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Schools and academies

North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home)

The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls, or Efland Home, was a reformatory and school for Black girls on a 143-acre farm at Efland, opened in 1925 by the state federation of Black women's clubs led by Charlotte Hawkins Brown. With little state money it closed in 1939; its 1925 frame cottage still stands.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

People in its history

People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.

Indexed works

Books, articles, records, and images about North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.

About the site

The treatment of African American girls in progressive era North Carolina's juvenile justice system (1890-1930)

Brice, Tanya Smith · 2003

Tanya Smith Brice studies how North Carolina's juvenile justice system treated African American girls between 1890 and 1930, naming among its institutions the North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls at Efland in Orange County. Health and hygiene, juvenile delinquency and the state's social conditions are among its subjects. A 2003 typescript of 89 leaves with a bibliography on the closing pages.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

UNC

Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919–1939

Lauren Henley · 2018

Lauren Henley on the North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls at Efland, known as Efland Home: founded by Black clubwomen to keep girls out of the courts, it became by the late 1930s a penal institution starved of state money.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

OpenAlex

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

History and Architecture of Orange County, North Carolina

Mattson, Richard L. · 1996 · Unpublished manuscript

Richard L. Mattson's manuscript survey of the history and architecture of Orange County, completed in September 1996. Its 78 pages cover the county's historic buildings and structures and end with a bibliography.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

NC Cardinal NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Orange County multiple property documentation form: "Historic resources of Orange County."

1993

National Register multiple property documentation form on the historic resources of Orange County, completed in 1993. Kelly Lally and M. Ruth Little led the first phase of the survey, and Jody Carter and Todd Peck the second. It runs 123 pages with a bibliography.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

NC Cardinal NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[Architectural field surveys for Orange County : collected for the Historic and architectural resources of the Tar-Neuse River basin report]

1974 · Survey and Planning Branch, Historic Preservation Section, Division of Archives and History

Historic building survey forms for Orange County gathered in 1974 by the state's Historic Preservation Section for a report on the Tar-Neuse River basin. About 400 pages of forms covering buildings in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and the countryside; a form can carry a description, historical notes, location, a photograph and a floor plan.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

NC Cardinal

A map of Orange County, N.C.

Noble, M. C. S. (Marcus Cicero Stephens), 1855-1942 · 1915

Marcus Cicero Stephens Noble drew this 1915 map to show how Orange County's original territory was divided, tracing the formation of Caswell, Person, Alamance, Durham, Chatham, Randolph, Guilford and Rockingham counties out of it. Topics include county boundaries and the history of political divisions in the Piedmont. Surviving as a photocopy on a sheet 31 by 23 centimeters.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

UNC

Soil map, North Carolina, Orange County sheet

United States · 1918 · United States Government Printing Office

Color soil map of Orange County issued in 1918 by the U.S. Government Printing Office at one inch to the mile, 68 by 46 cm. Besides soil types it marks roads and railroads, the Southern Railway among them, churches, schools, mills, stores, cotton gins, iron mines, cemeteries and the county home, and it names the townships of Bingham, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno, Hillsborough and Little River.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

Duke DPLA

Map of Orange County, N.C. : 1939

Stanaland, E. A. · 1939 · E.A. Stanaland

Hand colored map of Orange County drawn by E. A. Stanaland and published at Parrott, Georgia, in 1939. It shows towns and townships, roads and railroads, and marks the schools and churches standing in the county. One sheet, 58 by 36 centimeters.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

UNC
Show 1 more surveys and maps

School map, Orange County, North Carolina.

1922

School map of Orange County from about 1922, a blue line print marking townships, towns, churches and the separate schools for white and Black children under segregation. Communities shown include Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Efland and Mebane.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

UNC DPLA

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORA Orange County--1752-1952 1953

      Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.

    • Start here · NC 371.097 PENDER A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983 Pender, Irene Oliver · 1983

      Irene Oliver Pender's history of the public schools of Orange County from 1752 to 1983, covering more than two centuries of schooling in Hillsborough, Efland, Cedar Grove and the rural districts of the county. Published in 1983, 186 pages with illustrations.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Foundational · NC 917.56 ORANGE An Inventory Of Sites Of Cultural, Historic, Recreational, Biological, And Geological Significance In The Unincorporated Portions Of Orange County Orange County (N.C.) · 1986

      County planning department survey of significant sites in the unincorporated parts of Orange County, published in 1988, 95 pages with maps. The survey covers cemeteries, church buildings and archaeological sites on the cultural side, and plants, animals, endangered species, wildlife refuges, geology and recreation areas on the natural side. Useful for local historians, genealogists tracing burial grounds and land planners alike.

