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Theme

Work, Labor & Industry

The mill villages of Carrboro and the Eno, the trades that kept towns running, and the workers who organized.

In briefMill villages on the Eno and at Carrboro, the trades that kept the towns running, and the workers who organized, from the Regulators at Maddock’s Mill in 1766 to the UNC food workers’ strikes of 1969 and the housekeepers’ movement of the 1990s. The storylines follow Carrboro’s mills, campus labor and farm labor.

821 works about Work, Labor & Industry are indexed here. 11 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
The post office at Carrboro, 1939.

Events and storylines

Named events and storylines the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913The 1882 spur line and depot, West End and Lloydville, the Alberta and Durham Hosiery mills and their villages, Venable’s incorporation in 1911, and the renaming for Julian Carr in 1913 Maddock’s Mill organizing, 1766–1768The Regulator meetings on the Eno that drew up the first petitions UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996The Black cafeteria workers who led the two walkouts of 1969, Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks among them, with the Black Student Movement as their ally, and the housekeepers who organised in the 1990s UNC housekeepers’ movement, 1990–1996The Housekeepers Association’s campaign for pay, respect, and a grievance process, settled in 1996 Black workers and campus laborFrom the enslaved and hired laborers of the university’s first century to the staff of the affirmative-action era: the cooks, janitors, laundresses, and grounds crews whose work ran the campus, mostly unnamed in its records Farm labor in rural Orange CountyTenants, sharecroppers, hired hands, and migrant crews on the county’s tobacco and dairy farms
Show all 18 events and storylines
Eno Cotton Mill and its villageHillsborough’s cotton mill from its first production in 1897, through weaving, its women workers and Cone Mills ownership, to the relocated mill houses and its closing in 1984 Carrboro’s Mill No. 7: munitions plant to woolen mill, 1942–1955The National Munitions shell-loading plant in the old Carr mills and its Army-Navy E awards, its closing in August 1945, and Pacific Mills’ Carrboro Woolen Mills until 1955 The Reverie Lingerie plant, strike and lawsuits, 1955–1962A New York lingerie maker’s sewing plant at Hillsborough: the town’s drive to build it a home, the 1957 strike for a union, the fire that destroyed the struck plant, the labor board’s findings and the arson trial White Furniture union drives, 1956–1964The efforts to organize workers at the White Furniture Company’s Hillsborough and Mebane plants: the 1956 labor board election that rejected the United Furniture Workers, the school auditorium refused to union organizers in 1964, and the election that year that brought the union in Hillsboro’s sewage treatment plant, 1958–1964How Hillsborough came to treat its sewage instead of emptying it raw into the Eno River: the 1958 engineer’s study that found mill dye wastes in the river, the state’s order, the 1962 bond vote and federal grant, and the plant that opened in 1964 Carrboro’s first public schools and school taxes, 1898–1927Carrboro’s schools from a mill house on Center Street to a brick graded school: the frame Carrboro Public School of about 1908, the $25,000 bond vote of 1920, the new building of 1921, and the old schoolhouse’s move to the Methodists Chapel Hill hears the textile labor debate, 1930How the argument over the textile mills came to Chapel Hill in early 1930: Bernard M. Cone’s talk for the manufacturers, Frank Porter Graham’s Industrial Bill of Rights after the Gastonia strike deaths, and William Green’s answer for the American Federation of Labor Building the State University Railroad, 1879–1883How the State University Railroad was built from University Station to Chapel Hill: the 1879 charter, the fight over a Durham route, the convict force and its deaths, the grading and track laying, the first train of February 1882, the last spikes and the mail and telegraph that followed The Bellevue Manufacturing Company, 1904–1919How the Bellevue Manufacturing Company built its cotton mill in West Hillsborough: the land bought for the site, the incorporation under Shepperd Strudwick in 1904, the knitting mill, spinning plant and railroad siding of 1905, and the ginghams and electric power that followed Bridging Morgan Creek: McCauley’s and Merritt’s mills, 1793–1818How the county court bridged Morgan Creek where the Fayetteville road crossed it: Matthew McCauley’s public mill, the bridge site, the commissioners and inspectors, the nine-to-nine vote on Tobias Rogers’s pay, Henry Merritt’s mill and toll bridge and the county’s payment to Merritt in 1818 The summer floods of 1924The rains and floods of the summer of 1924 around Chapel Hill: the wet weeks that ruined crops, the June downpours that took the Morgan Creek bridges, the August 3 cloudburst that carried off Purefoy’s and King’s mills, and the bridges the county rebuilt Saving Carr Mill, 1975–1978How residents saved Carrboro’s former Alberta textile mill from demolition and it became Carr Mill: the 1975 petition and National Register nomination, the partnership that took on its reuse, the town’s 1976 permit and its amendments, and the shopping village, offices and farmers’ market of 1977 and 1978

