Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Theme

UNC & Campus Life

Students, faculty, buildings, departments, activism, and athletics.

In briefChartered in 1789 and opened in 1795, the university made Chapel Hill and has shaped the county ever since: its buildings and departments, its students’ politics from the Speaker Ban to the 1970 strike, and the workers who kept it running. The storylines here follow desegregation, Silent Sam, the Navy Pre-Flight School, the Playmakers and the medical center.

10,126 works about UNC & Campus Life are indexed here. 68 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
University of North Carolina, 1797
University of North Carolina, 1797

Events and storylines

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

The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–1795The 1789 charter, the trustees’ 1792 choice of New Hope Chapel Hill at their Hillsborough meeting, the Old East cornerstone of October 1793, and the first students of 1795 Speaker Ban controversy, 1962–1968The law barring “visiting speakers” from state campuses, the 1966 wall speeches and Dickson v. Sitterson Black student activism at UNCThe Black Student Movement and the campaigns it led from 1967 on Silent SamThe Confederate monument on McCorkle Place, its 1913 dedication and its 2018 toppling Killing of James Cates, 1970The Chapel Hill man killed in the Pit at UNC in November 1970; headings are still being sought Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1933–1955Five Black students began law school classes on June 22, 1951, after the courts barred the university from refusing them; the first Black undergraduates, the Frasier brothers and John Brandon, followed in 1955
Show all 115 events and storylines
UNC’s student strike against the Vietnam War, May 1970After the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings, some 6,000 students joined a strike that suspended business as usual on campus 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 The movement for a freestanding Black Cultural Center, 1990–1994Students, faculty, staff, and athletes campaigned for a building of its own, the struggle that led to the Sonja Haynes Stone Center The Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, 1942–1945The wartime cadet school that filled the campus with aviation trainees, remade its athletics fields, and left the town a record in photographs The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC PressFrederick Koch’s folk-play company of 1918 and the university press of 1922, the two institutions that made Chapel Hill a literary place UNC expansion and neighborhood changeThe university’s growth into the streets around it: land taking, campus planning, student housing pressure, and the neighborhoods that changed 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 North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 1952The state’s Good Health Plan built a teaching hospital at Chapel Hill; it admitted its first patients on 2 September 1952, and the hospitals and School of Medicine that grew around it made the town a medical center Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha, 2015Three students killed at their Chapel Hill home on February 10, 2015, and how the university and town remembered them The university closes and reopensReconstruction Republicans took control of the trustees in 1868, Solomon Pool’s presidency emptied the campus, the university closed in 1871, and in 1875 the legislature revived it and Cornelia Phillips Spencer rang the bell WUNC radio and television, 1951–1955The university’s educational broadcasting: the FM station permitted in 1951 and on the air in 1952, the application and permit for Channel 4, and WUNC-TV’s first broadcasts in January 1955 Roads and bridges to the new University, 1793–1817The roads the county court laid out to the University and its village from Hillsborough, the Haw River ferries, the Chatham line and Raleigh, beginning from Franklin Street, and the bridges over New Hope and Ben’s creeks on the Raleigh road Fluoridating Chapel Hill’s and Hillsboro’s water, 1951–1964How Chapel Hill and Hillsboro came to add fluoride to their water: Chapel Hill’s 1951 vote, the Lions Club campaign and Hillsboro’s start in 1960, the University’s postal poll, the lawsuit that held Chapel Hill back, and the aldermen’s pressure until fluoridation began in 1964 Chapel Hill’s schools leave West Franklin Street, 1963–1969How the Chapel Hill schools sold their downtown tract on West Franklin Street and moved out: the search for new sites, the $1 million sale, the coed dormitory and shops that took the land, and the new junior high and integrated high school UNC’s Univac computer, 1958–1966The Univac computer the University bought in 1958: its arrival at Phillips Hall, the computation center John W. Carr III directed, the journal he edited there, and the Census Bureau’s use of the machine to tabulate the 1960 census Hazing at the University and the death of Isaac Rand, 1906–1913Hazing at the University from a 1906 shooting to the death of freshman Isaac William Rand in 1912: the attack on the freshman cottage, the faculty inquiry and dismissals, the pulpit and legislative response, and the manslaughter trial at Hillsborough The University’s Carnegie library and Hill Music Hall, 1906–1930How the University built its library with Andrew Carnegie’s gift: the endowment raised in 1906, the start of construction and the electrical contract, the Masons’ cornerstone at the 1907 commencement, and the opening that fall of the building later named Hill Hall The Graham Memorial, 1918–1932The University’s memorial to President Edward Kidder Graham, who died of influenza in 1918: the memorial service, the student, town and county drives for a $150,000 student building, his collected addresses and his son’s care, and the building’s completion as the student union in 1931 Planning the University’s growth and the south quadrangle, 1917–1922How the University planned its postwar growth and turned it southward: John Nolen’s campus studies and 1919 plan, the trustees’ decision to build toward the south end, the consulting architects, and the first dormitories behind South Building, among them Steele and Mangum Chapel Hill’s movie houses and the Pickwick fire, 1916–1924The picture shows of Chapel Hill and Carrboro from the Tar Heel Theatre and the Pickwick in 1916 to Henry Guthrie’s picture house, the parish-house shows for children, the Pickwick fire and rebuilding in 1924, and the Standard, opened by and for Black residents Paving Chapel Hill’s streets, 1924–1931How Chapel Hill paved its streets from 1924: the owners’ petitions for curb and gutter, Franklin and Columbia streets paved curb to curb, the Ziegler Brothers contracts with the University and the state, new parking rules, the West Franklin plan, and the street bonds Gimghoul Castle at Piney Prospect, 1923–1931How the Order of Gimghouls built its castle at Piney Prospect: the 1924 vote to build at Dromgoole Rock, the sale of the old lodge lot on Rosemary Lane, the Valdese stonemasons and the stone hauled in, and the stone seat for Kemp P. Battle Kenan Memorial Stadium, 1926–1988How Kenan Memorial Stadium was built: William R. Kenan Jr.’s gift, the trustees’ choice of the ravine site, the town’s complaints about blasting, the concrete stands, Kenan’s added $28,000, and the opening game and Thanksgiving Day dedication of 1927 The short route to Raleigh: the old Raleigh road, the Nelson road and Route 54, 1925–1929How Chapel Hill got its short route to Raleigh and its state roads east and west: the county’s vote and reversal on the old Raleigh road, the write-in protest that followed, the state’s takeover of the Nelson and Calvander roads, the Carrboro link, and Route 54 The Chapel Hill school as a University training school, 1926–1927How the Chapel Hill school became a training school of the University’s school of education in 1927: the new women faculty, the opening under E. R. Mosher, the school board’s borrowing, the parents’ protest over double sessions, and Mosher’s resignation The new University library, 1926–1929How the University got its new library, later Wilson Library: the trustees’ $861,000 request in 1926, the $625,000 the 1927 legislature allowed, the steam shovel on the south edge of the campus in 1928, and the dedication of October 19, 1929 The fraternity house boom and the University’s land, 1922–1930The big fraternity houses built in Chapel Hill from 1922 to 1930: the Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue courts, the trustees’ stand against selling University land, the Phi Delta Theta fire, the new fraternity colony on the Pittsboro highway, and the Daily Tar Heel’s count Old Memorial Hall condemned and replaced, 1929–1931How the University’s old Memorial Hall was closed in 1929 when its roof arches were found rotted, torn down in February 1930 and replaced by the new Memorial Hall with its Doric portico, dedicated in October 1931 with the old hall’s benches and tablets The University’s hard year and the choice of Frank Graham, 1930The University’s spring of 1930 as the Weekly and the record tell it: Harry Woodburn Chase’s move to Illinois, the trustees’ search committee, the loss of Dean Addison Hibbard and Howard Mumford Jones, a 20 percent budget cut, and the June election of Frank Porter Graham Chapel Hill’s business failures, 1930The run of Chapel Hill store failures in the first months of 1930: the Patterson Brothers drugstore, Moore-Johnson Hardware and S. Berman’s store, the civic clubs’ buy-at-home campaign, the University Cafeteria’s sale, and the businesses that took the empty stores The Morehead-Patterson bell tower, 1930–1931The building of the Morehead-Patterson bell tower on the University campus: the chime of twelve bells and the clock ordered in 1930, the first sounding of the bells and the clock’s striking in September 1931, and the Thanksgiving Day dedication Building University Lake, 1930–1932How the University dammed Morgan Creek to make University Lake: the earlier water line, the 1930 drought, the start of work in 1931, the end of Matthew McCauley’s old mill dam, the rising water and fish stocking of 1932, and the lake’s first filling Consolidating the University, 1931–1936How Chapel Hill, State College and the Greensboro college became one University of North Carolina: the 1931 act, the 1932 survey and commission plan, the trustees’ rejection of a chancellor, Frank P. Graham’s election, and the 1934 deans of administration The 1933 bank holiday in Orange CountyThe national bank holiday of March 1933 in Chapel Hill and Carrboro: the Bank of Chapel Hill’s closing and reopening, the merchants who kept taking checks, the University’s postponed recess, and the closing of the bank’s Carrboro branch that April Chapel Hill and the 1933 school law: the special district and the ninth monthHow Chapel Hill kept the right to tax itself for its school under the 1933 school law: the board’s petition, the State School Commission’s ruling and reversal, the enlarged district, the dispute over the registrar, and the October vote for a ninth month The Civil Works Administration in Orange County, 1933–1934The Civil Works Administration in Orange County from November 1933 to March 1934: George H. Lawrence’s projects and quota, the work on Hillsborough’s courthouse square and library, Chapel Hill’s streets, the creek, schools and campus, the February cuts, and the program’s end Person Hall becomes the University’s art museum, 1933–1937How Civil Works and relief labor and private gifts turned Person Hall into the University’s art museum: the work begun and stopped in 1934, Katherine Pendleton Arrington’s part, the federal grant that restarted it, and the plans announced that December Woollen Gymnasium, the Bowman Gray Pool and the first women’s dormitories, 1935–1941How the University built