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University buildings and grounds

Lenoir Hall

Lenoir Hall, a red brick dining hall near Wilson Library designed by Atwood and Weeks, was completed in 1939 as the new campus dining hall. On February 23, 1969 its food service workers sat down at the cafeteria tables, starting a strike that ended on March 21 with a higher hourly minimum and back wages.

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.

Sites linked through the same people

Indexed works

Books, articles, records, and images about Lenoir Hall. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.

About the site

The coming of consciousness : UNC food workers' strikes, 1969

Meroney, Millicent · 1986

Millicent Meroney's 1986 Duke honors paper on the 1969 strikes by food service workers at the University of North Carolina, an episode in the town's race relations and its civil rights history. Eighty leaves of typescript with a bibliography, covering labor unions in food service, the strikes and lockouts themselves, and university employees at Chapel Hill.

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

Duke

Lenoir Dining Hall: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)

1980

Two 1980 photographs of Lenoir Dining Hall at the University of North Carolina: students gathered in the Pit and outside the building, and staff among empty tables inside. From the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection, CHHS.002.

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

CH Historical Society

UNC-Chapel Hill dining hall, circa 1939

Morton, Hugh M. · 1940

Faculty member E. J. Woodhouse drinks from a coffee cup outside the University Dining Hall cafeteria at UNC-Chapel Hill, about 1940, beneath a sign saying state law bars the hall from serving the general public. Hugh Morton took the picture, and a tight crop appeared in the 1941 Yackety Yack.

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

DPLA

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Lenoir Hall 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.

The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1795-1975

Little-Stokes, Margaret Ruth · 2006

Margaret Ruth Little-Stokes's survey of Chapel Hill's town and campus buildings from 1795 to 1975, published by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill in 2006. Chapters run from the first campus buildings through David Swain's romantic campus to midcentury modernism, followed by area surveys of the campus, east and west Chapel Hill, downtown, Northside and the suburbs.

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

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress CH Historical Society

The town and gown architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975

Little, M. Ruth · 2004 · Preservation Society of Chapel Hill

M. Ruth Little's 2004 architectural history of Chapel Hill and the university campus from 1795 to 1975, written for the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. A 99-page survey 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.

Chapel Hill historic sites survey : final report.

Gatza, M. B. · 1992 · Chapel Hill Planning Department

M. B. Gatza's final report of the 1992 Chapel Hill historic sites survey for the town Planning Department, with contributions by Beverly C. Kawalec and Catherine Bishir. It covers historic buildings and districts in Chapel Hill in 80 pages.

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.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chapel Hill, Orange County, North Carolina.

1925

Sanborn Map Company fire insurance map of Chapel Hill, June 1925, on eleven sheets, with Carrboro also drawn. Sanborn maps recorded the outline, construction and use of each building for fire insurers, so the set shows both towns block by block in the mid 1920s.

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

Library of Congress Digital Collections

Map of Chapel Hill & vicinity.

1933

Street and property map of Chapel Hill and the surrounding country, revised to 1 January 1933 and printed in the town. Topics include streets, real property and the historical geography of Chapel Hill along with maps of the University of North Carolina in its 1793 to 1962 period. A useful sheet for tracing lot lines and street names as they stood at the start of the 1930s.

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

UNC

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 Lenoir Hall, 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

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 STO Chapel Hill: A Pictorial History Stolpen, Steven · 1978

      Steven Stolpen's pictorial history of Chapel Hill, one of the Donning Company's photographic town histories, published in Norfolk, Virginia in 1978. Photographs and portraits carry the story of the town and the university, including references to Thomas Wolfe's years as a student at Carolina. 156 pages with illustrations.

    • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

      Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

    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 HIS Historic Buildings and Landmarks of Chapel Hill, N.C Chapel Hill Historical Society · 1973

      A pocket-sized guide to the historic buildings and landmarks of Chapel Hill, prepared by the Chapel Hill Historical Society and printed by Creative Printers in 1973. Forty pages with illustrations and maps, 14 by 22 cm. Topics include architecture, historic buildings and historic districts in Chapel Hill, and the guide is useful for a walking tour of the older parts of town.