More storylines

Other storylines that include this theme, in date order. Each has its own page.

StorylineThomas Hart of Hartford, 1757–17821757–1782 · 20 events · Thomas Hart held land, office, mills and trade in colonial Orange, which shows how one man's interests could run together, and why he became unpopular with the Regulators. Granted land on the Eno from 1757, he built Hartford and bought the mill that became Hart's Mill. As sheriff from 1763 he was excused from taxes by the Assembly and found short in his account, and the Regulators whipped him in the 1770 court riot. He supplied Tryon's troops, then sat for Orange in the first Provincial Convention, the Third Provincial Congress and the state Senate before moving to Maryland in 1780 and leaving Hartford to Jesse Benton. StorylineGuns, powder and paper at Hillsborough, 1775–17781775–1778 · 6 events · During the Revolution the Hillsborough merchant William Johnston apparently produced gunpowder, lead and rifle flints at his Snow Hill plantation northeast of the town. In 1776 Nathaniel Rochester was named to a commission to set up a gun factory near Hillsborough and led a wagon train to Philadelphia to get iron for it. On April 24, 1776 the Provincial Congress told three commissioners in each district to set up a public works for muskets and bayonets, gather gunsmiths and pay no more than 5 pounds a gun, and for Hillsborough District it named Johnston, Thomas Burke and Ambrose Ramsey, with up to 1,000 pounds to spend. On November 14, 1777 a notice in the North Carolina Gazette announced a newly built paper mill near Hillsborough and asked households to save linen rags for it. John Hogan owned the mill, a mile and a half northeast of town. In 1778 the Continental officer Absalom Tatom took charge of the state's arsenal at Hillsborough as assistant quartermaster. That summer the gun factory shut down: its shop sat beside a creek on Burke's land about two miles northeast of town, and a dry summer left the creek too low to drive its wheel. The drought slowed the paper mill as well, and the Assembly gave Hogan more time to earn the state's premium for paper. StorylineThe Bentons at Hartford: Jesse Benton and the young Thomas Hart Benton, 1780–17991780–1799 · 10 events · When Thomas Hart left Orange in 1780, Hartford and its mills passed to Jesse Benton, and his letters to Hart show what the war and the drought of 1782 cost the place. Benton backed the Science Hall academy and claimed 23,931 acres in the west, but he died in 1790 with his estate heavily in debt, and his will let his executors sell Hartford and its mills. His son Thomas Hart Benton, born in 1782 and later a U.S. senator from Missouri, left Hartford for the university and was expelled from the Philanthropic Society in March 1799 for taking his roommates' money. StorylineDurham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–18811854–1881 · 63 events · The North Carolina Railroad reached Durham's Station in December 1854, and flour and then tobacco went out by rail; a small smoking-tobacco factory opened by the depot in 1858. After the war Washington Duke began making smoking tobacco, the Dukes moved into a Durham factory in 1870, and by 1877 the town counted four sale warehouses and about fourteen factories. Hillsborough tobacco firms moved there, and in 1881 Durham County was formed from Orange over Hillsborough's protest. StorylineHillsborough's tobacco market: factories and warehouses, 1877–18911877–1891 · 17 events · Hillsborough built up a tobacco market of warehouses and factories between 1877 and 1891, though the firms behind it dissolved or changed hands again and again. Pogue's warehouse held its opening sale in 1877, and in 1882 Major H. P. Jones received what the Observer called the first cablegram ever sent to Hillsborough, a Liverpool order for his Tar Heel smoking tobacco. In 1886 the Hookers' Central Warehouse gave the town a second warehouse. The Webb & Co. firm dissolved in 1887, A. A. Springs assigned his business in 1888, and Hooker & Crisp dissolved in 1889. E. A. Rosemond bought the Central Warehouse and in 1891 opened his warehouse at prices that pleased the farmers. StorylineThe last trains on the Chapel Hill branch, 1888–19371888–1937 · 4 events · Passenger service on the ten-mile branch between University Station and Carrboro ended as car ownership spread and roads improved. Captain Fred Smith became the branch's conductor on October 16, 1888. Effective January 1, 1924, the Southern Railway put the line under a separate corporation, to be operated as the State University Railroad Company, the News reported. The State Utilities Commission let the railroad drop passenger service, and the last passenger train ran on October 24, 1936, a trip some Chapel Hill and Carrboro people made into a railway picnic. The freight train was taken off by January 8, 1937, and Smith retired after 47 years as the line's conductor, kept on by the Southern Railway as a freight solicitor.
Show all 15 storylines