its new gymnasium, the Bowman Gray pool and its first dormitory for women with a PWA grant: the 1936 grant, the work begun in 1937, the presentation of the gymnasium, the pool’s opening and the naming for Charles T. Woollen The University’s medical building, 1937–1939The University’s new medical building from William deB. MacNider’s appointment as dean in 1937 to the formal opening in December 1939: the PWA grant, the choice of a site on the Pittsboro road, the move of medicine and public health, and the building’s cost The University’s PWA building program of 1938–1941The University’s second round of PWA building, from the 1938 special legislative session to the buildings finished in 1940: the dining hall, the new dormitories, the Carolina Inn addition, the power plant on West Cameron Avenue and the rebuilt Bynum Gymnasium, Alumni Building and Gerrard Hall The Institute of Government’s building, 1935–1939How Albert Coates built a home for the Institute of Government: the campus site and PWA grant of 1935, the grant’s withdrawal in 1936, the Franklin Street lots cleared in 1938, the private gifts and loan that paid for it, and the November 1939 dedication The University’s new athletic field, 1933–1936The University’s new athletic field on the Raleigh road, graded by Civil Works crews in the winter of 1933-34, finished with relief labor in 1935 after a halt in Emergency Relief work, and dedicated as Fetzer Field in May 1936 The Graham Plan dispute, 1936The 1936 dispute over President Frank P. Graham’s Southern Conference eligibility rules: the trustees’ referral to the faculties, the Chapel Hill faculty’s 80 to 40 vote to approve them, and Carl Snavely’s departure for Cornell that spring The hard winter of 1935–1936Chapel Hill’s winter of 1935-36, the coldest since 1899 by the town’s weather records: the snow and ice from before Christmas, the 6-degree morning in January, the foot of snow in February, and the colds and influenza that closed the school Carolina Political Union speakers, 1937–1938Three speakers the student Carolina Political Union brought to Memorial Hall in 1937 and 1938: Klan leader Hiram W. Evans, Soviet ambassador Alexander Troyanovsky and German ambassador Hans Dieckhoff, with the questions each faced The 1939 law ending University merchandisingHow a 1939 state law forbidding the University to sell merchandise in competition with citizens moved its coal and appliance trade to Bennett and Blocksidge, with their new Carrboro coal yard, and the Carolina Sports Shop John Kenfield opened that fall The Horace Williams Airport, 1940–2018How the University turned Chapel Hill’s small airfield into the Horace Williams Airport: the 1940 purchase and Williams’s land gift, the civilian pilot training, the WPA grading, the hangar fire of 1941, the new road from North Columbia Street and the wartime flights over the field Rebuilding the Forest Theatre in stone, 1939–1943How the Forest Theatre in Battle Park was rebuilt in local stone with WPA labor: the approval of 1939, the work begun under Al Bell in 1940, the first public event and first Playmakers play in 1941, and President Graham’s dedication in May 1943 The drought and forest fires of fall 1941The dry fall of 1941 in and around Chapel Hill: the drought and October heat that pushed the pipeline from University Lake to its limit, the University power plant cut loose from Duke Power to escape the power curtailment, and the forest fires fought by the Black CCC crews Raising Old East and building Old West and Gerrard Hall, 1821–1837How the University raised Old East a story and built Old West and Gerrard Hall to William Nichols’s designs: the trustees’ vote of about 1821, the enslaved men who did much of the work, the settled accounts, the naming of Gerrard Hall and its completion in 1837 The University’s debts and the sale of its Tennessee lands, 1830–1837How the University’s trustees worked their way out of debt in the 1830s: the crisis of 1830, the state loan they refused, the land and bank stock sales, the executive committee of 1835, the sale of the Tennessee lands and the endowment put into Bank of the State shares Joseph Caldwell’s last years and the choice of David L. Swain, 1833–1837How the University passed from its first president to its next: Joseph Caldwell’s illness and Elisha Mitchell’s acting presidency, Caldwell’s death and the mourning in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, the delayed election, David L. Swain’s arrival and the busts and monument made in Caldwell’s memory Benjamin Hedrick, the scientific school and his dismissal, 1851–1862How Benjamin Hedrick went from first honors to the University’s chair of agricultural chemistry in its new scientific school, and how his 1856 support for Fremont led to effigy burnings, the faculty’s disavowal, his dismissal by the trustees and, in 1862, his removal from the Presbyterian roll Fraternities come to the University despite the trustees’ ban, 1842–1859How Greek-letter fraternities came to the University in the 1850s although the trustees had banned secret societies in 1842: Delta Kappa Epsilon and Phi Gamma Delta in 1851, Beta Theta Pi, Delta Psi, Phi Kappa Sigma, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Zeta Psi, and their lapse as war approached The death of Elisha Mitchell and the University’s mourning, 1857–1858How Chapel Hill and the University marked the death of Professor Elisha Mitchell on the Black Mountains in June 1857: the town meeting, the commissioners’ and students’ resolutions, the faculty’s sermon and eulogy, the care of his widow, his books and cabinet, and his successor 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 Building Memorial Hall, 1883–1885How a proposed monument to David L. Swain became Memorial Hall: Governor Jarvis’s promise at the 1883 commencement, the prison brick, the winter halt, the canvass for memorial tablets, the architect’s death, Paul C. Cameron’s loan and the dedication of June 3, 1885 The killing of student Jacob Freeze and the trials, 1886–1887How the killing of University student Jacob A. Freeze at Chapel Hill in October 1886 went through the courts: the clash at Jack Barbee’s house, the indictment of five Black men, the manslaughter convictions at Hillsborough, a failed jail break and the trip to the penitentiary George T. Winston’s presidency of the University, 1890–1896How George T. Winston led the University from 1891 to 1896: Kemp Battle’s move to the new chair of history, Winston’s election and inauguration, the fraternity ruling, the fights in the legislatures of 1893 and 1895, the growing rolls and his departure for Texas Heading the new University: Ker, Harris, Gillaspie and Caldwell, 1794–1799How the new University was led in its first years: David Ker as presiding professor, the first student dismissed, the trustees’ tavern rules, Charles Wilson Harris’s months in charge, Joseph Caldwell’s arrival, James Smiley Gillaspie as principal and the student rising of 1799 that returned Caldwell to the head Person Hall and the Main Building (South Building), 1796–1814How the University finished its first chapel and its Main Building, later South Building: Thomas Person’s gift and Person Hall, Charles Gerrard’s Tennessee lands, the Masonic cornerstone of 1798, the roofless walls, the lotteries, William Polk’s appeal, Joseph Caldwell’s subscription tours and the students’ move in 1814 Robert H. Chapman’s presidency of the University, 1812–1816How Robert H. Chapman’s four years as president of the University unfolded: Joseph Caldwell’s step back to teaching, Chapman’s Bible study and the Chapel Hill Presbyterians, the raids on his property, the Shepard rebellion of 1816, the powder bomb, his resignation and Caldwell’s return The University’s building program, 1923–1925How the University spent the building money the legislature gave it in 1923: the trustees’ division of the fund, Old East and Old West rebuilt inside their old walls, the new roads and the three dormitories across the Raleigh road, the Tin Can, the Swain Hall fire, Venable Hall and the first building for women students Opposing the Vietnam War in Chapel Hill, 1965–1973How students, faculty and townspeople in Chapel Hill opposed the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1969: the early silent walks and fasts, the Wednesday vigil at the post office, the speakers and debates, draft counseling and draft resistance, the Dow Chemical sit-in and the Moratorium day of October 1969 Chapel Hill after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., April 1968How Chapel Hill and the University answered the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968: the Black Student Movement’s memorial service and march, the mayor’s proclamation and the early closing downtown, the vigil and memorial services, the mourning walkout of April 9 and the proposed King committee The Black Student Movement’s demands, 1968–1969How the Black Student Movement’s 23 demands of December 1968 were pressed and answered: the visits to South Building, the Faculty Council’s recruiting steps, Chancellor Sitterson’s reply, the marches of February 1969, the BSM’s recognition and its own court, and the start of Afro-American Studies Women’s hours, visitation and coed housing at UNC, 1965–1974How UNC’s rules on women students’ hours and on visits in the residence halls changed from 1965 to 1969: the nurses’ lie-in, women moving into Joyner and Connor and off campus, the march over closing hours, self-limiting hours, and the visitation petition, marches and open-house experiment Residence colleges and Hinton James, 1965–1971How UNC grouped its dormitories into residence colleges from 1965 to 1969 and built Hinton James: Morehead, Morrison and Scott colleges, the provisional college areas, the ten-story hall on Manning Drive, classes in the halls, the experimental colleges with faculty fellows and Project Hinton’s coed floors Building the undergraduate library and student union, 1964–1968How UNC built the R. B. House Undergraduate Library, the Frank Porter Graham student union and the Josephus Daniels Student Stores between 1964 and 1968: the federal loan and grant, the site cleared beside Wilson Library, the roof collapse, the Carolina Union’s name and the opening around the Pit Droughts, the Durham lines and Hillsborough water, 1968–1990How Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the University got through the drought of 1968: University Lake’s fall to its lowest level, the emergency pipeline from Durham, the ban on lawn watering and car washing, Carrboro’s protest of a higher water rate and the rains that refilled the lake The trustees’ disruptions policy, 1969–1974How the UNC trustees wrote a policy against campus disruption in 1969 and how it was used: the executive committee’s rule during the food workers’ strike, the disorders subcommittee, the hearing boards, the Moratorium Day warning and hearing, and the protests against it into 1970 The “To His Coy Mistress” affair, 1966How a freshman English assignment on Andrew Marvell’s poem became a campus dispute in the fall of 1966: Chancellor Sitterson’s removal of instructor Michael Paull, the protests of students and instructors, the English Department’s inquiry and Paull’s return to his class From campus buses to Chapel Hill Transit, 1968–1990How Chapel Hill got a public bus system between 1968 and 1974: the student-run campus buses, the town buses that ran for five weeks in 1971, the referendums Chapel Hill passed and Carrboro turned down, the federal grant and the University’s bus-pass contract, and the start of Chapel Hill Transit in August 1974 Selling the University’s utilities, 1970–1977How the University came to sell the water, electric, telephone and sewer systems it ran for Chapel Hill and Carrboro: the 1970 rate fights and Carrboro’s water suit, the state study commission, the bids of 1974 and the choice of Southern Bell and