    • Foundational · NC 363.69 HIS Historic Preservation Element: Orange County Comprehensive Plan ; Orange County, North Carolina Orange County (N.C.) · 1996

      The historic preservation element of Orange County's comprehensive plan, prepared for the county Historic Preservation Commission and Planning Department by the Jaeger Company of Gainesville, Georgia, and adopted on 1 April 1996. Partly financed by National Park Service funds through the state Division of Archives and History, it sets county policy on historic buildings and sites and their conservation. 59 pages plus 50 unnumbered, with illustrations and maps, some folded and in color.

    Land, family and burial records

    • Start here · NC 333.16 CHILTON The Land Grant Atlas of Old Orange County Chilton, Mark · 2012

      Mark Chilton's oversized atlas plotting eighteenth-century land grants across the original Orange County, which stretched well beyond today's boundaries into what became Alamance and Durham counties. Published in Carrboro by Hand Made Books beginning in 2012, the set was planned in four volumes: Henry McCulloh's great tract number 11 and the land north of it; the Saxapahaw old fields (volume 2); Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and the Johnston Tract; and Durham, Rougemont and McCulloh's tract number 12. Maps and color illustrations, 41 cm.

    In the chronology

    1. Charlotte Hawkins Brown starts the clubwomen's drive for a home for delinquent Black girls As president of the North Carolina Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, Charlotte Hawkins Brown of Palmer Memorial Institute began a public campaign in late 1919 for a reformatory for Black girls, the same year the legislature set up juvenile courts. The drive led to the Efland Home in western Orange County. People: Charlotte Hawkins Brown NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 12
    2. Black clubwomen buy the Forrest farm at Efland for their home for girls The North Carolina federation of Black women's clubs, led by Charlotte Hawkins Brown, bought the 143-acre farm of S. C. and Carrie Forrest at Efland as the site of its industrial home for Black girls. Plans for the first building were drawn that September, and the federation deeded the land to the home's trustees on August 3, 1922. People: Charlotte Hawkins Brown NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls National Register nomination (2018), sec. 8
    3. Plans are drawn for the first cottage of the Efland Home In a letter of September 5, 1921, to state welfare commissioner Kate Burr Johnson, Charlotte Hawkins Brown reported that plans were under way for a cottage at the Efland site estimated at $5,000. The architect is not known, but the finished building follows a professional drawing except for its weatherboard walls, which replaced brick to save money. People: Charlotte Hawkins Brown NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 15
    4. Black clubwomen sell two-cent stamps across the state to build the first cottage at Efland The state federation of Black women's clubs, led by Charlotte Hawkins Brown, sold two-cent stamps across the state in November 1922 to raise $5,000 for the first cottage of the North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland, on land it had bought the year before. People: Charlotte Hawkins Brown DigitalNC: Twin City Sentinel (Winston-Salem), November 4, 1922, p. 5 · Also: DigitalNC newspaper, July 25, 1922, p. 7
    5. Black clubwomen open the North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland After years of fundraising, the North Carolina federation of Black women's clubs led by Charlotte Hawkins Brown opened a home and school for Black girls on a 143-acre farm on US 70 at Efland. The state gave only occasional small grants; the federation's board voted in October 1938 to close within five months, and the home closed on March 15, 1939. The state later opened a training school for Black girls, first at Rocky Mount and then at Dobbs Farm near Kinston. People: Charlotte Hawkins Brown DigitalNC: Africo-American Presbyterian, October 22, 1925, p. 2 · Also: Open Orange: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls; The Carolina Times, March 30, 1940, p. 8; The Carolina Times, August 17, 1940, p. 1; The Carolina Times, November 11, 1939, p. 3; NC State Historic Preservation Office: Efland Home nomination
    6. The state farm census records the Efland Home's first crops The 1925 North Carolina farm census found the Efland Home's farm manager, staff and girls working 33 acres of corn, tobacco, wheat, cotton and Irish potatoes. Within a year the home was also keeping pigs, chickens and dairy cows for its own table. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 16
    7. Contractor James Henry Liner and others finish the Efland Home cottage By May 1925, when the clubwomen marked its completion at their annual meeting in Wilson, a one-story weatherboarded cottage with a hip roof stood on the Efland farm, built for about $4,600 by contractors including James Henry Liner of Cedar Grove. It held a classroom-living room, dormitory rooms, matrons' quarters, dining room and kitchen; a Greensboro firm added a pump and Delco generator house, and Efland merchant S. C. Forrest drilled the well and held the mortgage. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 15
    8. The Efland Home takes in thirty girls in two years under matron Mary E. Hill Juvenile courts had sent twelve girls to Efland by 1926. Between July 1, 1926, and June 30, 1928, matron Mary E. Hill, who had worked at the Virginia home for Black girls, cared for thirty; seven ran away and seventeen remained, more than the cottage's fifteen places. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 16
