Carolina Firsts: Vermont C. Royster

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

When Vermont C. Royster began his studies at UNC in 1931, he was no stranger to the campus.  He was born in Raleigh, and his father, Wilbur Royster, was a professor of Greek and Latin at the university. Although Royster did receive his degree in Classics, his mark on UNC as a student, alumnus, and professor was made through his journalism — writing for the Wall Street Journal and later teaching at the School of Journalism. Royster was one of the first UNC alumni to receive a Pulitzer prize in 1953 (the same year as W. Horace Carter), and he later received a second Pulitzer in 1984.

Royster’s profile in the 1935 Yackety Yack.

Royster began his journalism career at UNC, where he worked for several campus publications, including The Daily Tar Heel and The Student Journal.  During his senior year, he revived and wrote a column in the Daily Tar Heel titled “Around the Well,” which highlighted and described various campus happenings and gossip.

In addition to being drawn to journalism at UNC, he was also an active writer and participant in the Department of Dramatic Arts.  As part of a play-writing course, he wrote and staged two plays — Shadows of Industry and Prelude — both of which can be found in the archives.

After graduating, Royster went on to begin the journalism career for which he is well known.  He moved to New York and began working for the Wall Street Journal in 1936.  He retired from the Wall Street Journal in 1971 and joined UNC’s School of Journalism as a faculty member later that year.  Over the course of his career — both as a professional journalist and university professor — he won two Pulitzer Prizes: the first in 1953 for Editorial Writing and the second in 1984 for Commentary.

Royster died in 1996, and his personal papers are housed in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library. In addition, Royster published several books over the course of his life — including My Own, My Country’s Time, A Pride of Prejudices, and Journey Through the Soviet Union — all of which can be found in UNC Libraries.

Sources & Additional Readings:

Collection of “Around the Well” columns

“Vermont C. Royster (1914-1996),” written by Will Schultz.  North Carolina History Project. http://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/vermont-c-royster-1914-1996/.

Vermont Royster papers #4432, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Essential Royster: a Vermont Royster reader. edited by Edmund Fuller. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books, 1985.

My Own, My Country’s Time: a journalist’s journey. Vermont Royster. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books, 1983.

A Pride of Prejudices. Vermont Royster. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books, 1984.

Journey through the Soviet Union.  Vermont Royster. New York, D. Jones [1962].

Carolina Firsts: Patricia Horoho

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

Patricia Horoho was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She went to school in Fayetteville and then enrolled at UNC, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.

After leaving UNC, Horoho began a successful career as a nurse and later as an administrator in the U.S. Army. She was serving in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and provided first aid to many of the victims of the attack. The American Red Cross and Nursing Spectrum honored her service on September 11 by recognizing her as a “Nurse Hero.” In 2009, Horoho received the USO Woman of the Year award.

In 2011, Horoho was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. She was the first nurse and the first woman to serve in that role. She completed a four-year term as Surgeon General in December 2015 and retired from the Army in 2016.



Sources  & Further Reading

SON Alumna Becomes Army Surgeon General.” December 6, 2011. UNC School of Nursing news release.

“First Rank: Nurse Nominated to be Army Surgeon General.” Carolina Alumni Review, September/October 2011, p. 57.

Campus Events 2011: School of Nursing and the Kenan Flagler Business School: General Patricia Horoho (Presentation), in the News Services of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40139, University Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carolina Firsts: Patricia Horoho

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

Patricia Horoho was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She went to school in Fayetteville and then enrolled at UNC, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.

After leaving UNC, Horoho began a successful career as a nurse and later as an administrator in the U.S. Army. She was serving in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and provided first aid to many of the victims of the attack. The American Red Cross and Nursing Spectrum honored her service on September 11 by recognizing her as a “Nurse Hero.” In 2009, Horoho received the USO Woman of the Year award.

In 2011, Horoho was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. She was the first nurse and the first woman to serve in that role. She completed a four-year term as Surgeon General in December 2015 and retired from the Army in 2016.



Sources  & Further Reading

SON Alumna Becomes Army Surgeon General.” December 6, 2011. UNC School of Nursing news release.

“First Rank: Nurse Nominated to be Army Surgeon General.” Carolina Alumni Review, September/October 2011, p. 57.

Campus Events 2011: School of Nursing and the Kenan Flagler Business School: General Patricia Horoho (Presentation), in the News Services of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40139, University Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carolina Firsts: Karen L. Parker

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings #5275, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings #5275, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Karen L. Parker made history at UNC in 1965, when she became the first African American woman to receive an undergraduate degree from the University.

Parker began her studies at UNC in 1963 following two years of study at the North Carolina Women’s College in Greensboro (now UNC-Greensboro). During her time at UNC, she took an active role in the local and national civil rights movements, participating in sit-ins and marches. The diary she kept as a student — which documents her experience on campus and in the community, her hopes and goals for the future, and the trials she encountered along the way — has been digitized and can be found in the Southern Historical Collection.  