    In the chronology

    1. Lenoir Hall is built as the new campus dining hall Atwood and Weeks designed Lenoir Hall, a red brick dining hall with large windows near Wilson Library, at the west end of Emerson Field. The general contract went to a Charlotte company on April 11, 1939, with 180 days to finish, but a strike at the limestone quarries held up the work, and in December 1939 the Weekly listed the $265,400 dining hall among University buildings to be finished in 1940, to open with the winter quarter in January. It served its first meal at noon on January 2, 1940. Little dates its completion to 1939. People: Thomas C. Atwood, Howard Raymond Weeks NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 56 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, April 14, 1939, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, November 3, 1939, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, December 8, 1939, p. 6; Chapel Hill Weekly, January 5, 1940, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, April 29, 1982, p. 5
    2. The University's new dining hall serves its first meal The University's new brick dining hall at the west end of Emerson Field, built with a PWA grant and loan as a self-liquidating project, served its first meal at noon on January 2. Seating 1,050, twice as many as Swain Hall, it had two cafeterias and a restaurant, and its luncheonette under Charlie Gooch opened on January 5. The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 5, 1940, p. 1
    3. Navy officers' wives organize the Pre-Flight Women's Club Wives of the Pre-Flight School's officers met in Lenoir Hall, chose officers and set up ten committees, among them Navy Relief, a children's kindergarten, supervised play, Gray Ladies, home nursing, a blood bank and recreation, forming the Pre-Flight Women's Club with Mrs. Howard Hamilton as chairman. Within a month the club had started a cooperative kindergarten, supervised play for officers' children at three sororities, Red Cross surgical dressings and a Navy Relief drive. Cloudbuster (Navy Pre-Flight School, Chapel Hill), October 24, 1942, p. 4
    4. Italian prisoners of war from Camp Butner go to work in Lenoir Hall Forty Italian prisoners of war began working in Lenoir Hall, the University dining hall used only by the Navy Pre-Flight School, coming each day from the camp at Camp Butner under a contract with the government. The women who had worked there were moved to other University dining halls at the same pay, as the Manpower Commission required. The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 19, 1943, p. 1
    5. Women educators organize the Alpha Pi chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma at Chapel Hill At a dinner meeting at Lenoir Hall, state president Mrs. Nettie B. Herring installed officers of the new chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society, with Mrs. Irene O. Pender, Orange County's elementary supervisor, as president and Chapel Hill High principal Mae Marshbanks as recording secretary. The charter members came from Orange and Chatham county schools and the University. The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), March 19, 1959, p. 8
    6. University awards contracts for a $276,000 renovation of Lenoir Hall Food services director George Prillaman said contracts had been awarded for a $276,000 renovation of Lenoir Hall, the dining hall opened January 3, 1940, with work to start about June 1 after Lenoir closed at the end of May exams. Some of its original equipment was still in use. The Daily Tar Heel, January 6, 1968, p. 1
    7. The undergraduate library named for R. B. House opens The new undergraduate library behind Lenoir Hall, still being finished in the summer of 1968, opened that fall as the Robert B. House Undergraduate Library, named for the former chancellor. Late shelving pushed back a planned September 1 opening; the reserve reading collection opened on the main floor in early October, and the undergraduate collection began moving over from Wilson Library on October 28, the Daily Tar Heel reported. UNC Names in Brick and Stone: House Undergraduate Library · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, July 5, 1968, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, October 4, 1968, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, October 23, 1968, p. 1
    8. Lenoir Hall lays off ten dining hall workers during the drought After switching to paper plates and plastic utensils to save water, Lenoir Hall told ten busboys and dishwashers on the night of October 9 that they were no longer needed; they earned $1.60 an hour, most were Black according to a laid-off worker's letter, and as state employees many could not draw unemployment pay. The worker's letter asked students to stop clearing their own tables, and by October 15 five had been called back after food services director George Prillaman called the layoff an error in judgment. The Daily Tar Heel, October 12, 1968, p. 1
    9. About a thousand students march to Lenoir Hall to demand dormitory visitation Men students wanted a standing policy for entertaining women in their rooms. On the night of October 28, about a thousand students marched from South Campus and Granville to Lenoir Hall, where the twelve-member student-faculty visitation committee, six of them students, was meeting; Dean of Men James O. Cansler spoke to them from a window and promised a decision as fast as possible. Dean's history says the marchers delivered a petition of about 4,000 signatures; the Daily Tar Heel reported that the petition, with 3,904 names, had gone to Dean C. O. Cathey on October 16. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson Pamela Dean, Women on the Hill: A History of Women at the University of North Carolina (1987), scan p. 26 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 29, 1968, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, November 15, 1968, p. 1