    9. The General Assembly votes $2,000 for the Efland home for Black girls The 1927 legislature added $2,000 for the Efland school for delinquent Black girls to its appropriations bill on the House floor. The clubwomen had asked the state to take the home over entirely, which it did not do. The Chapel Hill Weekly, March 18, 1927, p. 2 · Also: DigitalNC newspaper, March 17, 1927, p. 2; DigitalNC newspaper, January 3, 1929, p. 8
    10. The Efland Home's farm cuts its yearly cost per girl The home's 1928-1929 report showed the girls working ten acres, 24 fruit trees and a small stock of mule, cows, hogs and chickens, which helped bring the cost per resident down from about $598 in 1928 to $182.50 in 1929. That year fifteen girls were paroled and eleven placed in working homes; assistant matron Margaret Cromwell taught classes and Mebane physician Thomas David Tyson came when needed. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 16
    11. Marie Clay Clinton of Charlotte becomes interim superintendent of the Efland Home Marie Clay Clinton, a Charlotte widow active in the federation's work but not a trained teacher or social worker, was named interim superintendent in December 1929. Her assistant Bertha Vincent, a Scotia Seminary graduate, taught the classes, and both women served as house mothers. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 17
    12. The Efland Home's eighteen girls come from ten counties across the state In 1930 the home held eighteen girls, all committed by juvenile courts, from Buncombe, Carteret, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Pasquotank, Robeson, Vance and Wake counties; Durham sent the most, five. It was then one of ten such institutions for Black girls in the United States. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 17
    Show all 34 dated events
    1. University students plant donated fruit trees and grapevines at the Efland Home In the spring of 1930 Lindley Nurseries gave the Efland Home 75 fruit trees and 25 grapevines, and University of North Carolina students set them out on the farm. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 17
    2. John Henry Blue and his wife take charge of the Efland Home John Henry Blue and his wife ran the Efland Home in 1931-1932 with a second matron. The farm then had forty acres in cultivation and supplied beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, butter, fruit and vegetables. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 18
    3. Girls from the Efland Home receive free care at Durham's Lincoln Hospital In 1934 the Efland Home's residents were treated without charge at Lincoln Hospital, the Black hospital in Durham, where Dr. Stanford Lee Warren, husband of home trustee Julia Warren, had been a founding trustee. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 18
    4. Certified teacher J. A. Lassiter becomes matron of the Efland Home J. A. Lassiter, a certified teacher, replaced Sadie F. Powell as matron in May 1934, and her husband took over the farm. That year the girls canned, sewed clothes and bedding, and made cornhusk mattresses, baskets and rag rugs, and the cottage's porch was painted and its floors oiled. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 18
    5. Hilda C. Allen becomes superintendent of the Efland Home after a poor state report Following a critical June 1935 state inspection and complaints about the home's management, the board's executive committee met in Durham in July and soon hired Hilda C. Allen as superintendent, keeping Lula Henderson as matron. People: Lula B. Henderson, Hilda C. Allen NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    6. Superintendent Hilda Allen sends the girls' Efland Quartette to sing in local churches To raise money and show the home's progress, Hilda Allen taught the girls spirituals and arranged for the Efland Quartette to sing at churches around the area during her superintendency. People: Hilda C. Allen NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    7. Matron Lula B. Henderson and farm manager Lewis Walker are hired at the Efland Home After J. A. Lassiter's husband was let go in March 1935, the home hired Lula B. Henderson as matron and Lewis Walker to run the farm in April. Henderson's husband, a retired minister living in Chapel Hill, taught the girls under the Emergency Relief Administration's adult education program. People: Lula B. Henderson NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    8. A runaway tells a Greensboro official that the new Efland Home matron whipped her with a board During a wave of runaways in May 1935, a month after Lula B. Henderson was hired as matron, Corinne Cannady of Greensboro returned a twelve-year-old girl who said the matron had whipped her with a board and that girls were locked in small rooms on bread and water for days. Cannady asked the state welfare commissioner, Mrs. W. T. Bost, for an investigation at once. Souls, vol. 20: Lauren N. Henley, Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919-1939
    9. A state mental health survey finds the Efland Home's building failing its girls At Hilda Allen's request, the state welfare board's Division of Mental Health studied the home in November 1935. It urged more vocational training, and reported one bathroom for all, a furnace idle every winter because the basement flooded, a pump that often failed, and barbed wire over every window to stop runaways, which it advised removing. People: Hilda C. Allen NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    10. Hilda Allen asks the state for help with medical care at the Efland Home When superintendent Hilda Allen raised the need for medical care for the girls at the Efland Home, the state Division of Institutions and Corrections replied on January 13, 1936, only that she should get in touch with the county health officer. Souls: Lauren N. Henley, Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919-1939 (vol. 20, 2018)
