Key local figure
Francis Preston Venable was offered UNC's chair of chemistry in 1880, co-founded the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society in 1883, identified calcium carbide in 1893 and was president of the university from 1900 to 1914. He then returned to teaching, was named a Kenan Professor in 1918 and retired in 1930; Venable Hall was dedicated in 1925.
Source: UNC Libraries: F.P. Venable Papers, 1838-1946
Also found in catalogs as F. P. Venable, F. P (Francis Preston) Venable.
1856–1934 as the Library of Congress records it · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster as F. P. Venable → · Library of Congress authority record ↗
10 indexed works are connected with this person.
Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.
Maurice M. Bursey's biography of Francis Preston Venable (1856 to 1934), chemist and president of the University of North Carolina, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1989. It also covers the history of the university's chemistry department. Illustrated, 111 pages, with bibliographies.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Venable, F. P. 1856-1934.
Reviewed in Isis (1992).
Louis Round Wilson's history of the University of North Carolina between 1900 and 1930, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1957 with illustrated endpapers. Wilson, long the university librarian, follows the presidencies of Francis Preston Venable, Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Venable, F. P. (Francis Preston), 1856-1934.
Venable Hall at the University of North Carolina, dedicated in 1925 and named for chemistry professor and university president Francis Preston Venable, on a black and white Graycraft Card Co. postcard with a white border. Undated, from the Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library Postcard Collection.
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
Four University of North Carolina presidents, Francis P. Venable, Edwin A. Alderman, Edward Kidder Graham and Kemp Plummer Battle, pose together at Graham's inauguration in this real photo postcard of 1915. Mailed to R. H. Lewis in Raleigh, it bears a short greeting from K.P.B. and an April 1915 postmark.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the DPLA record: Venable, F. P. (Francis Preston), 1856-1934.
Building specifications drawn up by Frank P. Milburn and Company of Washington for a biological laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, dated 1907, when Francis P. Venable was president. Topics include architecture in Chapel Hill, college buildings and the buildings of the university. It is a working construction document rather than a published account.
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
A brief sketch of Francis Preston Venable, 1856 to 1934, of the University of North Carolina faculty, detached from the North Carolina University magazine, new series, volume 18, number 1, October 1900, and published at Chapel Hill under the auspices of the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Venable, F. P. (Francis Preston), 1856-1934.
Edward Victor Zoeller, 1857 to 1944, worked as a pharmacist, and his papers cover 1885 to 1934. The papers range from pharmacy teaching and societies, including the School of Pharmacy at Chapel Hill, to the Farmers' Oil Mills at Tarboro and the cottonseed oil business. F. P. Venable and Frank W. Hancock are named. In the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 1780.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Venable, F. P. (Francis Preston), 1856-1934.
Two volumes of weather observations for Chapel Hill covering 1854 to 1862 and 1879 to 1882, collection 1941-z in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC. The observations are associated with James Phillips, William Battle Phillips and Francis Preston Venable. Observations for Mitchell County are noted as well.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Venable, F. P. (Francis Preston), 1856-1934.
Personal and professional papers of the chemist Francis Preston Venable, who lived from 1856 to 1934, covering 1838 to 1946, about 2,300 items in 4.5 feet in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4368. Subjects range from inorganic chemistry, calcium carbide, acetylene and the Union Carbide Corporation to Civil War maps, European travel, hazing at Chapel Hill and Venable family social life.
Why this is here: Listed as its creator.
Francis Venable, the UNC chemistry professor, out fishing with children in an undated photograph. It belongs to the faculty and administration portraits in the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
Dated events connected with this person: sixteen of 43, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 43 dated events in the chronology →
From 1854 to 1862 Professor James Phillips kept weather records at Chapel Hill. They survive in the Southern Historical Collection alongside Chapel Hill records kept from December 1879 to 1882 by Professors W. B. Phillips and Francis Preston Venable.