StorylineHillsborough's roller mill, 1893–19641893–1964 · 7 events · When a contractor razed Walker Milling Co.'s three-story landmark on Court Square in 1964 to clear the lot for parking, historical groups asked the commissioners to save it, but by a split vote they agreed only to buy its old handmade bricks for resale. The story began in 1893, when Jackson Crabtree's new Hillsboro Roller Mills started turning out flour. In 1900 the Hillsboro Milling and Manufacturing Company organized under Dr. C. D. Jones, and Crabtree later sold it the old river mill. By 1917 Houston J. Walker and his brother had bought the roller mill. In 1963 Charles M. Walker Jr. said he would close the business, and the commissioners bought the mill and its lot for $25,000. StorylineHerbert Lloyd's gin and grist mill at Carrboro, 1898–19211898–1921 · 3 events · Fire struck again and again at the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks at Carrboro, whose frame buildings had started the settlement in the early 1880s. Herbert Lloyd ran it from about 1898. His roller mill burned and was not rebuilt, and by August 1919 he was rebuilding a cotton gin partly destroyed by fire the fall before; the News urged him to restore the roller mill for the farmers' sake. A brick grist mill later replaced the burned frame buildings, but about 1921 lightning set a fire that burned out its interior. It was soon repaired, and W. Albert Lloyd is said to have made it a grocery and his home. StorylineThe Occoneechee Mountain quarry, its convicts and its Italian laborers, 1900–19061900–1906 · 6 events · Convicts did much of the work at the Southern Stone Company's quarry on Occoneechee Mountain, begun in the late 1800s, whose gravel surfaced Hillsborough's sidewalks and crossings by 1902. In early 1903 more than a hundred state convicts came from Mitchell County, and another gang from Raleigh, to get out stone for ballasting the North Carolina Railroad. That April a guard shot dead a convict named Stevens, who was serving thirty years for murder, when he broke for liberty. In January 1904 the state convicts were taken back to the penitentiary at Raleigh. In August 1906 nearly thirty Italian workers came to work in the quarry, and quarrying on the mountain went on at least until about 1910. StorylineSouthern Power and electric service, 1911–19191911–1919 · 4 events · By June 1911 Duke's Southern Power Company had carried its line of towers across Orange County, and within a few years it had a generating plant in the county and was bringing electric power to its mills. In 1915 the company built a coal-fired steam plant beside the Eno near University Station as a backup for its hydroelectric stations, and by July 1916, with flooding shutting the river stations, it was sending current as far as Charlotte. That October the company surveyed a line to Carrboro to power the mills and light the town. In West Hillsborough the steam-driven Bellevue mill ran partly on electricity by 1919 and completely by the mid-1920s. StorylineDurham Hosiery's Carrboro mills through the Depression and after, 1928–19421928–1942 · 8 events · Falling demand for cotton stockings, and then the Depression, led Durham Hosiery Mills to close its Carrboro mills, and Carrboro people had to find other work. The company began curtailing work in 1928 and about June 1930 closed its No. 4 spinning mill. A yarn mill went back to full time in 1932, but in June 1938 the company closed Mill No. 7, its last Carrboro mill, putting about 140 people out of work. In 1939 it auctioned much of its Carrboro property, many houses going to the families living in them. By 1940, the Weekly reported, University wages had made up much of the loss, and in 1942 a munitions plant was hiring mostly from Carrboro and nearby. StorylineThe Belle Vue mill after Belle-Vue Manufacturing, 1957–19621957–1962 · 5 events · After 1957 the Belle Vue mill in West Hillsboro, which employed about 300 people, passed through a series of New York owners and operators, closed, and in 1962 drew a new occupant. In October 1957 the William L. Barrell Company acquired Hesslein and Company, which had owned Belle Vue Manufacturing since 1945. In 1958 a Barrell vice president said the county's valuation of the mill machinery was out of line with what Barrell had paid. On March 24, 1959 Belle-Vue Manufacturing filed articles of dissolution, and in April Barrell leased the operations to a New York firm. In May 1962 Hillsboro Mills, a subsidiary of a Massachusetts textile firm, announced it would occupy the closed plant. StorylineThe farm workers' boycotts, 1972–19761972–1976 · 10 events · From 1972 Chapel Hill supporters of the United Farm Workers backed the union's boycotts of non-union lettuce, grapes and wines. They persuaded the campus food service to buy union lettuce in 1972, and in 1974 the Chapel Hill Friends of the United Farm Workers picketed a grocery, a wine shop and a Carolina Inn banquet for Gloria Steinem, who carried her salad outside. Cesar Chavez spoke in Memorial Hall for the boycotts in 1974, and in 1976 the group picketed a Gallo-funded Olympic benefit dance on campus. StorylineOWASA’s quarry reservoir, 1979–19911979–1991 · 5 events · OWASA leased a stone quarry on N.C. 54 in 1979 as a drought reserve, drew on it when University Lake fell in the 1980 drought, and bought the old American Stone Company quarry in 1981. Vandals drained 10 million gallons from it in 1986. In 1991 neighbors objected to a joint application by American Stone and OWASA to expand the company's quarry into a future reservoir of about 3 billion gallons. StorylineCarrboro’s attempts at local historic districts, 1983–19931983–1993 · 4 events · Carrboro's aldermen began studying local historic district zoning in 1983, and its commercial district entered the National Register in 1985. Residents' opposition led the aldermen to table a district in 1989, and in 1993 a proposal for local historic districts failed by one vote.

