Home demonstration and 4-H clubs in Orange County, 1935–1939
Home demonstration work, the teaching of homemaking to farm women and girls by a county agent, began in Orange in September 1935, when no county school but Hillsboro's taught home economics. Grace Holcombe, hired jointly by Orange and Chatham counties, led it. That month women of New Hope and Blackwood Station organized what the Weekly called the county's first club, and Fairfield women the second. Holcombe organized girls' 4-H clubs that fall, and by May 1936 there were seven clubs with 106 members and ten girls' 4-H clubs with 231. The boys' 4-H clubs were reorganized in 1938, Woodward Byars succeeded Holcombe by 1939, and by 1941 the county had 17 home demonstration clubs.
In September 1935 Grace Holcombe, hired jointly by Orange and Chatham counties, began home demonstration work, the teaching of homemaking to farm women and girls, in Orange. On September 24 women of the New Hope and Blackwood Station communities met at the home of Mrs. Henry Tapp, organized a club under her and elected Mrs. John Powell president. The Weekly called it the first club organized in the county. Fairfield women organized the second on October 2. In November Holcombe organized girls' 4-H clubs at St. Mary's and Orange Grove, then junior and senior clubs at White Cross and Aycock. In February 1936 the home demonstration clubs formed a county council to meet four times a year. In May 1936 Mrs. Julian Gill of Gravelly Hill reported seven clubs with 106 members and ten girls' 4-H clubs with 231, which mattered because no county school but Hillsboro's taught home economics. In the fall of 1938 assistant county agent Joe Howard reorganized the county's six boys' 4-H clubs, and every boy carried a farm project through the year. By August 1939 Miss Woodward Byars had succeeded Holcombe as home demonstration agent, as the Orange County Women's Market, run by about 20 farm women, neared its second birthday. By 1941 the county had 17 home demonstration clubs.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.
H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.
The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips
Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949
Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.
Hope Summerell Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), published in 1926, which doubles as a picture of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century. It runs 325 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Selected writings of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), the Chapel Hill writer who campaigned for the university's reopening after Reconstruction, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. The 753 pages touch on Chapel Hill life, education and the university in the nineteenth century.
Rosalind Rosenberg's 2017 biography of Pauli Murray (1910-1985), lawyer, poet and Episcopal priest, raised in Durham. Its six parts follow a Southern childhood, the move to New York, the 1938 application to the University of North Carolina that was refused because Murray was Black (the chapter is titled 'Members of your race are not admitted'), law school and the coining of the phrase Jane Crow, the Cold War years, the push toward 'an NAACP for women', and a late-life ordination. 494 pages with portraits.
Well worth a shindy : the architectural and philosophical history of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Madry, Sarah Brandes · 2003 · iUniverse
Sarah Brandes Madry's history of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, treating both its architecture and the ideas attached to it. It takes in drinking fountains and water use in Chapel Hill and the university's history, with a chapter on Edwin Anderson Alderman, the president under whom the well took its present form in 1897, and one on water at the university. Published by iUniverse in 2003, 399 pages with illustrations.
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Fleischner, Jennifer · 2003 · Broadway Books
Jennifer Fleischner's double biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, the dressmaker who had been enslaved, including years in Hillsborough, before buying her freedom and becoming the First Lady's confidante. Published by Broadway Books in New York in 2003, 372 pages with illustrations and a map. Topics include enslaved women in Hillsborough and the United States, dressmakers and women's friendships in the nineteenth century.
Engstrom, Mary Claire · 1979 · Historic Hillsborough Commission
Mary Claire Engstrom's biographical register of the young women who attended the Burwell School in Hillsborough, subtitled lives of educated women in the antebellum South. The school was kept by Margaret Anna Burwell and her husband, and the book bears on women's education in nineteenth-century North Carolina. Published by the Historic Hillsborough Commission, 1979, 256 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Spencer, Cornelia Phillips · 2005 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Cornelia Phillips Spencer's account of the closing weeks of the Civil War in North Carolina, reissued in 2005 as an electronic edition by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. Topics include the 1865 campaigns, Sherman's march through the Carolinas, Stoneman's raid, and the history of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century, where Spencer, 1825 to 1908, spent her working life.
Scotti Cohn's short biographies of notable North Carolina women, including Harriet Jacobs, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Annie Lowrie Alexander and Cornelia Phillips Spencer of Chapel Hill. Published by Twodot in 2000, 198 pages with illustrations.
1994 · Orange County Women's History Month Committee
A Women's History Month project of 1993 and 1994 from the Orange County Women's History Month Committee, profiling women who were firsts in the county. Published in Chapel Hill in 1994, 13 pages plus unnumbered leaves with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits.
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Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Home demonstration and 4-H clubs in Orange County, 1935–1939.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/home-demonstration-4h-storyline-1935/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