People: Francis Preston Venable
Venable was a co-founder and the first president of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, a society of university scientists named for the geologist Elisha Mitchell.
People: Elisha Mitchell
Chemistry professor Francis P. Venable and student William R. Kenan Jr. demonstrated the industrial uses of calcium carbide, the source of acetylene gas, in Person Hall.
People: Francis Preston Venable
Subject: Person Hall
When Francis P. Venable became university president in 1900, Baskerville succeeded him as chairman of the chemistry department, Smith Professor and director of the chemical laboratory, posts he held until 1904.
People: Francis Preston Venable
For the first time the university offered a twelve-week summer term of regular courses that counted toward a degree, opening on June 12, 1900, alongside the four-week Summer School for Teachers. Tuition was twenty dollars.
People: M. C. S. Noble · Francis Preston Venable
Subject: University Summer School
Judge William Preston Bynum paid for a gymnasium on the campus in memory of his grandson and namesake, a student who died before graduating, and presented it to the trustees by letter in May 1905. Dr. Richard H. Lewis accepted it at commencement.
People: Francis Preston Venable · Richard H. Lewis
Subject: Bynum Hall (Bynum Gymnasium)
At the 1907 commencement President Venable announced the resignations of Kemp P. Battle, professor of history and former president, and Thomas Hume, professor of English, both placed on the Carnegie Foundation pension list.
People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Francis Preston Venable · Thomas Hume
Subject: Memorial Hall
With money Venable got from the legislature, Gerrard Hall's interior was renovated so that all undergraduates fit, and Dean Graham set a half-hour program before noon with ministers, faculty, trustees and other guest speakers. Upperclassmen had been excused from chapel for want of seats.
People: Edward Kidder Graham · Francis Preston Venable
Subject: Gerrard Hall
At the 1909 alumni luncheon, classes and local alumni groups promised to endow forty-one scholarships of $1,000 each. Julian S. Carr gave five named for J. Johnston Pettigrew for sons of Confederate soldiers, and Edgar Love two named for Cornelia Phillips Spencer.
People: Julian S. Carr · Francis Preston Venable
At the 1911 commencement Venable announced a $40,000 gift from the Peabody Fund trustees for a School of Education building. The legislature that year gave $87,000 a year for upkeep and $50,000 a year for four years for improvements.
People: Francis Preston Venable
Subject: Peabody Hall
Taken from his Old East room near midnight by sophomores, the Smithfield freshman was made to stand on a barrel behind Bynum Gymnasium, fell onto broken glass that cut his carotid artery, and died within minutes on the gymnasium steps. Four students were arrested for manslaughter that day after a coroner's inquest, and Governor W. W. Kitchin demanded a full public investigation.
People: William W. (William Walton) Kitchin · Francis Preston Venable
Graham, head of the English department and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Chapel Hill, acted as president in 1913 during President Francis P. Venable's absence in Europe.
People: Francis Preston Venable
The board of trustees elected Graham president by unanimous vote in 1914, succeeding Francis P. Venable. He had been at Chapel Hill since 1899, first as librarian and then through the English department to the deanship.
People: Francis Preston Venable
A procession of about 1,400 marched to Memorial Hall, where Chief Justice Walter Clark gave Graham the oath and Governor Locke Craig presided. Graham's address cast the state university as the instrument of democracy. Three former presidents walked with him in the procession.
People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Francis Preston Venable · Kemp Plummer Battle · Locke Craig · Walter Clark
Subject: Memorial Hall
The university dedicated its new chemistry building in 1925 and named it Venable Hall while Venable was still teaching there.
Subject: Venable Hall
Francis Preston Venable (1856-1934), the chemist and university president under whom UNC gained national standing, was buried in the cemetery.
Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 9 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
People named in the same dated entries as Francis Preston Venable, 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.
The index lists works with an Orange County connection. To find everything else about Francis Preston Venable, search these catalogs.
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Picture: Francis Preston Venable, 1900. Public domain. North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.; via Wikimedia Commons
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