Indexed works

Works about Work, Labor & Industry from library and archive catalogs. The most widely held appear first; novels are not shown here. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 235Periodicals 195Reports 126Letters & correspondence 80Photographs & portraits 68other types 206

Period

18th century 67Revolution (1775–1783) 4719th century 78Civil War (1861–1865) 14Reconstruction (1865–1877) 720th century 81World War II era 821st century 5

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 597Orange County 443Chapel Hill 273Alamance County (neighboring) 151Hillsborough 98Chatham County (neighboring) 47

Widely held

Johnston and Robson Mill History, New Hope Creek (Orange Co., N.C.)

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

Stewart E. Dunaway's history of the two mills George Johnston built on New Hope Creek in Orange County, the first in 1793 and the second in 1820, the earlier of which he sold to the Englishman William Robson. Self-published in 2010, 256 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles. Topics include gristmills in Orange County and the Blackwood, Johnston, Robinson and Robson families, so the volume serves both mill history and genealogy.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Grain -- Milling -- North Carolina.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY UNC Duke Durham NC Cardinal

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Employees.

✓ Held at OCPL · 973.7 FLEISCHN NC Cardinal Library of Congress UNC

History of Patterson Mill, New Hope Creek, Orange County, NC

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

Stewart E. Dunaway's 2010 study of Patterson Mill, a gristmill site on New Hope Creek where Orange County meets Chatham County. The book pairs a short genealogy of the Patterson family with a close survey of what remains of the mill on land now inside Duke Forest, supported by maps, facsimile documents and illustrations across 176 pages. Self-published in a second issue dated October 10, 2010.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Grain -- Milling -- North Carolina.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC

A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research Triangle Park

Link, Albert N. · 1995 · Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina

Albert N. Link's early history of Research Triangle Park, published in 1995 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in the state, with the park's own history at the center. 149 pages with illustrations and maps.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Research, Industrial -- North Carolina -- History.

Chapel Hill PL NC Cardinal Library of Congress

From seed to harvest

Link, Albert N. · 2002 · Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina

Albert N. Link's history of the Research Triangle Park, the research park founded to draw on the universities at Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, published in 2002 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina in 278 pages with illustrations. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in North Carolina and the history of the park itself.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Library of Congress record: Research, Industrial -- North Carolina -- History.

NC Cardinal Library of Congress

Sheer Resilience : An Untold Story of A Free Community of Color in Orange County, N.C

Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2024

Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Apprentices -- North Carolina -- Orange County.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 306.363 SCARLETT
Show 2 more

Working for A Living

Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Industrial Arts -- Orange County (N.C) -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 ORANGE

The East Asian collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Bolick, Hsi-Chu · 2010

Hsi-Chu Bolick's 2010 account of the East Asian collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed as an article running from page 280 to page 292 with illustrations and portraits. Topics include East Asian libraries in Chapel Hill, library resources for East Asia, and the university's cooperation with Duke in building the collection.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Employees.

UNC

Recently indexed: A.M. Wednesday (1984) · Alexander Boyd Andrews (1894) · [Charts prepared as part of a series of studies of Soviet industrial production and planning conducted by the Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina, 1951-1958] (1954) · Development of a questionnaire for the measurement of role stress in entry level master's occupational therapy students (1984) · Employee health service : six-year-old facility at North Carolina Memorial Hospital follows principles endorsed by AMA and AHA (1958) · Folk-plays of the Carolina Playmakers : first production of Strike song, a new play of Southern mill people (1931)

Search all 821 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.

  • Foundational · NC 338.476 GLA The Textile Industry in North Carolina: A History Glass, Brent D. · 1992

    A history of North Carolina's textile industry by Brent D. Glass, published in 1992 by the state Division of Archives and History; xiv and 119 illustrated pages with a bibliography and index. Glass, a public historian with a doctorate from Chapel Hill, later directed the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

  • Start here · NC 975.656 BROWNING Valley Of The Eno : Some Of Its Lands - Some Of Its People - Some Of Its Mills Browning, Hugh Conway · 1973

    Hugh Conway Browning's 1973 history of the Eno River valley, subtitled some of its lands, some of its people, some of its mills, treating the tracts, families and water mills along the river in Orange and Durham counties. Among the people it covers is William Andrew Browning, 1835 to 1916.

  • Start here · 362.85 GILL Going to Carolina Del Norte: Narrating Mexican Migrant Experiences Gill, Hannah · 2006

    Stories of Mexican migrants told through a collaboration of the anthropologist Hannah Gill, the artist Todd Drake and migrant communities in Carrboro and Celaya, Guanajuato, subtitled narrating Mexican migrant experiences. It deals with migrant labor and Mexican workers in Carrboro and emigration from Celaya. Published by the University Center for International Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006, 78 pages with color illustrations.