Duke Power, and the water and sewer systems’ passing to OWASA Students win and keep the vote in Orange County, 1971–1980How UNC students won the right to register and vote in Chapel Hill from 1971 to 1973: the federal ruling on residency, the elections board’s decision to treat students like other residents, the registration drives and the fight over a campus registrar, and the first student registrar and student alderman The energy crisis in Chapel Hill, 1973–1974How Chapel Hill and Carrboro lived through the fuel shortages of 1973 and 1974: the gas station protests and limits, the University’s energy cuts and holiday closing, the town’s energy task force, the stations running dry, set pumping hours, the attorney general’s suits and the push for more gasoline Choosing Sitterson’s successor, 1970–1972How UNC chose a successor to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson between 1970 and 1972: Sitterson’s resignation, the advisory committee and students’ nominations, the delay while the state restructured higher education, and the election and installation of N. Ferebee Taylor A football player’s death and the reform of UNC athletics, 1971–1972How a varsity football player’s death from heat stroke in 1971 led to changes in UNC athletics: the faculty inquiry and the former players’ challenge to it, Chancellor Sitterson’s order for physicians at practices, the Faculty Council’s athletics report and the Sports Medicine Program of 1972 Opening the Morehead awards to women, 1973–1977How the Morehead Foundation opened its undergraduate scholarships to women: the 1973 refusal of a Chapel Hill High nominee, the faculty women’s letter and the Faculty Council’s request, the threatened court challenge, the trustees’ 1974 vote and the first women scholars Carrboro and the Chapel Hill buses, 1971–1986How Carrboro came to be served by Chapel Hill’s buses: the town’s refusals and referendum defeats from 1971 to 1976, the 1977 route past its apartment complexes paid for with the University, the 1978 deadlock and cost formula, and the F route and year-round service of 1979 Taxing the University’s property, 1974–1980How Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro tried to tax University property from 1974 to 1979: the first assessments under the revised state law, the claims on the Carolina Inn, the airport and the utilities, the towns’ complaint about Southern Bell, and the 1979 rulings of the Property Tax Commission and Superior Court Black admissions at UNC: Bakke, Dean Renwick and the university affairs office, 1977–1983How Black admissions at UNC were argued over from 1977 to 1979: Dean Hayden Renwick’s appointment and report, the Bakke debate and the white applicants’ suit against the law school, Renwick’s charges and the University’s answers, the law school’s new policy, the Long Committee’s report and the larger Black freshman class of 1979 Building and opening the Dean E. Smith Center, 1978–1989How UNC built its Student Activities Center between 1978 and 1984: the arena plan for the Baity land, the 1980 approvals by the trustees and the Town Council, the gift and loan that paid for it, the 1982 student seating fight, and the reviews of its steel and cracked beams in 1983 and 1984 The joint Chapel Hill-Carrboro thoroughfare plan, 1983–1984How Chapel Hill and Carrboro tried to agree on one thoroughfare plan in 1983 and 1984: the crowded hearings, the fights over roads across Mason Farm and McCauley Street, Carrboro’s West Franklin Street extension, the split over Estes Drive, the failed compromise and the state’s endorsement of Chapel Hill’s plan Chapel Hill answers the Greensboro killings and verdicts, 1979–1984How Chapel Hill answered the 1979 Greensboro killings and the trials that followed: the 1979 vigil and the march kept to the sidewalks, the November 1980 vigils, rally and petitions after the acquittals, the 1981 symposium, and the April 1984 rally, vigil and teach-in after the federal verdict Founding the Black Cultural Center, 1984–1989How UNC’s Black Cultural Center grew from a 1984 planning committee into a department of Student Affairs: the fight over space in the Carolina Union, the 1986 proposal and Boulton’s plan, the 1987 pre-opening, Margo Crawford’s start as director in 1988, the first programs and the Black Student Movement’s push for a permanent building The South Building shanties and sit-ins, 1986–1987How anti-apartheid students at UNC built shanties in front of South Building in March 1986 to press for divestment: the chancellor’s permission, the rallies, vigils and rival wall, the removal on April 7, the April sit-in, the November shanty and arrests, and the January 1987 acquittals Protests against CIA recruiting at UNC, 1985–1990How UNC students protested CIA recruiting on campus between 1985 and 1989: the rallies, the 1987 Hanes Hall arrests, the 1988 fast and the canceled law school interviews, the trustees’ resolution and the Coalition for Freedom to Dissent, the Honor Court case and the 1989 tower climb and mock graveyard Discrimination grievances in the UNC police, 1987–1994How University police officers contested the promotions in the department’s June 1987 reorganization: the grievances and the student rallies of 1987, the chancellor’s denial, Officer Keith Edwards’s appeals and hearings, the public safety director’s reassignment in 1989, the federal inquiries and the 1992 jury verdict UNC’s land use plans, the Horace Williams tract and the joint town-University committee, 1987–1994How UNC’s 1987 land use plan met opposition and a joint town-University committee reworked its roads: the crowded June hearing, the committee’s votes against a loop road through Battle Park and against taking private property, the Pittsboro Street extension fight, the 1988 acceptance and the 1989 town-gown committee The Campus Y dispute and Students for a Student Voice, 1984–1986How a dispute at the Campus Y grew into a student campaign against the Division of Student Affairs in 1984–1986: the Y’s break with the national YWCA, the new director’s dismissal of George Gamble, the vigils and rallies, Students for a Student Voice and Chancellor Fordham’s review panel Choosing Christopher Fordham’s successor, 1987–1988How UNC chose a successor to Chancellor Christopher Fordham in 1987 and 1988: his announcement, the trustees’ search committee and its one public hearing, the outside management audit, the two finalists, the Board of Governors’ confirmation of Paul Hardin and his installation on University Day 1988 The Office for Student Counseling and Dean Cell’s reappointment, 1988–1990How Black students at UNC pressed for the Office for Student Counseling after Dean Hayden Renwick left in 1988: the BSM’s demands, the South Building rally that kept the office whole, the search that chose Rosalind Fuse-Hall, and the 1989 protests against Dean Gillian Cell’s reappointment The Student Body statues, 1990–1993How Black students at UNC protested The Student Body, the Class of 1985’s bronze figures placed outside Davis Library in October 1990: the study-in, the lone vigils, the letter to Chancellor Hardin, the committee forum, the vandalism and racist messages, and the move to the Hamilton Hall courtyard in June 1991 Hate incidents and the Rally Against Hate at UNC, fall 1990How a run of hate incidents on the UNC campus in the fall of 1990, from a defaced Gantt poster and anti-gay signs to a racist note on the homecoming queen’s car and ’KKK’ on a University car, led to the Rally Against Hate, a march to South Building and a chancellor’s committee South Loop Road and Odum Village, 1990–1992How UNC’s plan for a South Loop road through part of Odum Village, its married-student housing, met resistance from 1990 to 1992: the search for replacement housing, the residents’ and housing advocates’ campaigns, the Chapel Hill Town Council’s refusals to put the road on the thoroughfare plan and Hardin’s renewed push UNC’s Cameron Avenue power plant and its neighbors, 1986–1994How UNC’s new coal-fired power plant on Cameron Avenue, approved by the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1986 to replace the 1940 plant, drew complaints from its neighbors over noise, dust and light and citations and fines from state regulators as it was tested in 1991 and 1992 UNC and the state budget cuts, 1989–1991How the state’s budget cuts reached UNC between 1989 and 1991: the 1989 deficit and Student Congress’s loan offer, the 1990 cuts and hiring freeze, the protests and Save UNC Day, Hardin’s decision against layoffs, the 1991 section cuts and graduate students’ demands, the Carolina Inn decision and the budget flexibility the campus won Protest and support during the Persian Gulf war, 1990–1991How Chapel Hill, Carrboro and UNC answered the Persian Gulf war in 1990 and 1991: the post office vigils, the Franklin Street march and the Polk Place protest, the CBS town meeting, the sanctuary votes, the rallies for the troops, and the Peace Village in the Pit until after the cease-fire The Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina, 1990–1993How UNC raised private money for its 200th anniversary in the Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina between 1990 and 1992: the trimmed goal, the quiet phase, the October 1991 opening with a $320 million goal and the Stone task force’s silent protest, and the gifts from Glaxo, First Union and the Johnston Trust The 1991 town elections in Chapel Hill and CarrboroHow Chapel Hill and Carrboro voted in 1991: Jonathan Howes’s decision not to seek a third term, Ken Broun’s election as mayor over Rosemary Waldorf, the UNC student Mark Chilton’s council seat, Carrboro’s re-elected aldermen and its rejected recreation center bond, and the December swearing-in Orange County in the 1990 electionHow Orange County voted in 1990: Carl Fox’s filing for district attorney, a crowded race for three county commissioner seats, the registration drives and Harvey Gantt’s rally in the Pit during his Senate race against Jesse Helms, the November results and the ballot shortages Orange County in the 1992 electionHow Orange County voted in 1992: Margaret Pollard’s challenge to state senators Howard Lee and Russell Walker, the student registration drives and campus rallies, the Greens’ independent candidate for commissioner, the fight over the $52 million school bond, the Clinton and Gore rally in Hillsborough and the November results Hardin’s retirement and the search for a chancellor, 1994–1995How UNC looked for a successor to Chancellor Paul Hardin in 1994 and 1995: his retirement announcement, the trustees’ search committee, the student and employee campaigns for more seats, the committee’s first meeting and forums, and Michael Hooker’s inauguration Leasing and renovating the Carolina Inn, 1991–1994How the University handed the Carolina Inn to an outside operator between 1991 and 1994: the end of University management, the bidding, the Doubletree lease, the trustees’ renovation plan, the Alumni House demolition, the first profitable year and the inn’s closing for renovation The Bicentennial of UNC and Chapel Hill, 1993–1994How UNC and Chapel Hill marked their 200th year in 1993 and 1994: the town’s markers, mural, books and exhibits, the University’s convocation with President Clinton, its lectures, music and open house, and the town’s Chapel Hill Revisited day, through the commencement that closed the Observance The Grateful Dead at the Smith Center, 1993–1994How the Grateful Dead’s 1993 shows at the Smith Center led to a drug checkpoint, a near-riot and a chancellor’s ban, how fans rallied to bring the band back, and how Chancellor Hardin lifted the ban in 1994 Twenty-four-hour visitation at UNC, 1993–1994How six UNC residence halls voted for 24-hour visitation in 1993, how the trustees ended the pilot and students protested, and how the trustees let students choose among three visitation policies in 1994

