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Theme

Women's Lives & History

Women's work, organizations, and daily lives, from farm wives and teachers to suffragists and civic leaders.

In briefFrom Polly Burke and the Burwell School for young women to Elizabeth Keckly, Sallie Walker Stockard’s 1898 degree, Elizabeth Cotten and the women’s soccer dynasty, women’s work and organizations run through every part of the county’s record. The storylines follow the Burwell household and Elizabeth Keckly in Hillsborough.

741 indexed works are connected with this theme. 31 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
A woman at her farm gate.

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 256Letters & correspondence 113Periodicals 88Biography 62Photographs & portraits 46other types 231

Period

18th century 3019th century 117Civil War (1861–1865) 30Reconstruction (1865–1877) 620th century 124World War I era 9World War II era 2321st century 9

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 403Chapel Hill 326Orange County 272Hillsborough 77Durham County (neighboring) 26Carrboro 21

Widely held

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Methodist record: Women slaves.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

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

The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips

Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949

Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).

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

Old Days in Chapel Hill

Chamberlain, G. Hope Summerell · 1926

Hope Summerell Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), published in 1926, which doubles as a picture of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century. It runs 325 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO SPENCER CHA NC Cardinal UNC NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Wingate CH Historical Society

Selected Papers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips · 1953

Selected writings of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), the Chapel Hill writer who campaigned for the university's reopening after Reconstruction, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. The 753 pages touch on Chapel Hill life, education and the university in the nineteenth century.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1954).

NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU CH Historical Society Library of Congress

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray

Rosenberg, Rosalind · 2017

Rosalind Rosenberg's 2017 biography of Pauli Murray (1910-1985), lawyer, poet and Episcopal priest, raised in Durham. Its six parts follow a Southern childhood, the move to New York, the 1938 application to the University of North Carolina that was refused because Murray was Black (the chapter is titled 'Members of your race are not admitted'), law school and the coining of the phrase Jane Crow, the Cold War years, the push toward 'an NAACP for women', and a late-life ordination. 494 pages with portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Women.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2018).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO MURRAY ROS Duke NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL

Well worth a shindy : the architectural and philosophical history of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Madry, Sarah Brandes · 2003 · iUniverse

Sarah Brandes Madry's history of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, treating both its architecture and the ideas attached to it. It takes in drinking fountains and water use in Chapel Hill and the university's history, with a chapter on Edwin Anderson Alderman, the president under whom the well took its present form in 1897, and one on water at the university. Published by iUniverse in 2003, 399 pages with illustrations.

Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Cardinal UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society
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Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave

Fleischner, Jennifer · 2003 · Broadway Books

Jennifer Fleischner's double biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, the dressmaker who had been enslaved, including years in Hillsborough, before buying her freedom and becoming the First Lady's confidante. Published by Broadway Books in New York in 2003, 372 pages with illustrations and a map. Topics include enslaved women in Hillsborough and the United States, dressmakers and women's friendships in the nineteenth century.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Enslaved women.

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

The Book of Burwell Students

Engstrom, Mary Claire · 1979 · Historic Hillsborough Commission

Mary Claire Engstrom's biographical register of the young women who attended the Burwell School in Hillsborough, subtitled lives of educated women in the antebellum South. The school was kept by Margaret Anna Burwell and her husband, and the book bears on women's education in nineteenth-century North Carolina. Published by the Historic Hillsborough Commission, 1979, 256 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Women.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 371.82 ENG NC Cardinal UNC Durham

Recently indexed: Annabel Morris Buchanan : a profile of her contributions to folklore (1978) · Anti-religious invasion of higher education (1932) · [Appeal on behalf of project to establish home for aged women] (1875) · Ballot (1923) · The Betty Smith House : a Chapel Hill landmark (1984) · [Campus conversation on sexual assault website archives]

Search all 741 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

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

Show 6 more
  • Foundational · REF 305.409 SMI North Carolina Women: Making History Smith, Margaret Supplee · 1999

    Margaret Supplee Smith and Emily Herring Wilson trace the lives of North Carolina women from the earliest Native settlements to the end of the Second World War, using more than two hundred photographs and documents. Smith, a Wake Forest art professor, had coordinated the North Carolina Museum of History's women's history project. Foreword by Doris Betts; UNC Press, 1999, 382 pages.