    11. A state field agent tells Hilda Allen the WPA cannot help the Efland Home Hilda Allen asked whether the Works Progress Administration could do manual work at the Efland Home. A field agent of the state Division of Institutions and Corrections answered that the WPA could not approve a project on land deeded to a private body, the North Carolina Federation of Negro Women's Clubs, and that he knew of no other source of aid. Souls: Lauren N. Henley, Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919-1939 (vol. 20, 2018)
    12. Hilda Allen resigns as superintendent, leaving Lula Henderson in charge of the Efland Home Saying she could not handle all her duties, Hilda C. Allen resigned in early May 1937 after making real gains in the home's conditions, and matron Lula Henderson took charge. People: Lula B. Henderson, Hilda C. Allen NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    13. A state welfare agent records the Efland Home matron's account of beating a girl In a report of June 16, 1937, state welfare agent William R. Johnson wrote that matron Lula Henderson, by then the only adult in charge, told him and two other visitors that she had choked and beaten a girl who snatched her whip from her. He also found a girl locked in a room as punishment. Souls, vol. 20: Lauren N. Henley, Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919-1939
    14. State inspectors find the Efland Home failing and tell its board to fund it or close it State welfare agents W. C. Ezell and T. L. Grier visited on July 2, 1937, and found the heat, plumbing and building in poor repair, about twenty acres in crops, the only cow dead and the mules unfit. Grier judged the home was not rehabilitating its girls and told the federation's board to raise enough money to fix it or shut it down. People: Lula B. Henderson NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 19
    15. Lula Henderson reports jobs found for former Efland Home girls In January 1938 Lula Henderson reported that former residents of the Efland Home had been placed in work in Mebane, Greensboro, Washington, D.C., and Seneca, South Carolina. Churches and patrons gave clothing, food and supplies, but not enough to keep up the home. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 20
    16. UNC field work director George H. Lawrence reports the Efland Home's conditions as appalling After a visit in April 1938, George H. Lawrence, field work director at the University of North Carolina, wrote to the state welfare director that the home was doing more harm than good and that the girls would be better fed in a county jail. Gifts from churches and neighbors had not kept up with the girls' needs. People: George H. Lawrence NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 20
    17. The Black women's clubs pay off the last of the Efland Home's debt Four years after the home closed, the North Carolina Federation of Colored Women's Clubs cleared its remaining debt on the Efland reformatory in 1943, the year the legislature voted $25,000 for a state-run training school for Black girls. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 28
    18. Efland Home trustees sell the old reformatory farm to W. G. Fields Jr. and Nannette Fields After nearly two decades of unknown use, the home's trustees sold the Efland property on April 29, 1957, to W. G. Fields Jr. and his wife Nannette, Chapel Hill investors, who cut the land west of the cottage into eight tracts between Redman Crossing and what is now I-40. The federation later gave about $12,000 from the sale toward a chapel at Dobbs School near Kinston. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 20
    19. James and Myrtle Graham, a Black Efland couple, buy the old Efland Home cottage In December 1959 James Nills Graham, called Nello, and Myrtle McAdoo Graham, both raised on Efland farms, bought the former reformatory cottage and 2.4 acres, and the Graham family kept it for more than fifty years. They belonged to White Cross A.M.E. Church and are buried there. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 21
    20. Mary E. Grant buys the Efland Home cottage at the Graham estate sale After an auction held to settle James Barnard Graham's estate, Mary E. Grant bought the cottage and its 2.4 acres on November 13, 2013; the building was nominated to the National Register four years later. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 21
    21. The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland joins the Study List Orange County submitted the Study List application for the former Efland home with the owner's knowledge, and the committee approved it with the other central region requests on February 9, 2017. A member asked whether the grounds had been assessed for archaeology; none had. NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register Advisory Committee agendas, minutes and approved lists, p. 1400
    22. The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls is listed in the National Register On January 25, 2018 the National Park Service listed the North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls near Efland in the National Register of Historic Places. NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Listings in the National Register of Historic Places, Orange County · Also: NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815)

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