More storylines

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

StorylineNew Hope Presbyterian Church, 1740–18401740–1840 · 35 events · When Orange Presbytery called in 1820 for long-vacant churches to be reorganized, New Hope Presbyterian Church had no roll of members, and it reorganized with four elders and ten members. Elijah Graves, then teaching at Hillsborough, had preached there from 1818 as stated supply, a minister serving without being installed as pastor, and he returned from 1825 to 1831 after Shepherd K. Kollock ended his connection. A revival in 1831 and 1832 added at least seventy communicants. George W. Ferrill was pastor from 1833 until 1836, and that August James Phillips, a university mathematics professor, began preaching at New Hope, which he served until 1865, longer than any other minister. Four more elders were ordained in 1840. StorylineSt. Matthew's Parish and Hillsborough's old church, 1752–18241752–1824 · 26 events · From 1752 St. Matthew's Parish was Orange County's established Anglican church, with chapels at New Hope and St. Mary's and, from about 1768, a church in Hillsborough. Its rector, George Micklejohn, preached to Tryon's troops in 1768 and stayed loyal to the Crown in 1776. Its church served as an army hospital, an academy and the meeting place of the 1788 convention, and in 1797 the Assembly ordered the ruinous building sold. Episcopal worship came back through St. Jude's and St. Mary's in 1818 and 1819, and in 1824 the reorganized parish left the old lot to the Presbyterians. StorylineSlavery in Orange County1758–2021 · 239 events · Enslaved people worked the county’s farms, households, courts and university from the first settlements, building Old East and South Building, appearing in the 1790 tax list and the 1860 census count of more than 5,000, and passing through the courts in the Kirkland suit of 1804 and State v. Mann in 1829. Emancipation in 1865 freed about 6,000 people; the recovery of their graves and names, from Margaret Lane Cemetery to the university’s list of 119, has continued since 1987. 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. StorylineThe University's escheats and confiscated lands in the legislature, 1789–18181789–1818 · 9 events · The University was granted escheats, the property of people who died without heirs, in 1789, and unsold confiscated Loyalist lands, chiefly Henry Eustace McCulloch's claims, in 1794. Its suits over those claims angered landholders, and in 1800 the legislature repealed both grants. In 1804 the courts held that the peace treaty protected McCulloch, and the money collected was refunded. In 1805 the Assembly restored the escheats and made the governor president of the trustees. By 1809 the trustees had escheat attorneys in ten districts, and in 1818 the board counted on Tennessee land warrants to pay for a new chair of rhetoric and logic. StorylineChapel Hill's first inns and taverns, 1793–18051793–1805 · 7 events · The county court licensed Chapel Hill's first taverns as taverns at the University, beginning in 1793 with James Patterson, Old East's contractor, whose inn was the starting point of the cornerstone procession. William and Betsy Nunn bought it in 1795 and added a tavern, the trustees barred students from taverns without leave in 1796, and John Taylor Sr. opened a second tavern by 1799. Betsy Nunn ran the inn from about 1805 until her death, and it stayed in the Nunn family for more than half a century.
Show all 73 storylines
StorylineSteward's Hall and the University commons, 1797–18191797–1819 · 5 events · On December 9, 1797 Pleasant Henderson, who had moved from Mt. Pleasant to Chapel Hill that year, was chosen steward of the University of North Carolina, following John Taylor in the post; a UNC Libraries exhibit records that he enslaved nineteen people. Complaints about the food at Steward's Hall under Taylor and Henderson helped fuel the student uprising of 1799, and in 1801 Henderson's house was stoned. He did not reapply, gave up the stewardship in 1802, declined the trusteeship he was elected to, and went into business as Henderson and Searcy; he kept his Chapel Hill residence while clerk of the House of Commons from 1807 to 1830. In 1808 thirty-eight students, John Branch among them, petitioned the faculty over too little butter and beef often unsound and full of vermin. The faculty found the wording defiant and had it rewritten, and suspended John R. Stokes and Elias Foord for refusing to sign the milder version. Board at the hall rose from $30 a year in 1795 to $95 in 1818. In 1819 the trustees ended the old commons and rented Steward's Hall to Mrs. Burton, who had to feed students for no more than $9 a month the first year and allow the commencement ball in the dining room free, and students could board where they chose. StorylineStudent disorder and the trustees' discipline, 1799–18191799–1819 · 15 events · In its first twenty years the University's students repeatedly defied its faculty and trustees, and the board answered with expulsions, new ordinances and in 1817 the courts. Students beat principal Gillaspie in 1799, about forty-five left in 1805 over an oath for monitors, an 1811 outbreak left no graduates, and in 1816 a forbidden oration brought expulsions and a powder bomb at a tutor's door. Duels, a stabbing at the 1804 ball and an 1818 beating of an enslaved man ran alongside, until in 1819 students had to hand in six pistols and two dirks. StorylineThe Eagle Hotel and University Inn site, 1799–19941799–1994 · 11 events · By 1799 John Taylor Sr. had put up a tavern on Franklin Street, and the lot stayed in the hotel trade as the Eagle Hotel, the Chapel Hill Hotel and the University Inn. Nancy Hilliard added an annex for President Polk's 1847 visit. The University agreed to buy the inn in 1906, fire destroyed its main building in 1921 and Graham Memorial took the site, and in 1993 and 1994 UNC archaeologists dug up its foundations. StorylineTemperance and the liquor question in Orange County, 1825–18591825–1859 · 14 events · Treating voters with liquor, and the liquor trade itself, drew organized opposition in Orange County from 1825 to 1859. In 1825 a court house meeting declared treating injurious to morality, and about 1827 the university trustees won a law against distilling or selling liquor at or near Chapel Hill. Temperance societies spread from 1829; by 1834 the Hawfields and Cross Roads society counted 437 members, and at least nine or ten distilleries had stopped. In 1841 Hillsborough men formed a Washington Temperance Society. In 1854 the county voted against the liquor 'Reform' question, but the 1855 Revised Code barred liquor sales within two miles of Chapel Hill, and in 1859 the village banned traveling liquor sellers. StorylineEnlarging the antebellum campus, 1840–18611840–1861 · 21 events · In 1840 President David L. Swain began the stucco finish on the brick college buildings, and by August 1841, with the session crowded beyond its rooms, the university had contracted for two new dormitory buildings. Swain then brought in the architect Alexander Jackson Davis, who first came to Chapel Hill in 1844. Davis's three-story additions to Old East and Old West, on which the masonry subcontractor Dabney Cosby put enslaved workmen, among them Osborne and his brother Albert, were finished in 1848 with halls for the Dialectic and Philanthropic societies, furnished by the free Black cabinetmaker Thomas Day. Smith Hall followed, named in 1852, and New East and New West, begun in 1858, were ready on July 31, 1861. StorylineThe end of the Civil War in Orange County, 1865April 1865 · 31 events · In April 1865 David L. Swain and William A. Graham pressed for peace from Hillsborough as Johnston's army fell back through the county. Wheeler's cavalry fought Union pursuers at New Hope Creek on April 14, Union troops occupied Chapel Hill on April 17 under orders to protect the university, and Sherman and Johnston met at the Bennitt farm on the Hillsborough road, then in Orange County, where Johnston surrendered on April 26. StorylineThe University's summer schools for teachers, 1877–19071877–1907 · 8 events · For three decades the university used its summers to train the state's teachers, though the work stopped and started. The General Assembly set up a Summer Normal School there in 1877 to train white teachers, and President Kemp Battle and the Board of Education admitted white women, though state money could not be spent on them. Its last session was in 1884. In 1894 Edwin A. Alderman opened a Summer School for Teachers and Students, and in 1900, by Battle's account, the first summer term of degree courses began. The trustees' executive committee held no summer school for teachers in 1905, but N. W. Walker revived it in 1907 and directed it for twenty-seven years. StorylineStudent loan funds at the University, 1879–19321879–1932 · 5 events · When the state's budget cut threatened to drive students out of the University in January 1932, town and campus groups gave to a student loan fund whose beginnings went back to 1879. That year Charles F. Deems sent $300 to start a loan fund in memory of his son Theodore, killed at Gettysburg, and William H. Vanderbilt later added $10,000 through him. In 1906 Dr. Martin's will left more than $7,000 for loans to poor students. In 1932 Mayor Zeb Council named a citizens' committee, the sponsors of a concert by Amelita Galli-Curci gave their share of the receipts, and the campus Janitors' Association, facing a wage cut, gave five dollars. By early February about $7,000 had been raised. StorylineThe University's state money, 1881–18891881–1889 · 9 events · In 1881, according to Lefler and Wager, the General Assembly voted the university its first regular appropriation for maintenance, and within a few years the university both gained and lost state money. An 1885 act added $15,000 a year, and the trustees enlarged the faculty from nine to fifteen. In 1887, after a campaign led by Leonidas L. Polk, the General Assembly took the university's $7,500 yearly land-scrip interest for a separate Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh. The university dropped pedagogics, mining engineering and other courses, and unable to pay the chairs added in 1885, the trustees let three professors go in 1888. In 1889 William Cain's election let the faculty begin teaching civil engineering. StorylineTelephones in Hillsborough and the countryside, 1883–19641883–1964 · 31 events · Hillsborough's first telephone line ran from the railroad depot to Hooker's drug store in 1883. In 1905 the town gave John D. Morris of Roxboro a twenty-year franchise, and his exchange opened in March 1906 in the Murdock house on West King Street with Mamie Murdock, later Mamie Gordon, at the switchboard, where she stayed for 41 years. Morris switched Hillsborough to dial telephones in a new East King Street exchange in September 1947. In the countryside, Schley Grange members strung lines to 51 families in 1948, and the University's telephone service reached Calvander in 1949. Morris opened an exchange at Efland in 1951. The Mebane Telephone Company built 140 miles of rural lines in western Orange in 1955, the year Hillsboro merchants and the county commissioners asked the state to investigate Morris's service. In 1964 Morris built a larger exchange on East King Street. StorylineCarolina athletics from the ban to the undefeated 1898 team, 1888–19021888–1902 · 13 events · Carolina athletics began with a fight over whether to play at all: organized football started at the university in 1888, and by 1890 the trustees had forbidden intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal by January 1891, and that April the football and baseball associations united as the Athletic Association. The 1892 team lost only to Virginia and then