Show 6 more
  • Wider context · NC 338.097 TUL Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont Tullos, Allen · 1989

    Allen Tullos follows the Carolina Piedmont's turn from farms to cotton mills, setting the stories of entrepreneurial families such as the Dukes, Loves and Tompkinses beside the recollections of the white men and women who went into the mills. Oral histories, many recalling the Depression years, carry much of the account, with attention to mill paternalism and the region's religious life. UNC Press, 1989; 419 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · NC 306.363 SCARLETT Sheer Resilience : An Untold Story of A Free Community of Color in Orange County, N.C Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2024

    Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORANGE Working for A Living: A Special Exhibit by the Orange County Historical Museum, March-December 2024 Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

    Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.

  • Foundational · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY Johnston and Robson Mill History, New Hope Creek (Orange Co., N.C.) Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

    Stewart E. Dunaway's history of the two mills George Johnston built on New Hope Creek in Orange County, the first in 1793 and the second in 1820, the earlier of which he sold to the Englishman William Robson. Self-published in 2010, 256 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles. Topics include gristmills in Orange County and the Blackwood, Johnston, Robinson and Robson families, so the volume serves both mill history and genealogy.

  • Foundational · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY History of Patterson Mill, New Hope Creek, Orange County, NC Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

    Stewart E. Dunaway's 2010 study of Patterson Mill, a gristmill site on New Hope Creek where Orange County meets Chatham County. The book pairs a short genealogy of the Patterson family with a close survey of what remains of the mill on land now inside Duke Forest, supported by maps, facsimile documents and illustrations across 176 pages. Self-published in a second issue dated October 10, 2010.

  • Wider context · NC 677.21 ROC Rocky Mount Mills: A Case History of Industrial Development, 1818-1943 1943

    The company history of Rocky Mount Mills, issued in 1943, 125 years after the cotton mill was founded at the falls of the Tar River by a group that included Joel Battle. North Carolina's second cotton mill, it ran on enslaved labor until the 1850s, was burned by Union raiders in 1863 and was rebuilt after the war. Fifty pages with portraits, a map and a color frontispiece.