    10. University Food Services moves all cooking for Chase into Lenoir's kitchen and lays off nine To cut costs, University Food Services consolidated food preparation for Lenoir and Chase dining halls in one kitchen at Lenoir, laid off eight part-time workers and a food production manager at Chase and switched Chase to paper plates. Students complained the trucked food arrived cold. The Daily Tar Heel, February 5, 1969, p. 1
    11. UNC food workers' strike On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor. People: Mary Smith, Elizabeth Brooks, J. Carlyle Sitterson, Robert W. Scott, Julius L. Chambers, Preston Dobbins UNC Libraries: Foodworkers' Strike, I Raised My Hand To Volunteer · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, February 25, 1969, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, March 22, 1969, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, February 2, 1976, p. 6; The Daily Tar Heel, April 29, 1982, p. 5; The Daily Tar Heel, February 22, 1985, p. 1
    12. Lenoir Hall workers join the Pine Room walkout and the BSM calls a student boycott A day after 17 Pine Room employees stopped work, 25 Lenoir Hall workers joined them, leaving Lenoir on self-service. More than 40 workers, most of them Black, met four University officials for two and a half hours in Lenoir's north dining room without settling their grievances, and BSM co-chairman Preston Dobbins called on students to boycott every University Food Service dining hall. People: Preston Dobbins The Daily Tar Heel, February 25, 1969, p. 1
    Show all 30 dated events
    1. Students and campus ministers picket Lenoir Hall's delivery trucks About 35 students and church officials, led by Episcopal chaplain Bill Coats, picketed Lenoir Hall before dawn and persuaded the drivers of two of three trucks not to deliver, though both later returned. After a second picket of about 65 the next morning failed to stop a truck, the pickets were called off when Food Service director George Prillaman had deliveries staggered through the day. The Daily Tar Heel, February 27, 1969, p. 1
    2. Strike supporters overturn Lenoir Hall's tables, and police close the dining hall A stall-in by about 40 white supporters of the strikers, who moved slowly through Lenoir's serving lines buying nothing, led to shoving and at least two fist fights with other students. Shortly before 7 p.m. about 35 Black students and as many white supporters marched through the dining room overturning tables and chairs, and a dozen helmeted Chapel Hill police came in and closed the hall. The Daily Tar Heel, March 5, 1969, p. 1
    3. Governor Scott orders Lenoir Hall reopened under Highway Patrol guard After Chancellor Sitterson closed Lenoir Hall on March 5 during the foodworkers' strike, Governor Bob Scott ordered it reopened, sent at least 50 state patrolmen to Chapel Hill and mobilized a National Guard unit in Durham. The dining hall opened the next morning with more than 40 riot-equipped troopers and about 25 Chapel Hill police at its entrances while as many as 300 people picketed. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson The Daily Tar Heel, March 7, 1969, p. 1
    4. University Food Services raises its prices 12 percent and keeps Chase Cafeteria closed Auxiliary Enterprises director J. A. Branch announced average price rises of 12.1 percent, an end to free coffee refills, an 85-cent student special, five-day schedules for the Pine Room and Monogram Club from April 16, and the indefinite closing of Chase Cafeteria, whose 52 workers moved to Lenoir Hall. He tied the changes to rising costs and the workers' five-day, 40-hour week. The Daily Tar Heel, April 12, 1969, p. 1
    5. UNC hands campus dining to the SAGA Food Service contract Two months after settling the spring strike the University signed a contract with SAGA Food Services on May 19, 1969, ending its own management of campus dining. SAGA laid off many temporary and part-time workers within weeks, which set up the second strike that autumn. UNC Libraries: Foodworkers' Strike, I Raised My Hand To Volunteer · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, June 19, 1969, p. 4; The Daily Tar Heel, November 9, 1969, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, March 13, 1970, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, April 29, 1982, p. 5
    6. State troopers disperse strike pickets at Lenoir Hall and a court bars six people from the campus After a UNC sophomore was arrested in the picket line at Lenoir Hall, 32 state highway patrolmen came onto the campus, ordered about 125 picketers to disperse and arrested three men from Malcolm X Liberation University in Durham. Superior Court Judge Leo Carr then granted the University an injunction barring those three and three others from the campus and the picket lines for the rest of the strike. The Daily Tar Heel, December 11, 1969, p. 1
    7. Two union officials and a striking worker are arrested at Lenoir Hall; Chancellor Sitterson pledges to subsidize workers SAGA does not rehire On the strike's 24th day two union officials and a striking worker were arrested at Lenoir Dining Hall in the morning. Later that day Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson said the University would subsidize any workers SAGA did not rehire, after efforts to revive negotiations had stalled on the rehiring question. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson The Daily Tar Heel, December 2, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