beat Virginia in a rematch at Atlanta. In 1895 the association hired Princeton's Thomas G. Trenchard, whose team won seven games before losing to Virginia. After a disorderly fall term the faculty in 1896 barred students on probation from the teams and made players pledge not to drink or gamble on trips. The 1898 team was undefeated and untied. StorylineAdmitting women to the University, 1894–19781894–1978 · 18 events · The University opened its graduate and upper-level courses to women in 1897 but long kept them out of its first two years. In September 1897 four women registered, which The Tar Heel called the start of coeducation, and Sallie Walker Stockard took her degree with the class of 1898. Women joined the Philanthropic Society in 1930, and new women's dormitories opened in 1937 and 1939. In 1936 the Chapel Hill Rotary Club asked that local young women be let in, but in 1937 the trustees' executive committee reaffirmed that women should not be admitted to the freshman and sophomore classes. In March 1963 The News of Orange County reported that the university would admit 24 freshman women that fall. Women outnumbered men in the entering freshman class for the first time in 1975, by Pamela Dean's account, and in 1978, the Daily Tar Heel reported, they outnumbered men among all students. StorylineThe University's centennial and the Alumni Building, 1895–19011895–1901 · 6 events · The University's hundredth anniversary in June 1895 brought both a look back at its history and a new building. Alfred Moore Waddell gave the oration, printed that year as The Ante-Bellum University, and Stephen B. Weeks spoke on the University in the Civil War. At the centennial banquet alumni and classes pledged gifts toward an Alumni Hall, led by Julian S. Carr. With about $7,000 of the $20,000 in pledges in hand, the trustees began its foundation in 1897, to a design by Frank Pierce Milburn modeled on the Boston Public Library. Its cornerstone was laid with Masonic ceremony in 1898, and the Alumni Building was finished in 1901 with fourteen lecture rooms and the University's administrative offices. StorylineThe UNC pharmacy school under Howell and Beard, 1897–19311897–1931 · 5 events · An earlier College of Pharmacy, begun in 1880, had been short-lived, and in March 1897 the university trustees set up a chair of pharmacy and elected Edward Vernon Howell, beginning the department that became the School of Pharmacy. In 1901 the department, with Howell as dean, was formally incorporated into the university and its laboratory and lecture space was doubled. Howell died on February 14, 1931 after seventeen days of pneumonia, and the Weekly's editor, his neighbor, wrote of the Halloween parties he gave the village children. J. Grover Beard, a 1909 graduate long on the pharmacy faculty, was named acting dean, and the trustees' executive committee ratified his appointment on March 19, 1931. StorylineChapel Hill's volunteer fire company, 1898–19311898–1931 · 22 events · From about 1898 a volunteer company fought Chapel Hill's fires, at first with two hand reels and hose lent by the University, and more than once a building burned where no hydrant was near. In 1921 the town built a brick municipal building and fire house and received an American La France motor truck. In June 1922, with the nearest hydrant almost half a mile away, fire destroyed the Orange County Training School, the county's school for Black students. In 1923 the company hosted the state's firemen at a barbecue, and the state association elected Chief John L. Foister its president. After officers missed an alarm, the aldermen put a full-time fireman on duty in 1928. In 1931 the bricklayer John Johnson became, by the Weekly's account, the only Black member of a white fire company in North Carolina. StorylineThe University builds under Venable, 1900–19091900–1909 · 19 events · Under Francis P. Venable, elected president in 1900, the University spent a decade building. Julian S. Carr paid for the Carr Building, a dormitory, and in 1900-01 the University finished its water works, sewer system and heating plant and completed the Alumni Building and the Mary Ann Smith Dormitory. After Professor Charles Baskerville described the crowded chemistry laboratories, the legislature in 1905 gave $50,000 for a chemical laboratory, finished in 1906. Judge William Preston Bynum gave a gymnasium, and the trustees agreed to buy the University Inn for dormitories. A new president's house, an infirmary and the YMCA building followed in 1907, Davie Hall opened in 1908, and in 1909 Gerrard Hall was refitted so that daily chapel could resume. StorylineSegregation and access to medical care1901–1965 · 17 events · Black patients in the county went to Durham’s Lincoln Hospital from 1901, well-baby clinics were held separately in the 1940s, and the new hospitals of the 1950s opened with separate wards. UNC admitted its first Black medical student in 1951, the NAACP picketed Memorial Hospital in 1963, and the hospital ended racial segregation in 1965. StorylineUniversity enrollment climbs toward a thousand, 1905–19141905–1914 · 5 events · University enrollment climbed from 512 in 1900 toward 1,000 by December 1914, when Edward Kidder Graham told the trustees it would pass that mark, and the campus grew from ten buildings to two dozen. In October 1905 a freshman class of 200 was reported as the largest in the University's history, and the spring term of 1908 enrolled 770, a record by the News's account. In January 1909 President Francis P. Venable reported nearly 800 students to the trustees, about 92 percent from North Carolina, and an increase in the annual appropriation was asked. By September 1912 nearly 800 had enrolled, and more than 100 applicants had been turned away as not prepared to enter. StorylineDavie Hall, 1908–19671908–1967 · 5 events · Davie Hall opened for botany and zoology in 1908 and was rebuilt inside for botany alone in 1940. In 1966 its condemned front was torn down and a $1.5 million rebuilding for the psychology department began, and the new Davie Hall, an International Style building of tan brick and concrete, opened in the fall of 1967. StorylineThe Weil lectures on American citizenship, 1915–20171915–2017 · 13 events · The families of Sol and Henry Weil of Goldsboro founded the Weil lectures in 1915, and that year former president William Howard Taft spent three days in Chapel Hill, a visit a photograph caption calls the inaugural Weil Lecture. Later lecturers included the Kansas editor William Allen White in 1925, Will W. Alexander of the Commission on Cooperation between the Races in 1929, and the historian Charles A. Beard in 1933, who drew crowds the Weekly said no speaker had drawn in many years. Henry A. Wallace spoke in 1937 and Eleanor Roosevelt, on the United Nations, in 1950. Roy Wilkins's 1972 lecture drew a student protest over American companies in South Africa, and Eugene Genovese spoke in 1976 and Julian Bond in 1978. Jimmy Carter gave the lecture in 1984, Cornel West in 1993, and William J. Barber II in 2017. StorylineThe Newspaper Institute at Chapel Hill, 1916–19311916–1931 · 3 events · The university and the North Carolina Press Association brought the state's editors to Chapel Hill for Newspaper Institutes, beginning in December 1916 with what the printed report called the first such institute in the state and the South. That session heard former President William Howard Taft, and the editors put out a daily, the Press Institute News, on a borrowed linotype. In January 1926 more than a hundred editors met at the Carolina Inn for a three-day institute run with the University's extension division. The seventh annual institute, in January 1931, heard Governor Gardner speak on the state's affairs in Gerrard Hall, with Mark Sullivan among the speakers. StorylineOrange County in the First World War, 1917–19191917–1919 · 117 events · Orange County organized for the war in 1917. A county Red Cross chapter under John W. Graham, with branches and auxiliaries in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, rural communities and Black churches, knitted for soldiers and shipped relief clothing; women's committees sold Liberty bonds; and the university's students drilled and in 1918 came under the Students' Army Training Corps. The county's war record lists 23 Orange County servicemen who died. StorylineChapel Hill's police chiefs, 1919–19281919–1928 · 7 events · In February 1919 Chapel Hill's new police chief resigned after a week, and in May the aldermen chose S. F. Long, who had held the post before. Long left the town force in 1923 to police the contractors' camp at the University building works, and George Featherstone, formerly of the Durham police, took his place. The mayor and town manager suspended Featherstone in April 1924 for helping an Ohio officer take a wanted man out of the state before his lawyer could contest extradition, and he was reinstated within weeks. In 1925 William T. Sloan became acting chief, and when Sloan became sheriff in 1928, his assistant, H. L. Rigsbee, succeeded him. StorylineThe University Summer School grows, 1921–19281921–1928 · 4 events · Between 1921 and 1928 the University's summer school grew into a twelve-week term with record enrollments. In 1921 it enrolled 1,090 students, slightly fewer than the summer before. In June 1923 President H. W. Chase opened the first summer school run as a twelve-week term in two six-week sessions, which he said meant the University would be in session almost the whole year. The first term of 1928 enrolled 1,752, the largest summer body yet, and Orange sent more than any other county; the second term also set a record. That June the men students voted to set up student government for the summer session, which the Weekly said had been under faculty control. StorylineUNC national championships beyond women’s soccer1924 to present · 36 events · National titles won by Carolina teams other than women's soccer: the 1924 basketball team's later Helms recognition, men's basketball's six NCAA championships from 1957, women's basketball in 1994, and the field hockey, lacrosse, men's soccer and women's tennis titles since 1981. StorylineHamilton and the Southern Historical Collection, 1927–19481927–1948 · 5 events · From 1927 J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton built what became the Southern Historical Collection, a leading repository of manuscripts on the American South. He announced plans that year for what he first called the National Southern Collection, and in 1929 he gave up the headship of the history department to be free of administrative work; the Weekly reported that he had spent weeks travelling the South gathering old books, letters and diaries. After Sarah Graham Kenan gave $25,000 in 1930, the collection became the Southern Historical Collection, with Hamilton as its first director. From 1932 Elizabeth Henderson Cotten worked as his assistant and became its first curator. Hamilton retired by July 1948, after 42 years with the University. StorylineThe University's Human Relations Institutes, 1927–19451927–1945 · 3 events · A weeklong institute in March 1927, arranged by Harry F. Comer of the YMCA, brought James Weldon Johnson, executive secretary of the NAACP, and other speakers on race, labor and world affairs to the University. History chair J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton walked out when Howard Odum introduced Johnson as 'Mister Johnson' and protested to Chase, while a Tar Heel editorial welcomed the visit. The third quadrennial Human Relations Institute, in 1935, brought a week of lectures on government, industry, race and religion, and the Weekly called it a great success. Comer's 1945 institute took the theme 'The Prices of Peace,' with Senator J. William Fulbright giving the Weil lectures on America and world organization. 