Storyline
The Carrboro school as a meeting place for the whole community from 1929: the group commencement and health clinics, the dental clinic, the night school for adults and its honors, the parent-teacher meetings and recitals, and a library for grown people.
In briefBetween 1929 and 1933 the Carrboro school served grown people as well as children, with health clinics, a night school for adults and the start of a library. The annual child health clinic gave free examinations and vaccinations there, and in 1931 Dr. J. P. Jones began a free dental clinic. A night school for adults, begun in summer 1931 by students of a University extension course, reopened at the school that fall under Mrs. R. M. Grumman. In 1933 the State Federation of Women's Clubs named its pupil Marvin Pendergraph the most improved night-school pupil in North Carolina, and Nellie Roberson gave the school 145 books toward a library for grown people as well as children.
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On April 5, 1929 the schools of the Carrboro group center held their joint commencement at the Carrboro school, and on May 21 the annual child health clinic gave free examinations and vaccinations at the school to children entering a dozen schools. In late January 1931 Dr. J. P. Jones began a free dental clinic at the school under the Kiwanis Club and the Red Cross. A night school for adults, begun in summer 1931 by students of a University extension and state adult-education course reopened at the school on October 26 under Mrs. R. M. Grumman. In mid-January 1932 the Carrboro P.T.A. was host to the County P.T.A. Council, and on February 5 thirty-eight pupils of Mrs. J. I. Mann gave a music recital to a packed auditorium. When the night school closed its third term on May 23, R. M. Grumman awarded certificates, and the pupils thanked the school board, the P.T.A., the Woman's Club, the Missionary Society and the Kiwanis Club for their help. The night school held its commencement on April 10, 1933, and in May the State Federation of Women's Clubs cited its pupil Marvin Pendergraph as the night-school pupil in North Carolina who improved most in the year. In 1933 Nellie Roberson gave the school 145 books as the nucleus of a library for grown people as well as children.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →
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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.
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A 2026 novel set in Carrboro. Frances, thirty and grieving her mother, and her husband Ben open their marriage, and the book follows what that decision does to them and to the people closest to them. The characters include college teachers and a ghostwriter. 296 pages.
An illustrated online timeline of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, issued by the school in 2025. One page with portraits.
A 2025 history of University of North Carolina baseball from its nineteenth-century beginnings to the program's rise as an ACC power. Chapters cover the early years on campus, the building of Boshamer Stadium, and the Mike Fox era. Self-published by the author, 288 pages.
Joanna Pearson's novel of a cold case at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Karlie Richards was a nineteen-year-old student when she was murdered; decades later her onetime roommate, divorced and in middle age, finds herself drawn back to the crime as online conspiracy theories about it multiply. A psychological thriller with a Chapel Hill setting, published by Bloomsbury in 2024, 275 pages.
The 2023 issue of Carrboro High School's literary magazine, featuring fiction and poetry written by its students.
William R. Burk's history of botany at the University of North Carolina, from its early natural scientists such as Denison Olmsted and Elisha Mitchell through later figures including George Francis Atkinson, Joseph Austin Holmes and Henry Van Peters Wilson, closing with a chapter on the Department of Botany itself. Published in Fort Worth in 2023.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Jim Grimsley's coming-of-age novel about Ronny, who grew up in a trailer alongside his mother and a string of stepfathers, kept his head down, earned good grades and won a scholarship to UNC in Chapel Hill. On campus he finds his first love and begins to sort out who he is. Subjects include gay college students, first loves and mothers and sons. Published by Levine Querido in 2022, 322 pages.
Scott Madry's recollections of the student tech crew at Memorial Hall, the University of North Carolina's auditorium in Chapel Hill, presented under the banner of the Carolina Union, the campus student union. Published in Chapel Hill in 2021.
Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.
Tracy Deonn's young adult fantasy about an African American teenager who arrives as a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after her mother's death and finds a secret society bound to Arthurian legend, with demons, magic and her own family's past. Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books in 2020, 501 pages, for ages 14 and up. Winner of the 2021 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.
Reviewed in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books./Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (2020).
Sylvia D. Hoffert's article on Margaret Anna Burwell, 1810 to 1871, and the work of being a Presbyterian minister's wife in North Carolina from 1835 to 1857, the years of the female school she and her husband kept in Hillsborough. Pages 245 to 275 with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits, issued by the Office of Archives and History in Raleigh in 2019.
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