At UNC, Parker majored in Journalism. For her senior year, she was named the editor of The Journalista news publication put out by the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Parker was also chosen to participate in UNC’s exchange program with the University of Toronto.

After graduating, Parker went on to have a successful career in journalism, working at Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Los Angeles Times; and other publications before returning to North Carolina to work at the Winston-Salem Journal. She retired in 2010, and was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 2012.

Parker has been active with UNC, serving on the Friends of the Library Board and the Board of the General Alumni Association. In 2015, during the campaign to rename the former Saunders Hall (now Carolina Hall), a UNC student wrote to the Daily Tar Heel published a letter to the editor, suggesting that the building be renamed in honor of Karen Parker.


Sources and Further Reading:

A Role Model for Change.” UNC News Services, February 19, 2015.

Karen Parker.” I Raised My Hand to Volunteer, UNC Library Exhibit, 2007.

Morgan Jones, “Karen Parker: A Woman to Remember.” For the Record, UNC University Archives blog, March 18, 2013.

Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings #5275, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Oral Histories:

  • February 2007 interview with the Southern Oral History Program
  • April 2007 interview with the Southern Oral History Program
  • December 2012 interview with UNC-Greensboro
  • March 2016 interview with the Southern Oral History Program

Carolina Firsts: Henry Owl

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

From the 1927 "Hacawa," student yearbook at Lenoir Rhyne College.

From the 1927 “Hacawa,” student yearbook at Lenoir Rhyne College.

Henry Owl, a member of the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians, was the first Native American student to attend UNC.  Owl came to Carolina in the fall of 1928 and graduated the following year with a Master of Arts in History.

Owl was born in 1896 near Rattlesnake Mountain in western North Carolina. He attended the school at the Cherokee reservation, which at the time went only through eighth grade. Owl began his college education at the Hampton Institute, a primarily African American school in Hampton, Virginia. After leaving Hampton, Owl joined the U.S. Army and then taught briefly in Oklahoma. He returned to North Carolina in 1925 to enroll in Lenoir College (now Lenoir-Rhyne University) in Hickory.

At Lenoir, Owl was a member of multiple college clubs and was elected “Most Popular Boy.” He was also a star athlete, playing football and baseball. He was inducted into the Lenoir-Rhyne Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. According to Lenoir-Rhyne, Owl was the first Cherokee to graduate from a North Carolina college. 

Not long after coming to Chapel Hill, Owl was mentioned in a Daily Tar Heel article about UNC’s “most cosmopolitan student body,” which discusses the growing number of international and out-of-state students at the university, despite the fact that Owl was neither an international nor an out-of-state student.    

Owl wrote his master’s thesis on the history of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The thesis, The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Before and After Renewal, is available in Wilson Library.

In 1930, just a year after graduating from UNC, Owl was prohibited from voting in Swain County. A profile in a the Lenoir-Rhyne alumni magazine described what happened:

[Owl’s daughter, Gladys Cardiff] said her father often discussed this incident. “North Carolina had some issue that they knew the tribe would be voting against,” she said. In those days the state had a literacy test for voters. When Owl tried to register, he was turned away on the grounds that he was illiterate. Owl left the courthouse and returned with a copy of his master’s thesis.

The story of Owl’s struggle to vote eventually reached the U.S. Congress, which passed a law affirming that Cherokees in North Carolina were citizens and had the right to vote.

Owl worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a teacher and principal on reservations in North Carolina, Montana, and South Dakota. He moved with his family to Seattle where he worked as a counselor at the Veteran’s Administration and later as an inspector at Boeing. Wary of the racism that he knew he and his family would encounter on leaving the reservation, Owl began using his wife’s last name, Harris. He died in Seattle in 1980.

In addition to the new Carolina Firsts scholarship named in Owl’s honor, in 2011, the Department of American studies announced an endowed scholarship named The Henry Owl Scholarship Fund for Undergraduate Students.  The scholarship provides need-based assistance to undergraduate majors in the American Studies department, with preference given to those studying American Indian and Indigenous Studies.

Sources and Further Reading:

“Living in Two Worlds,” Profile: The Magazine of Lenior-Rhyne College, Winter 2007. https://archive.org/stream/profilemagazineo2007wunse#page/10/mode/2up

“The Henry Owl Scholarship and a Class in ‘Gumption,’ UNC Arts & Sciences Magazine, 2014. http://college.unc.edu/2014/11/10/the-henry-owl-scholarship-and-a-class-in-gumption/

“Cherokee Indian Leaders Eloquently Describe to Senators Needs of Tribe.” Asheville-Citizen Times, 27 March 1930.