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. StorylineAmateur theatre outside the Playmakers, 1929–19331929–1933 · 4 events · Alongside the Carolina Playmakers, faculty families, Hillsboro residents and Chapel Hill children formed their own theatre groups between 1929 and 1933. About 1929 drama professor Preston Farrar built a house on Laurel Hill Road with indoor and outdoor stages, and in November 1931 a community dramatic club, mostly faculty members and their wives, formed there, planning to read a modern play each month. In January 1932 a play-producing group for Hillsboro was launched in Clem Strudwick's studio, with Frederick H. Koch and Irene Fussler advising. That April Harry E. Davis, the Playmakers' technical director, staged his own Cinderella with about 35 children, and the cast organized as the Junior Playmakers, who gave plays for child audiences into 1933. StorylineChapel Hill town elections, 1933–19491933–1949 · 10 events · On May 2, 1933 former town manager John Foushee was elected mayor of Chapel Hill over Mayor Zeb P. Council and B. J. Howard, and he was returned in 1935, 1937, 1939 and 1941, twice without opposition. In May 1942 he said he would resign because he was moving to his farm outside the town limits, and on July 8 the aldermen unanimously elected R. W. Madry, director of the University news bureau, as mayor. The Weekly believed no one in the University's service had headed the town government before. No one filed against Madry in 1943. On May 3, 1949 Edwin S. Lanier defeated him 811 to 589, ending his seven years as mayor. StorylineChapel Hill before Pearl Harbor, 1940–19411940–1941 · 13 events · Chapel Hill and the University were preparing for war and sending aid to Europe well before Pearl Harbor. In February 1940 twenty University students began flight training, and in May President Frank Graham offered the University's faculty and laboratories to the government. In June a Chapel Hill branch of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies was organized, the American Legion post asked Congress for conscription, and citizens signed an appeal urging the United States into the war beside Britain. Relief committees sewed, shipped clothing and raised money for a mobile tea kitchen for England. Within days of Pearl Harbor, armed sentries guarded the airport, the University Lake dam and the power plant. StorylineThe Knolls: a home colony for Black University janitors, 1940–19411940–1941 · 5 events · In 1940 the University's Black janitors set out to own homes with vegetable gardens instead of paying rent. About twenty University employees agreed to build one another's houses, trading labor hour for hour, and formed the Service Employees' Corporation to buy materials and arrange financing. The corporation took an option on the old Creel place, about 40 acres just outside the western town limits; W. C. Coker provided the money for the land at low interest, and a lender arranged through University officials agreed to advance most of the building costs. Thirty-eight janitors took lots in what was named The Knolls, and the FHA (the Federal Housing Administration) approved the plan. By August 1941 six houses were finished and occupied. StorylineHousing Chapel Hill’s student veterans, 1945–19461945–1946 · 10 events · In July 1945 Mayor R. W. Madry named a citizens' committee to study Chapel Hill's postwar housing, and that fall residents formed a corporation to build homes. As returning veterans filled the university in 1946, the trustees approved five dormitories, a trailer camp opened on the old high school site, the federal government put up the prefabricated houses of Victory Village on the south campus for about 350 student families, and federal rent control took effect in Orange County on July 1. That summer the town named a Veterans Housing Commission to bring in surplus demountable houses for married veterans, and Chapel Hill's churches opened nursery schools for their children. StorylineParking in Chapel Hill and on campus, 1956–19921956–1992 · 72 events · Chapel Hill's downtown parking passed from a merchants' lot to town meters and town lots. In June 1956 an association of East Franklin Street businesses opened what the News called the town's first customer parking lot. In 1958, after heated debate, the aldermen passed an ordinance for about 375 meters on business-district streets, and they voted to put meter money in the general fund, though Alderman Roland Giduz wanted it kept to buy land for off-street parking. In 1962 the town agreed to buy the Hanson property on East Rosemary Street for a lot for about 30 cars, and after deeds recorded in 1963 it began building a 70-car lot there, which opened in 1964. In 1965 the University zoned parking on the campus and began towing, and the town banned parking on South Road and let the police tow illegally parked cars. Street meter income later fell. In 1977 the town banned weekday parking on 41 streets near the campus; a court barred its free permits for residents after a law student sued, and the aldermen adopted a narrower permit ordinance in 1978. Voters turned down a Rosemary Street parking deck in 1979, and after court rulings limited towing in 1982 the town required hearings and police supervision for tows and raised its fines. In 1984 the council opened talks with the Fraser Company on Rosemary Square, a deck with a hotel-condominium on the Rosemary Street lot. From 1985 Chapel Hill and Carrboro raised parking fines and changed their towing and street rules, and the University raised permit prices nearly every year while it planned a parking deck on the Craige lot; after protests over paying for it with permit fees, the trustees raised fees in 1989 to help repay a 1,600-space deck. The Craige deck opened in September 1991. In 1991 and 1992 Chapel Hill limited commuter parking on McCauley Street, let downtown developers offer transportation plans instead of parking, eased its towing rules and began ticketing cars parked on sidewalks, and Carrboro raised its parking fines to $25. StorylineThe Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–19641963 to 1964 · 64 events · Marches, sit-ins and arrests over segregated businesses from 1963 into 1964, the aldermen's refusal of a public accommodations ordinance, the Holy Week fast, and the Watts Restaurant protests and the Klopfer speedy-trial case that grew out of them. StorylineBuilding Carmichael Auditorium, 1964–19651964–1965 · 4 events · Work began in 1964 on a new basketball arena beside Woollen Gymnasium, which the University named for William D. Carmichael Jr. Don Stewart's design, with a roof carried on steel beams and tie rods, was by one account the largest single-span building in North Carolina. Carmichael Auditorium was first used, still unfinished, for the University Day convocation of October 1965. StorylineRoom for students: UNC's dormitory shortage and the new residence hall, 1965–19891965–1989 · 29 events · UNC sought money for residence halls in 1965 and in 1973 tripled hundreds of rooms. From 1980 the yearly lottery closed out more than a thousand students at a time, and the trustees put off student apartments on the Couch property. In 1981 they put a 500-bed hall in the budget, and after rent rises and protests over crowded rooms work began in 1983 on a hall on Stadium Drive beside Teague. A 486-bed hall completed in 1986 was dedicated in 1987 as Carmichael Residence Hall. Construction delays kept the hall from opening in 1985, when a record 300 freshmen were tripled. In 1989, over student leaders' objections, UNC exempted rising sophomores who kept their rooms from the housing lottery. StorylineRace and UNC's fraternities and sororities, 1965–19891965–1989 · 20 events · In 1965, after a visiting Liberian student was insulted outside a fraternity house and faculty members asked about discriminatory clauses, UNC's Faculty Council ordered every fraternity and sorority to certify by September 1966 that no rule kept it from pledging a student because of race, creed or national origin. All had dropped their clauses by the fall of 1966, and in 1967 Charlie Scott pledged St. Anthony Hall; the Daily Tar Heel called him the first Black student accepted into a fraternity pledge class at Carolina. Black Ink called Omega Psi Phi and Delta Sigma Theta, chartered in 1973, UNC's first Black fraternity and sorority. After the only Black woman in the 1982 sorority rush received no bid, sorority women organized against discrimination, and the 1983 rush opened with an integrated round. Forums in 1988 and 1989 brought Black and white Greek members together to discuss the separate systems; in 1989 panelists favored joint events but not a merger. StorylineThe Thomas Jefferson Award at UNC, 1965–20041965–2004 · 9 events · UNC's Thomas Jefferson Award, a cash prize paid from the income of a gift, went to the faculty member whose life best reflected the spirit of Jefferson. Winners included historian Fletcher M. Green in 1965, former chancellor William B. Aycock in 1967, physicist Eugen Merzbacher in 1972, Walter Spearman in 1978, political scientist Richard Richardson in 1987 and orthopedic surgeon Frank Wilson in 1992. Law professor Charles E. Daye won it in 2004. StorylineSDS, SSOC and the student left at UNC, 1965–19691965–1969 · 14 events · A UNC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society organized in 1965, invited the barred speakers Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker in 1966 and started a paper, the Left Heel. In 1968 the Southern Student Organizing Committee founded a UNC chapter, ran a "Disorientation" for new students, backed the Durham Black Solidarity boycott, petitioned for dormitory visitation and started the Radish, and that October the University stopped sending security officers to campus political meetings. The Chapel Hill Revolutionary Movement formed in the fall of 1969 and disbanded in December. StorylineStudents for Teachers, 19651965 · 3 events · In May 1965 students formed Students for Teachers after the English Department declined to rehire a lecturer known for his teaching, who said he was let go for not publishing. After a rally in Y Court and a march to South Building, Chancellor Paul F. Sharp named faculty members to a joint faculty-student committee on teaching and the student role in academic affairs and sent the dismissal to the faculty hearings committee. StorylineUNC's enrollment boom, 1965–19731965–1973 · 8 events · UNC's enrollment at Chapel Hill grew from about 12,000 in 1965 to 19,396 in 1973, setting a record nearly every fall. By 1970 it had doubled since 1960 and outrun the dormitories, and in 1971 nearly 1,300 students lived three to a room or in converted lounges. StorylineWall speeches at the campus line, 19661966–2011 · 20 events · In 1966 the trustees barred Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the campus under the Speaker Ban law, so each spoke to students across the stone wall at McCorkle Place from the Franklin Street sidewalk. Students and the two speakers sued in Dickson v. Sitterson, a federal court struck the law down in 1968, and a marker went up at the wall in 2011. StorylineThe North Carolina Botanical Garden's first decade, 1966–19761966–1976 · 6 events · The North Carolina Botanical Garden opened its Mason Farm grounds in 1966, the year its support foundation was formed under William Lanier Hunt. It added a lake in 1967 and Azalea Hill in 1970. When the University refused it more money in 1973, Chapel Hill voted it $6,000, and in 1976 the Totten Center, its first permanent building, opened. StorylineFraternity house fires, 1966–19771966–1977 · 8 events · Fire damaged or gutted a string of UNC fraternity houses between 1966 and 1977. After the Delta Kappa Epsilon house burned in 