In the chronology

A selection of 12 events from the 765 chronology entries for this theme, including highlights and examples from different years. See all 765 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Synnott's Mill is at work on the Eno River A water mill known as Synnott's Mill was already running on the Eno before Orange County was formed. It is the earliest Eno mill Mattson names. Place: Eno RiverSearch the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Richard L. Mattson, History and Architecture of Orange County (1996), p. 7
  2. The North Carolina Railroad is chartered and built The General Assembly chartered the North Carolina Railroad in 1849, after Senate speaker Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote. The state built the 223-mile line from Goldsboro to Charlotte between 1851 and 1856, running it through Hillsborough, and the first train ran its full length in January 1856. Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Calvin Graves · Also mentions: North Carolina RailroadIn the index: North Carolina Railroad Company · Documenting the American South: Railroads in North Carolina
  3. Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough. People: George Kirkland, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Place: St. Louis, Missouri; earlier Hillsborough connection · Also named: Elizabeth Keckly, James KecklyNCpedia
  4. H. P. Jones ships two hundred cases of Tar Heel smoking tobacco from Hillsborough to Georgia The Recorder reported that Jones had lately shipped two hundred cases of his Tar Heel brand smoking tobacco to Georgia and held orders for a hundred more. People: Halcott P. Jones Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 21, 1872, p. 3
  5. The Hillsboro Milling Company is chartered The Hillsboro Milling and Manufacturing Company raised its cash and organized in early August 1900, with Dr. C. D. Jones as president, Dr. J. S. Spurgeon as vice president and H. W. Webb as secretary and treasurer, and the state granted its charter, with $10,000 in capital stock, about August 16. It planned a roller mill and a shuttle-block factory in the Webbs' brick building east of the courthouse. By early 1901 it had put in a corn mill and was buying wheat. People: H. Winder Webb Place: brick mill east of the courthouse, Hillsborough · Also named: C. D. Jones, J. S. SpurgeonSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Union Republican, December 13, 1900, p. 4 · Also: DigitalNC newspaper, January 25, 1901, p. 1; Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 14, 1901, p. 3; DigitalNC newspaper, April 14, 1909, p. 6; Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 9, 1900, p. 3; Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 23, 1900, p. 3
  6. Hillsboro saw mill and lumber man Thomas D. Tinnin dies Thomas D. Tinnin, about 77, a well known Hillsboro citizen who had been in the saw mill and lumber business in the section for several years, died at Hillsboro on the night of Tuesday, February 6, 1923, after a short illness. Place: Hillsboro · Also named: Thomas D. TinninSearch the index · The News (Chapel Hill), February 8, 1923, p. 7
  7. The government sues Carrboro's National Munitions Corporation over war profits The federal government filed two suits in the Durham division of the middle district federal court asking National Munitions Corporation of Carrboro to repay $2,200,000 in excessive profits on Navy contracts: $1,600,000 for the year ending July 31, 1944, and $600,000 for the next year. The government said the company had paid nothing after the price adjustment boards ruled. Place: National Munitions plant (Mill No. 7), CarrboroSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 25, 1947, p. 1