  • Foundational · NC 371.35 HAMMETT Ordinary Women Extraordinary Service to Family, Community, and North Carolina Hammett, Wilma · 2011

    Wilma Hammett, Jan Christensen and Joan Gosper wrote and compiled this illustrated book about North Carolina women whose service reached their families, communities and state. The North Carolina Family and Consumer Sciences Foundation published the 340 pages in 2011 with the foundation of the state's Extension and Community Association.

  • Wider context · 323.119 GRE Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina Greene, Christina · 2005

    Christina Greene's history of Black and white women in Durham's freedom movement, from the fight against Jim Crow in the 1940s through the protests of 1957 to 1963, neighborhood organizing among poor residents, the War on Poverty, Black Power politics and a boycott. Revised from her 1996 Duke doctoral thesis, it was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2005; 366 pages with bibliography and index.

  • Foundational · NC 973.745 NOR North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction 2008

    Paul D. Escott edits nine essays on North Carolinians from secession through Reconstruction: Piedmont disaffection, Wild's Raid and guerrilla war in the northeast, African Americans under Union occupation, soldiers and the 1864 governor's race, the war's end as seen by Chapel Hill writer Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Zebulon Vance and university president David L. Swain, women and the law, divorce at the 1868 constitutional convention, the roots of Jim Crow, and Vance's memory. UNC Press, 2008.

  • Wider context · NC 340.09 COL The Changing Face of Justice: A Look at the First 100 Women Attorneys in North Carolina Colin, Emily · 2004

    Portraits of the first hundred women admitted to practice law in North Carolina, by Emily Colin and Lynn P. Roundtree, published by the North Carolina Bar Association in 2004. The project began in 1997, when the association's Committee on Women in the Profession set out to identify the state's pioneering women lawyers. 108 pages in a large format, with photographs, references and an index.

  • Wider context · NC 305.409 KIE Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives Kierner, Cynthia A. · 1998

    Cynthia A. Kierner prints and interprets 98 petitions that women sent to the legislatures of North and South Carolina between 1776 and 1800. Soldiers' widows sought back pay, wives of banished loyalists asked that their husbands be let home, deserted wives wanted separate estates, and freed Black women sought recognition of their freedom. An essay opens each of five chapters, and closing lists sort each state's petitions by subject. University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

In the chronology

Storylines in this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Slavery in Orange County1758–2021 · 102 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. The Burwell School and the Burwell household1837–1857 · 37 events · Anna Burwell opened a school for girls in Hillsborough in 1837 that ran until the family moved to Charlotte in 1857. In the same household Elizabeth Hobbs, later Elizabeth Keckly, was enslaved from 1835, beaten at Anna Burwell’s urging and subjected to years of sexual coercion before being sent back to Virginia in 1842; she bought her freedom in 1855. UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer1924 to present · 31 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. UNC women’s soccer national dynasty1981 to present · 26 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. Elizabeth Keckly in HillsboroughKeckly’s enslaved years in the Burwell household and her memoir’s testimony about them, including the abuse by schoolmaster William Bingham

Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 416, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 416 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. Orange County begins with fifty taxable enslaved people

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    When the county was organized its tax lists showed fifty enslaved Black taxables, thirty-five men and fifteen women, a small number for a county of small farms.

  2. Polly Burke helps organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough, Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

    In September 1816 Mary W. Burke joined eight other people and the Rev. John Knox Witherspoon to organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, which acquired the town's brick church built in 1810. She rented pew 13 on the first pew list and supported the church for the next eighteen years.

    People: John Knox Witherspoon

    Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

  3. Burwell School for young women operates

    Hillsborough

    Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857.