1971, the University and the town fire department set a fire-safety policy for Greek houses. In October 1975 police called a fire at the rebuilt DKE house arson, and in the winter of 1976–1977 fires gutted the Pi Kappa Phi and Pi Lambda Phi houses. StorylineHealth care across language and immigration1967–2024 · 13 events · From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on. StorylineCampus dining, Chase Cafeteria, Lenoir Hall and the meal plan, 1969–19861969–1986 · 22 events · UNC handed campus dining to contractors from 1969: SAGA, then Servomation and, from 1980, ARA Services. In 1982 Chase Cafeteria closed, leaving South Campus residents to walk to North Campus to eat just as hot plates were banned in dorm rooms. A plan paid for by a student fee and a required meal ticket renovated Lenoir Hall's dining rooms and turned Chase's second floor into the South Union, which opened in 1984. In 1985 students formed a committee against the $100 mandatory meal plan, marched on South Building and voted against it in a referendum, but the trustees kept it. After student groups called for ending ARA's contract, Marriott won the campus food service contract in 1986. StorylineHonoring Martin Luther King Jr. in Chapel Hill, 1970–19931970–1993 · 46 events · Mayor Howard Lee proclaimed a Martin Luther King Day in Chapel Hill in January 1970, though UNC declined to close, and the aldermen named the day again in 1973. UNC's Faculty Council struck King's name from a proposed yearly observance in 1977, but a King Memorial Lecture began in 1978 and a campus-wide celebration in 1982. In 1984 Chapel Hill made King's birthday a town holiday. Andrew Young, Max Robinson and Randall Robinson were among the King Memorial Lecture speakers of the 1980s, Carrboro's mayor proclaimed a King Day in 1981, and King's daughters Yolanda and Bernice spoke at UNC's celebrations in 1984 and 1989. UNC held classes on the first federal King holiday in 1986 but, after students petitioned, closed for it in 1988 under new state legislation. Rallies and marches on Franklin Street marked the holiday in 1987 and 1988, and Maya Angelou and June Jordan spoke at UNC in 1988 and 1989. In 1991 a King holiday gathering at the post office opposed the Persian Gulf war and UNC's tenth annual celebration brought C.T. Vivian, and in 1992 an NAACP march and a service at First Baptist Church marked the day. In 1993 UNC housekeepers held a Unity Day dinner in King's honor. StorylineCarrboro’s water bill fights with the University and OWASA, 1970–19821970–1982 · 8 events · When the University raised its water rate in 1970, Carrboro paid at the old rate and the state sued the town, which answered that the University held a water monopoly. From 1979 Carrboro refused to pay OWASA's higher fire hydrant fees; OWASA sued, a judge ordered the town to pay in 1981, and after losing in the Court of Appeals the town took the case to the N.C. Supreme Court in 1982. StorylineGay Chapel Hill becomes visible, 1971–19741971–1974 · 7 events · Between 1971 and 1974 gay life in Chapel Hill came into the open. A Gay Liberation Front speaker addressed a UNC audience in 1971, and a Daily Tar Heel page on gay people that spring drew a state senator's bill against student-fee support of the paper. A student counseling service began counseling gay men, gay bars opened, and in 1974 a weekly rap group became the Carolina Gay Association, recognized by the University that September. StorylineHomecoming queens and the Carolina Pride Award, 1972–19931972–1993 · 8 events · In 1972 UNC's Student Legislature called the Homecoming Queen pageant demeaning to women and asked that it end. From 1976 Black students won the crown four years running, and in 1984 the Carolina Athletic Association introduced the Carolina Pride Award to replace the queen. In 1989 Black Student Movement vice president Tonya Blanks was crowned homecoming queen after a student vote. In 1990 a racist note was left on the car of the new homecoming queen, and in 1993 the BSM's candidate became the fifth Black queen in a row. StorylineThe Carolina Indian Circle and Native American students at UNC, 1974–19941974–1994 · 11 events · Native American students organized at UNC in 1974 and were recognized as the Carolina Indian Circle in 1975. The circle held Indian culture weeks in 1977 and 1989 and petitioned in 1985 for public purchase of the Hillsborough Archaeological District. In 1989 it asked Chancellor Hardin to recruit Native American students and faculty, and in 1990 it rallied for Native American faculty as UNC hired Adolph Dial and Randy Hill as visiting professors. Black Ink reported that UNC hired its first Native American administrator about 1994. StorylineBuilding Davis Library and renewing Wilson Library, 1975–19881975–1988 · 17 events · In 1975 UNC's trustees chose the Union parking lot, the old Emerson Field, as the site of a new central library, and in 1976 the Board of Governors put $22.6 million from the sale of the campus utilities toward it. Site work began in October 1979, and the Walter Royal Davis Library opened on February 17, 1984. The trustees named the building for Walter R. Davis in 1981, and the general collection moved from Wilson Library in January and February 1984. Governor Jim Martin dedicated Davis Library in 1985, and in 1986 engineers found its east floor settling. Wilson Library, under renovation from 1984, reopened in 1987 as the home of UNC's special collections. StorylineThe College Curriculum Report, 1980–19821980–1982 · 6 events · In 1980 UNC revised its undergraduate requirements in the College Curriculum Report, which grew out of the 1979 Thornton report. Black faculty and students objected that it neglected Black studies and that a required Western history course could not be met through Afro-American Studies. The Faculty Council approved the curriculum in 1981, and it took effect with the freshmen of fall 1982. StorylineUNC women’s soccer national dynasty1981 to present · 29 events · Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990. StorylineThe Morehead Planetarium star, 1982–19841982–1984 · 4 events · The lighted star that advertised Morehead Planetarium's Christmas show was taken down in December 1982 at Chancellor Christopher Fordham's request, after a law professor called it a religious symbol on a state building, and it stayed down in 1983. Citing a Supreme Court ruling on a nativity scene, Fordham lifted his order in 1984, and the star went back up that November. StorylineDavid Garrow's reappointment case, 1983–19851983–1985 · 7 events · In 1983 UNC's political science department declined to reappoint David J. Garrow, a historian of Martin Luther King Jr., after a 10 to 9 faculty vote. Students gathered more than 2,500 signatures and Coretta Scott King protested, but his appeals failed through the Board of Governors in 1984, and he left for City College of New York. American Civil Liberties Union lawyers represented him in the appeals. StorylineHuman Rights Week at UNC, 1983–19921983–1992 · 13 events · Human Rights Week, run by the Campus Y, brought speakers to Memorial Hall each November. Crystal Lee Sutton and Amnesty International USA's director spoke in 1983, James Baldwin opened the 1984 week, Coretta Scott King spoke in 1987 and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young gave the 1988 keynote. The seventh annual week in 1989 brought Arun Gandhi, Dith Pran and a panel on the problems facing Black men, and Randall Robinson gave the keynote in 1990. Winnie Mandela's 1990 appearance was called off, and in 1992 Rep. Maxine Waters praised the students' campaign for a free-standing Black Cultural Center. StorylineChoosing William Friday’s successor, 1985–19861985–1986 · 6 events · In January 1985 the UNC Board of Governors began its search for a successor to William Friday, president since 1956. The board chose C. D. Spangler Jr., a Charlotte businessman, in January 1986; Friday retired at midnight on February 28, and Spangler took office on March 1. Spangler was inaugurated on Polk Place on October 17, 1986 before about 4,500 people. StorylineRenovating Old East and Old West, 1986–19921986–1992 · 7 events · In 1986 the UNC trustees decided that Old East and Old West would stay residence halls, and in 1987 a task force recommended renovating them as dormitories. The trustees chose Dodge and Associates as architects in 1990, and the halls closed for a $4.2 million renovation in 1991. In 1992 UNC said they would stay men's halls, and rot and damage pushed the reopening to fall 1993. StorylineTrademark royalties and student aid at UNC, 1988–19901988–1990 · 4 events · In 1988 a student government committee found that the Student Aid Office's half of UNC's trademark royalties had gone into an unrestricted endowment fund since 1982, and the trustees moved about $321,000 into a trust fund for scholarships and set a yearly split. In April 1990, after a student study found fewer freshmen from low-income families, the trustees raised financial aid's share to about three-quarters. StorylineThe animal research debate at UNC, 1988–19911988–1991 · 5 events · In December 1988 members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals went to UNC's animal holding farm in western Orange County and alleged mistreatment, which the School of Medicine denied. In 1989 the student group SETA sued to open the University's animal research records, and graduate students formed a coalition to defend research. UNC opened its holding areas to a student tour in 1990, and in January 1991 the N.C. Court of Appeals ordered records released. StorylineGraduate Students United at UNC, 1989–19921989–1992 · 9 events · Graduate Students United formed in 1989 to press for better pay, benefits and status for UNC's graduate employees and rallied that fall for a $4,000-a-semester minimum. It protested the budget cuts in 1990 and 1991. In 1992 it petitioned for University-paid health insurance, which the Faculty Council unanimously urged, and it challenged Student Congress limits on its newsletter in student court. StorylineBuilding the Student Recreation Center, 1989–19931989–1993 · 5 events · In February 1989 UNC students voted a $13-a-semester fee to build a Student Recreation Center by Fetzer Gym. The trustees approved the Fetzer courtyard site that October over a faculty petition and turned down Norma Burns as architect, then appointed her in December. Construction began in August 1991 on a two-story building, with completion set for February 1993. The center opened on September 20, 1993. StorylineA new business school building at Kenan Heights, 1990–19921990–1992 · 5 events · In June 1990 UNC's trustees approved Chancellor Paul Hardin's choice of Kenan Heights, by the Kenan Center, for a new business school building, after a committee endorsed it with five abstentions. The Rams Club pledged about $2.3 million and the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust $10 million toward it. In September 1992 the trustees approved a $25.8 million design, but construction waited on state money. StorylineUNC’s turnover in leadership, 1991–19921991–1992 · 8 events · In 1991 Dean Gillian Cell left UNC for Lafayette College and Provost Dennis O'Connor for the University of Pittsburgh, and William F. Little served as interim provost. In April 1992 the Board of Governors approved Richard McCormick as provost, Mary Sue Coleman in a restored research vice chancellorship and Stephen Birdsall as arts and sciences dean, and Wayne Jones was named to succeed Ben Tuchi in business and finance. StorylineCOVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–20222020 to 2022 · 32 events · From the first cases in March 2020 to the last emergency measures in 2022: closures, remote school, the health department's response, mutual aid, and the pandemic's unequal weight.