  8. UNC limits new employees' temporary status to 90 days Vice Chancellor J. C. Eagles Jr. announced that new University employees would be reviewed after 90 days and either made permanent or let go, with temporary status never running past 180 days. Striking food workers had complained that some full-time workers of long standing were still classed as temporary and denied benefits. Place: University, Chapel Hill · Also named: J. C. Eagles Jr.The Daily Tar Heel, March 2, 1969, p. 1
  9. Space Builders, a worker-owned construction cooperative, forms in Carrboro In July 1978 five people started Space Builders, a construction-management cooperative in Carrboro jointly owned by its workers, half of them women, which favored passive solar houses and built the Papagayo restaurant in NCNB Plaza. By June 1979 it had eight worker-owners. Place: CarrboroSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, June 21, 1979, p. 8
  10. UNC Housekeepers organize for pay and respect UNC housekeepers formed the Housekeepers Association in 1991 and brought a class-action discrimination suit against the University over pay, advancement and treatment. Led by Marsha Tinnen and Barbara Prear, they signed a settlement with UNC on November 26, 1996, that brought raises, a career training program and monthly meetings with administrators. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Marsha Tinnen, Barbara PrearThe Daily Tar Heel, November 27, 1996, p. 1: UNC, Housekeepers near end of legal battle
  11. Carrboro backs a study of turning the old University Railroad line into a greenway The Town Council unanimously approved an agreement to study converting the 11-mile rail corridor, which still carries coal to UNC's cogeneration plant, into a multi-use trail once the plant stops using coal. Place: CarrboroChapelboro: Carrboro Commits to New Co-Gen Rail Line Project
  12. Drakeford Library Complex opens Orange County's Southern Branch Library opened in February 2025 in the $42 million Drakeford Library Complex at 203 South Greensboro Street in Carrboro, replacing the Carrboro Cybrary, which had closed on January 31, 2025. The building, named for Robert Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor, also houses town recreation offices and WCOM Radio. Place: Carrboro · Also named: Robert Bob Drakeford, Robert DrakefordThe Local Reporter: Southern Branch Library has a "soft opening" (February 12, 2025)

See all 765 dated events in the chronology →

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 50 with a known location.

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.

Show 58 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this subject. Research guide: How to research with Orange County Indexed.

Background

National Register files 5

Show all 5

Historic sites, markers, and maps

Records of the time

Collections and databases 7

Show all 7

Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss Work, Labor & Industry directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Bringing Textile History to Life in Alamance County North Carolina Pace, Miriam M. · 2019

    Cotton milling in Alamance County in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, told through the Holt and Green families and the Holts' mill village at Glencoe, built 1880 to 1882, and its plaids. Miriam M. Pace, an archive specialist, wrote it for the Creative Short Book Writer Project of Burlington in 2019; 113 pages with maps, portraits, facsimiles and an index. Alamance was formed from Orange County in 1849.

    Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: Holt family; Green family; Holt's Glencoe Plaids OCPL call number: NC 338.476 PACE

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