    8. Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and a graduate student, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene. People: Howard N. Lee The Daily Tar Heel, December 6, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
    9. Ralph David Abernathy joins the striking cafeteria workers in Chapel Hill SCLC president Ralph David Abernathy picketed with the striking SAGA workers behind Lenoir Hall, then told strikers, students and faculty gathered in the Carolina Union that he pledged them his support. He went on to South Building for a meeting with Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson and Mayor Howard Lee. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Howard N. Lee Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), December 1969, p. 1
    10. Nearly a thousand Black students rally at UNC for the striking cafeteria workers On what organizers called Black Monday, close to a thousand Black students from campuses across the state answered a call by the Black Student Movement and the statewide group BSUL to back the striking SAGA workers. The strike had been settled before dawn, so the afternoon rally by Lenoir Hall turned into a celebration, with talks by union organizer Jesse Eppes, Mayor Howard Lee and others. People: Howard N. Lee Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), December 1969, p. 1
    11. SAGA closes Lenoir Hall for the rest of the year and lays off twelve more workers SAGA Food Service shut Lenoir Hall, the University's largest dining hall, without notice and sent diners to the Pine Room, laying off 12 more full-time workers and leaving 45 of the 148 it employed before the November strike. The University said it learned of the closing after the fact; on April 29 AFSCME called off a planned South Building picket, and the University said laid-off workers would be placed as janitors. The Daily Tar Heel, April 28, 1970, p. 1
    12. Lenoir Hall's cafeteria is turned into an art studio A Daily Tar Heel photograph showed an art class at work in Lenoir Hall, which the caption said had been converted from a cafeteria into an art studio. Under the new food contractor, meals were being cooked at Chase and carried to the Pine Room. The Daily Tar Heel, November 6, 1970, p. 1
    13. UNC trustees' committee approves a $3.37 million food service plan with a required meal ticket On April 23, 1982, the Student Affairs Committee of the UNC Board of Trustees unanimously approved a $3.37 million plan to rebuild campus food service: on-campus students would buy a $100 meal ticket each semester, Chase Cafeteria would close in May with its second floor redone for the Carolina Union and Air Force ROTC, the Union's Fast Break would become a delicatessen, and Lenoir Hall's first floor would become a cafeteria by 1984, all paid for by a $10-a-semester student fee. The plan still needed the Board of Governors and the legislature. The Daily Tar Heel, April 26, 1982, p. 1
    14. UNC tuition rises 10 percent for residents and 26 percent for out-of-state students For the 1983-84 year the UNC Board of Governors, ordered by the General Assembly to raise $10 million in tuition, raised tuition 10 percent for North Carolina residents and 26 percent for out-of-state students, the first time non-residents paid more of the total than residents. Chapel Hill students also paid $10 more a semester in fees for a debt retirement fee to pay for renovating Lenoir Hall's dining facilities. The Daily Tar Heel, August 29, 1983, p. 3
    15. Work begins on a $3 million dining expansion in Lenoir Hall Construction officially began on October 10, 1983, on a $3 million project to spread University Dining Services over two floors of Lenoir Hall, and the same day the second floor of Chase Hall, renovated for $650,000 as a South Campus student union, passed final inspection. The work followed 1982 recommendations of the Food Service Advisory Committee, made when the Chase cafeteria was losing about $1,500 a week; a $1.3 million rebuilding of Chase's first floor for a new cafeteria was still to come. The Daily Tar Heel, October 11, 1983, p. 1
    16. The Commons opens in the lower level of Lenoir Hall ARA Food Services opened The Commons in the renovated lower level of Lenoir Hall, the former Pine Room, with a grill, the Itza Pizza parlor, a sweet shop and a Pit Stop counter. The brighter room seated 600 against the Pine Room's 450 and took over the grill and deli of the closed Fast Break in the Student Union; the Pit Stop in the Student Stores was to close at the end of the semester. The Daily Tar Heel, January 25, 1985, p. 1
    17. Carolina Dining Services reopens Lenoir Hall gates to wheelchair users After Dining Services locked the wide gates beside the Lenoir serving-line turnstiles for about five days to stop food theft, students who use wheelchairs complained through student government that the serving area was no longer accessible, and the gates were reopened on Saturday. The Daily Tar Heel, April 2, 1990, p. 3
    18. Lenoir Dining Hall reopens as a food court with Chick-fil-A Renovated over the summer by Marriott and Carolina Dining Services, Lenoir Dining Hall reopened for the fall as a mall-style food court with Chick-fil-A, whose grand opening was August 22, Pizza Hut, a grill, a sub shop and a dessert counter, while the Cutting Board became a cafeteria; the salad and potato bars were removed. The Daily Tar Heel, August 22, 1994, p. 1

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