Indexed works

Works about UNC & Campus Life 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

Periodicals 3,241Histories 1,329Photographs & portraits 1,264Biography 483Directories 304other types 2,226

Period

18th century 122Revolution (1775–1783) 3719th century 483Civil War (1861–1865) 7720th century 1,269World War I era 28World War II era 8821st century 38

Place

Orange County 3,451North Carolina (statewide) 3,194Chapel Hill 2,169Hillsborough 183Carrboro 70City of Durham (neighboring) 64

Widely held

Carolina Basketball: A Century of Excellence

Lucas, Adam · 2010 · University of North Carolina Press

Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

✓ Held at OCPL · 796.323 LUCAS NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem

Jackson, Rick · 2023

Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road

Moore, Johnny; Chansky, Art · 2014 · Triumph Books

The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Miss Mary's Money

Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

✓ Held at OCPL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist CH Historical Society

The Chronicles of the Bicentennial Observance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Tepper, Steven J. · 1998

Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 378.756 TEP NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Davidson Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

Game Changers

Chansky, Art · 2016

Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

✓ Held at OCPL · 796.323 CHANSKY NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Methodist CH Historical Society
Show 2 more

William Friday

Link, William A. · 1995

Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: University of North Carolina (System) -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO FRIDAY LIN NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Methodist Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

Light on the Hill

Snider, William D. · 1992

William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 378.756 SNI NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Wingate CH Historical Society

Recently indexed: The University of North Carolina : the educational advantages which it offers and how to obtain them (1891) · The '56er's '66 "Yackety Yack" : (plagerized and misquoted from various and sundry 1956 editions of The daily Tar Heel) (1966) · The "poet of man," (1859) · The "value-added" effects of two-year college transfer programs (1976) · 100 years of Epsilon of Phi Gamma Delta, 1851-1951 : centennial celebration, March 31, 1951 (1951) · 150th anniversary alumni gift (1924)

Search all 10,126 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.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 378.756 HEN The Campus of the First State University Henderson, Archibald · 1949

    Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 CON A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, 1776-1799 Connor, R. D. W. · 1953

    Two-volume collection of documents on the founding and first years of the University of North Carolina, 1776 to 1799, compiled by R. D. W. Connor and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. Each volume carries its own bibliography.

  • Foundational · NC 378 BAT History of the University of North Carolina Battle, Kemp P. · 1907

    Kemp Plummer Battle's two-volume history of the University of North Carolina, printed in Raleigh in 1907 and 1912. The first volume runs from the beginnings to the death of President Swain, 1789 to 1868; the second continues to 1912. Battle was himself a president of the university. Illustrated with portraits and facsimiles.

Show 6 more
  • Start here · 975.656 VIC Chapel Hill, An Illustrated History Vickers, James · 1985

    An illustrated history of Chapel Hill by James Vickers with Thomas Scism and Dixon Qualls, published in Chapel Hill by Barclay Publishers in 1985. It treats the town and the University of North Carolina together. First edition, 208 pages with illustrations, some in color, and a bibliography.

  • Foundational · NC 617.097 KAGARISE Legends and Legacies: A Look Inside : Four Decades of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1952-1993 Kagarise, Mary Jane · 1997

    Mary Jane Kagarise's history of the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill across its first four decades, 1952 to 1993, with biographies of the surgeons on its faculty. Published by the department in 1997 in a first edition of 461 pages with illustrations, some in color. Topics include surgery and medical colleges in Chapel Hill and biography of the department's faculty.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 SNI Light on the Hill: A History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Snider, William D. · 1992

    William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 WIL The University of North Carolina, 1900-1930: The Making of A Modern University Wilson, Louis Round · 1957

    Louis Round Wilson's history of the University of North Carolina from 1900 to 1930, subtitled the making of a modern university, written by the librarian who served the university through most of that period. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1957, 633 pages with illustrations, it covers the growth of the campus, its schools and its faculty in three decades of expansion.

  • Start here · 796.323 CHANSKY Game Changers: Dean Smith, Charlie Scott, and the Era That Transformed A Southern College Town Chansky, Art · 2016

    Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 378.756 HOU The Light That Shines: Chapel Hill, 1912-1916 House, R. B. · 1964

    Robert Burton House, later chancellor of the University of North Carolina, recalls Chapel Hill and the campus in his student years from 1912 to 1916. A memoir published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1959, 216 pages with illustrations and portraits. Topics include Chapel Hill's social life and customs and the university's history in the twentieth century.

In the chronology

A selection of 12 events from the 6,911 chronology entries for this theme, including highlights and examples from different years. See all 6,911 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Sallie Walker Stockard becomes UNC's first woman graduate Sallie Walker Stockard, a Guilford College graduate, entered UNC's senior class in the fall of 1897, the first year the university admitted women. She became the first woman to graduate from UNC when the class of 1898 received its degrees on June 1, 1898, and she earned a master's degree there in 1900. People: Sallie Walker Stockard Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · DigitalNC: Charlotte Daily Observer, June 1, 1898, page 4 (Chapel Hill, May 31)
  2. The Carolina Playmakers are organized Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC. People: Frederick H. Koch Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Carolina PlaymakersUNC A to Z: Carolina Playmakers
  3. Influenza epidemic strikes Chapel Hill Spanish influenza swept the University in early October 1918, putting the campus and its student soldiers under a three-week quarantine. By October 23 about 300 students had been ill and three had died, and President Edward Kidder Graham died of influenza and pneumonia on October 26. People: Edward Kidder Graham Place: CarrboroThe Tar Heel, October 23, 1918, p. 1
  4. The University of North Carolina Press is founded On June 12, 1922, university librarian Louis Round Wilson, nine other faculty members and three trustees founded the University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South. Its first book, William C. Coker's study of water molds, appeared in 1923, and William T. Couch became director in 1932. People: William T. Couch, Louis Round Wilson Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: William C. CokerUNC Research: Local Ink, Inc. (July 20, 2020) · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, April 23, 1981, p. 2; The Daily Tar Heel, December 7, 1990, p. 1
  5. The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hargraves Center, Navy Pre-Flight School, Roberson StreetSearch the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Pioneers of integration (May 25, 2017) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, August 7, 1942, p. 1
  6. Morehead Planetarium is dedicated Morehead Planetarium was dedicated at UNC on May 10, 1949. People: John Motley Morehead III Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Morehead PlanetariumSearch the index · Morehead Planetarium
  7. North Carolina Memorial Hospital opens North Carolina Memorial Hospital opened to patients on Tuesday, September 2, 1952, without a formal ceremony, as the core of the new University Medical Center. Its opening allowed the UNC School of Medicine to grow from a two-year program into a four-year school. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: North Carolina Memorial Hospital, UNC School of MedicineThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 5, 1952, p. 1 · Also: UNC Libraries: Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1905-2020
  8. WUNC-TV begins broadcasting WUNC-TV began broadcasting from Chapel Hill on January 8, 1955. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: WUNC-TVSearch the index · PBS North Carolina · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, December 4, 1979, p. 1
  9. UNC men’s basketball wins the 1957 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Kansas, 54–53 in triple overtime, to win the national title. People: Frank McGuire Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I men’s basketball
  10. James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. People: James L. Cates Jr. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James Lewis Cates Jr. · Also mentions: North Carolina Memorial HospitalThe Daily Tar Heel, November 22, 1970, p. 1
  11. Chapel Hill Transit begins service Chapel Hill's municipal bus system began running on August 1, 1974, after Mayor Howard Lee and UNC Chancellor Ferebee Taylor cut the ribbon, with eight town, campus and park-and-ride routes. Carrboro was not yet served. People: Howard N. Lee Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Ferebee TaylorSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel: bus system opening day ceremony, August 26, 1974 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, August 26, 1974, p. 11; The Daily Tar Heel, November 8, 1976, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, September 5, 1984, p. 4
  12. 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

See all 6,911 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 151 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 181 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 24

Show all 24

National Register files 7

Show all 7

Records of the time 6

Show all 6

Collections and databases 8

Show all 8

Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss UNC & Campus Life directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Descendants of Matthew McCauley Neville, David Lindsay · 2001 Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: McCauley family; Neville family; Lloyd family OCPL call number: NC 929.209 NEV
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Essays on William Chambers Coker, Passionate Botanist Joslin, Mary Coker · 2003

    Mary Coker Joslin's essays on her uncle, William Chambers Coker (1872 to 1953), the University of North Carolina botanist who began the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill in 1903 and chaired the botany department for 36 years. She presents him as scientist, teacher, landscape designer and editor. Published in Chapel Hill by the Botanical Garden Foundation in 2003, the arboretum's centennial year, with drawings by Sandra Brooks-Mathers and eight pages of plates.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Coker, William Chambers, 1872-1953; Botanists -- North Carolina -- Biography OCPL call number: NC 580.92 JOS
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Federal Convention of 1787: North Carolina in the Great Crisis Craige, Burton · 1987

    North Carolina's part in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, told by Burton Craige (1875 to 1945) with biographical sketches of the state's delegates: William Blount, William R. Davie, Alexander Martin, Richard Dobbs Spaight and Hugh Williamson. Archibald Craige published it in 1987, the Convention's bicentennial; 200 pages with portraits, a bibliography and a folded color facsimile map in a back pocket.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: United States Constitutional Convention (1787); Constitutional history -- United States; Constitutional history -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 342.73 CRA
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Governor Roberts, Nancy · 1972

    Nancy Roberts wrote the text and Bruce Roberts took the photographs for this large-format book about Robert W. Scott, governor of North Carolina from 1969 to 1973. McNally and Loftin of Charlotte published it in 1972, while Scott was still in office; 141 pages.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Scott, Robert Walter, 1929-2009 OCPL call number: NC 975.604 ROB

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Schools & Education →Carolina Sports →Libraries, Archives & Public Memory →Health, Medicine & Care →Literature & Publishing →Buildings & Preservation →

Picture: University of North Carolina, 1797. Public domain

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026