Public Health grant degrees Rosenau asked that the division be allowed to confer bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees as well as certificates. The Graduate School agreed, and the university treated the approval as the first step toward an independent School of Public Health. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Graduate School, School of Public HealthSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 44
6. by April 8, 1938 An outbreak of rheumatic fever strikes Chapel Hill school children and adults Five Chapel Hill school children from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, White Cross and Calvander were stricken with rheumatic fever, along with several adults and members of a Black family near Pittsboro. Dr. B. B. Lloyd had seen about a dozen cases in a few weeks, and physicians studying under Dr. M. J. Rosenau took up the cases. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Braxton Bynum Lloyd Place: Chapel Hill and southern Orange CountySearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 8, 1938, p. 1
7. fall 1939 The Division of Public Health begins its full-year graduate course In the 1939-40 year the division moved into the new Medical and Public Health Building, later MacNider Hall, gave its last short course that fall, and admitted fourteen graduate students under a redesigned curriculum, a full year's course leading to the degree of master of public health. Since early 1936 it had trained physicians and sanitary engineers in three-month short courses, two a year, which the Weekly said averaged about fifty students. Emil Chanlett entered the master's program in sanitary engineering that year. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau Place: Medical and Public Health Building (MacNider Hall), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also named: Emil ChanlettSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 46 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1937, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, October 1, 1937, p. 5; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 18, 1939, p. 1
8. 1940 Rosenau recruits Ruth Hay from Berkeley to head a new Department of Public Health Nursing Venereal disease control work had raised the demand for public health nurses, and in 1940 State Health Officer Carl Reynolds asked the school for a nursing course; the Public Health Service and the Children's Bureau backed its plan. Rosenau offered the headship to Ruth Hay of the University of California, and she recommended her Berkeley colleague Margaret Blee as the department's second teacher. The Weekly reported Hay's appointment as professor of public health nursing in January 1941; she had come from Berkeley by early June, Blee arrived in July, and the nursing courses began in September 1941. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau Place: School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also named: Ruth Hay, Margaret Blee, Carl V. Reynolds, Carl ReynoldsSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 50 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, January 17, 1941, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, June 6, 1941, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, July 18, 1941, p. 6; Chapel Hill Weekly, September 5, 1941, p. 6
9. June 7, 1941 Trustees make Harold W. Brown dean of the School of Public Health The trustees appointed Dr. Harold W. Brown, a parasitologist on the faculty since 1937, dean of the School of Public Health in place of Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, the school's first dean, who kept the post of director. At the same meeting Robert H. Wettach succeeded M. T. Van Hecke as dean of the law school. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Robert H. Wettach, Harold W. Brown Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also named: M. T. Van Hecke · Also mentions: School of Public HealthSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, June 13, 1941, p. 1
10. fall 1942 Lucy Morgan starts the health education program at the School of Public Health Three young women on State Board of Health fellowships enrolled in health education at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1942, and Rosenau asked for Dr. Lucy S. Morgan, a Public Health Service educator then working in Fayetteville, to build the curriculum. With twenty W. K. Kellogg Foundation scholarships, the first class of public health educators numbered twenty-five in the spring of 1943. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Harold W. Brown Place: School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also named: Lucy S. MorganSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 52 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, November 14, 1994, p. 3
11. June 9, 1942 Twenty public health nurses graduate from the University Twenty registered nurses who had studied since the fall under Ruth Hay and Margaret Blee received their diplomas at the University commencement, the class the Weekly called the first in public health nursing ever trained in North Carolina. Some had done their field work with the Orange-Person-Chatham health department, and later in June the University's department of public health nursing was accredited by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing. People: M. J. (Milton Joseph) Rosenau, Harold W. Brown Place: Kenan Stadium, Chapel Hill · Also named: Ruth Hay, Margaret BleeSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, June 26, 1942, p. 1
12. by October 15, 1943 Milton J. Rosenau resumes the deanship of the School of Public Health Dr. Milton J. Rosenau became dean of the University's School of Public Health again after Dr. Harold W. Brown, who had resigned the deanship in the spring to accept an offer from Columbia, agreed to stay on the faculty for the fall term. Rosenau reported the school's largest enrollment yet. People: Harold W. Brown Place: School of Public Health, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 15, 1943, p. 4

After their death in 1946

Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.

1. 1965 The School of Public Health building is officially named Rosenau Hall The building dedicated in April 1963 was not formally named for Milton J. Rosenau, the school's founding director, until 1965. Place: Rosenau Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch the index · Robert Rodgers Korstad, Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 (1990), scan p. 116 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 28, 1965, p. 4