    Part of The Burwell School and the Burwell household · 37 events

    People: Margaret Anna Burwell · Robert Armistead Burwell · Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

    Subject: Burwell School

  4. Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son

    Slavery and freedom · St. Louis, Missouri; earlier Hillsborough connection

    Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough.

    Part of Elizabeth Keckly in Hillsborough

    People: George Kirkland · Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

  5. Wilson Caldwell returns to the reopened university and later heads its labor force

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    When the university reopened in 1875 Wilson Caldwell went back to work there. He became curator of South Building and head of the campus labor corps, and held the post until his death in 1898.

    Part of The university closes and reopens · 46 events

    People: Wilson Swain Caldwell

    Subject: South Building

  6. Women enroll at UNC for the first time

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    After the trustees opened UNC's post-graduate courses to women early in 1897, four women registered in September for the 1897–98 session, which The Tar Heel called the start of coeducation: Dixie Lee Bryant, Sallie Walker Stockard, Cecye Dodd and Mary MacRae. President Edwin Alderman let women enter junior and senior classes as well.

    People: Dixie Lee Bryant

  7. Sallie Walker Stockard becomes UNC's first woman graduate

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    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.

  8. Elizabeth Cotten composes Freight Train

    Publication, speech or performance · Carrboro

    At about age eleven, growing up near the railroad tracks in the settlement that became Carrboro, Elizabeth Cotten wrote "Freight Train." She played a right-handed guitar upside down, and the song became a folk standard after Folkways released her recording in 1958.

  9. Matron Lula B. Henderson and farm manager Lewis Walker are hired at the Efland Home

    Appointment, election or service · North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), 201 Redman Crossing, Efland

    After J. A. Lassiter's husband was let go in March 1935, the home hired Lula B. Henderson as matron and Lewis Walker to run the farm in April. Henderson's husband, a retired minister living in Chapel Hill, taught the girls under the Emergency Relief Administration's adult education program.

    Subject: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home)

  10. District health department holds midwife classes across Orange County

    Health or relief action · Orange County

    Classes for midwives were held at Efland and Hillsboro and began for those in and near Chapel Hill at the health department offices, with attendance required before a permit to practice would be issued. Health officer W. P. Richardson said 17 percent of births in the county were attended by midwives, against 31 percent statewide.

    Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 26 events

  11. Orange County Negro Public Library dedicates its own building

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    About 150 people attended an open house on May 27, 1951 dedicating the Orange County Negro Public Library's own building in Hillsborough, a structure bought from Camp Butner and put up with volunteer labor. Begun in 1942 by Marinda McPherson, the library had opened to the public in 1949 and now held more than 3,000 books.

    Part of The Orange County Negro Public Library and the struggle for equal library service, 1936–1960s

    Subject: Orange County Public Library

  12. UNC food workers' strike

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: Mary Smith · Elizabeth Brooks · J. Carlyle Sitterson · Robert W. Scott · Julius L. Chambers

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  13. Carmichael Residence Hall is dedicated

    Naming or commemoration · UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The university dedicated a new six-storey residence hall for 486 students, named for Katherine Kennedy Carmichael.

  14. UNC Housekeepers organize for pay and respect

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    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.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

  15. UNC women’s basketball wins the 1994 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    Charlotte Smith’s last-second three-pointer gave UNC a 60–59 victory over Louisiana Tech.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Sylvia Hatchell

  16. UNC says a new residence hall will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson

    Naming or commemoration · UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

    UNC-Chapel Hill announced that one of two new residence halls, to be built on the site of the former Jackson Hall that housed undergraduate admissions, will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson. The two halls will add about 730 beds.

    People: Blyden Jackson

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 48 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

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All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 7

Background from selected state and local sources

Show all 7

Read contemporary evidence 3

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Search beyond the index 7

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Show all 7

Additional research sources

Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.

Related themes

UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Black Life & Civil Rights →Work, Labor & Industry →Everyday Life & Traditions →Health, Medicine & Care →

Picture: Farm Security Administration photographs, 1939–1940, Library of Congress; public domain. Image credits →

More to discover

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