“Members of Indian Family Win Honors in Scholastic Work.” Asheville-Citizen Times, 27 November 1932

“Owl Family Holds Reunion.” Asheville-Citizen Times, 26 August 1962

“North Carolina Deaths, Funerals: Henry Harris” Asheville-Citizen Times, 11 March 1980

“Lenoir-Rhyne Announces Sports Hall Of Fame Class Of 2012” L-R Athletics, 26 September 2012.  http://lrbears.com/article.asp?articleID=1814

Lenoir-Rhyne University. Hacawa. 1927. http://library.digitalnc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/yearbooks/id/6760/rec/17

“University Presents Most Cosmopolitan Student Body.” Daily Tar Heel. 6 October 1928. https://www.newspapers.com/image/76356709

“First Indian Student at UNC, Henry Owl.” The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History. https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/american-indians-and-chapel-hi/henry-owl

“Henry Owl Fellowship honors American Indian pioneer.” Cherokee One Feather. 31 October 2012. https://theonefeather.com/2011/10/henry-owl-fellowship-honors-american-indian-pioneer/

Carolina Firsts: Hortense McClinton

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog … Continue reading

At the University Day celebration on October 11, 2016, Chancellor Carol Folt announced a new program to name scholarships after notable “firsts” in UNC history. In recognition of the individuals recognized as pioneers at UNC, the University Archives is publishing blog posts with more information about each of the twenty-one “firsts.” This post is part of that series.

Hortense McClinton, 2015 (University Gazette.)

Hortense McClinton, 2015 (University Gazette.)

Hortense McClinton: Carolina’s First African American Faculty Member

In July 1966, Hortense McClinton accepted an offer to teach in the UNC School of Social Work. She was the first African American faculty member hired at UNC.

McClinton grew up in Boley, Oklahoma. She attended Howard University and earned a master’s degree in social work at the University of Pennsylvania. McClinton moved to Durham with her husband and was hired by the Durham County Department of Social Services at the Veteran’s Administration hospital. She was the first African American professional social worker employed by the department and the only African American professional on staff at the hospital. McClinton was working for the VA when she received her first offer from UNC in 1964. Reluctant to accept a job funded by term-limited grant money, she refused. When another position in the department was open two years later – this time with more secure funding – UNC reached out to McClinton again and this time she accepted, beginning what would be a nearly 20-year career at Carolina.

Hortense McClinton (left) with students in the School of Social Work ca. 1984. School of Social Work catalog, 1984-1985,

Hortense McClinton (left) with students in the School of Social Work ca. 1984. School of Social Work catalog, 1984-1985,

In a 2011 interview with the Southern Oral History Program, McClinton noted that her presence at the school was a milestone for UNC:  “Some students, I think, were quite shocked to see me, but I really enjoyed the students. They were really open and nice and I felt.”

In 1972, drawing from her personal experiences, McClinton began to teach a course on institutional racism. She explained, “I finally decided, well, if you’ve been taught a certain thing all your life, you have to learn to know something different. That’s when I started the class in institutional racism.” McClinton spent much of her academic career helping students gain the knowledge and skills they would need to provide social services without racial or cultural bias.

1974 School of Social Work catalog.

1974 School of Social Work catalog.

McClinton’s work at UNC ranged far beyond her classes at the School of Social Work. She was appointed to multiple committees, including the Committee on the Status of Women, the Carolina Association of Disabled Students, the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of the Minorities and the Disadvantaged, and multiple search committees.  McClinton later said that she felt she was on so many committees because she was the only African American faculty member at UNC for three years, and one of just a few for several years after that.

McClinton’s arrival at UNC appears to have gone largely unheralded at the time. Searching through records of UNC administrators in 1966, I could not find any correspondence discussing or protesting the hire; nor could I find anything noting the significance of her appointment. This is in marked contrast to the admission of the first African American students at UNC in the 1950s, which came after lengthy court battles and were well covered in the local media. When the first African American faculty member to be hired as a full professor at UNC – English professor Dr. Blyden Jackson, who came to UNC in 1969 — he was the subject of a feature story in the Daily Tar Heel. McClinton, on the other hand, is barely mentioned in the school paper, at least as far as we could tell through keyword searches in the digitized DTH archives.

McClinton has received many awards and honors professionally and at UNC. She is recognized as a “Social Work Pioneer” by the National Association of Social Workers. At Carolina, the Hortense McClinton Outstanding Faculty Staff Award is presented by the General Alumni Association; the Hortense McClinton Senior Service Award is presented by the Kappa Omicron Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; and, in 2009, she received a Legacy Award from the Black Faculty Staff Caucus.

Sources:

“Mrs. McClinton did not study black history – she lived it.” University Gazette, 27 February 2015. https://www.unc.edu/spotlight/mcclinton/

Southern Oral History Program interview with Hortense McClinton, 2011. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/sohp&CISOPTR=7762&filename=7804.pdf

National Association of Social Workers, Social Work Pioneers. http://www.naswfoundation.org/pioneers/m/mcclinton_hortense.html