Tag: University Archives

January 1925: UNC Faces the Poole Resolution

(from the University of North Carolina Papers, #40005, University Archives)
Telegram from President Chase asking for help to defeat the Poole resolution (from the University of North Carolina Papers, #40005, University Archives)

On January 8, 1925, David Scott Poole from Hoke County introduced a resolution in the North Carolina State Legislature stating:

“That it is the sense of the General Assembly of North Carolina  that it is injurious to the welfare of the people of the State of North Carolina for any official or teacher in the State, paid wholly or in part by taxation, to teach or permit to be taught as a fact either Darwinism or any other evolutionary hypothesis that links men in blood relationship with any lower form of life.”

(North Carolina General Assembly, “Joint Resolution Restricting the Teaching of Darwinism in the Public Schools of North Carolina”)

This resolution was the culmination of at least five years of increasing debate over the teaching and learning of evolution in public schools. In 1920, the President of Wake Forest University, William L. Poteat, accepted the teaching of evolution as part of Wake Forest’s biology curriculum. At the same time, President Henry W. Chase and Dr. Howard Odum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sought to increase the scope of the academic research done at the school. Social Forces, a journal founded by Odum in 1922, published several articles on the issue of religion and academic freedom. The John Calvin McNair Lecture Series, which was founded in 1906 and focused on the relationship of science and theology, also hosted talks on this topic in the years leading up to the resolution.

For the university community, and President Chase in particular, the issue of teaching evolution was not one of religion but freedom of speech and the freedom to teach the “scientific truth”. President Chase vigorously defended the fact that the University of North Carolina was not trying to suppress religion in its schools. Instead, religious activities and studies were actively encouraged and supported by the university. What President Chase objected to was the interference of political agendas in teaching.

“The state of North Carolina has shown that it believes in the free thought and discussion necessary to secure the advancement of the knowledge in the world. I have simply tried to point out that such freedom does not produce an atmosphere of indifference to religion, that, as the unrestricted right to seek for truth, it is the vital and essential thing to which a University must be dedicated. Scientific truth has never, in the long run, done the slightest harm to religious faith, but has on the contrary widened and deepened that faith.”

(Vol. II 1923-30, page 290, in the Harry Woodburn Chase Papers, #3429, Southern Historical Collection)

President Chase and his allies helped to defeat the resolution in committee. It also failed when brought to the full General Assembly for a vote.

For more on the anti-evolution debate see: “The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina in the 1920s”, an online exhibit provided by UNC Libraries.

“A Carolina Lady:” Navigating Campus Rules for Women in 1958

The Women's Honor Council for the 1958-1959 academic year. From the 1959 Yackety Yack, http://digitalnc.org
The Women’s Honor Council for the 1958-1959 academic year. From the 1959 Yackety Yack, http://digitalnc.org

When new women students arrived on campus in the fall of 1958, their orientation likely included advice on many topics familiar to today’s students. But they also received an introduction to something else — the complicated and often confusing set of rules that governed women’s lives on campus.

In 1958, there were 1,320 women students at UNC Chapel Hill — about 19% of the student population. It was five years before the University would admit women students without consideration of their intended major and residence and 14 years before the passage of Title IX, which banned sex discrimination in federally-funded education.

Rules for women enrolled at UNC included strict curfews and guidelines for dress and behavior in campus spaces, and were often subject to interpretation. At an orientation for women students in 1958, Women’s Honor Council chair Nancy Adams gave advice for avoiding violations of the code, explaining what it meant to be “a Carolina Lady.”

Advice for first year women students, 1958. From the Office of the Dean of Women Records (#40125), University Archives.
Advice for first year women students, 1958. From the Office of the Dean of Women Records (#40125), University Archives.

 

In 1962, Adams returned to UNC as Assistant Dean of Women. After three years in that position, she turned her attention to activism, advocating for civil rights and American withdrawal from Vietnam.

John Motley Morehead III: Ten Facts from a Remarkable Life

John Motley Morehead, III (center), from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection (#P0004), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive. 
John Motley Morehead, III (center), from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection (#P0004), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive.

This Thanksgiving marks the 83rd birthday of one of UNC Chapel Hill’s most recognizable landmarks: the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower. Dedicated right before the UNC-Virginia Thanksgiving Day game in 1931, the Bell Tower has been marking the quarter hour of countless Tar Heels’ lives for over eighty years, becoming a classic symbol of the University.

But the name Morehead can be found not only on the iconic Bell Tower, but across campus–from the Morehead Planetarium to the Morehead-Cain Scholars Program, to the Morehead Laboratories. One of the University’s major benefactors, John Motley Morehead III made a remarkable impact on the campus and its students. Here are ten facts about his life, legacy and work.

 

  1. John Motley Morehead, III was a third-generation Tar Heel. The Morehead saga begins with the first John Motley Morehead (Morehead III’s grandfather), who graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 1817, and later became North Carolina’s 29th governor. His son, James Turner Morehead, also attended UNC, graduating in 1861. Three decades later the baton was passed to John Motley Morehead III, who graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a degree in Chemistry in 1891, becoming the fourteenth member of his family to graduate as a Tar Heel.
  2. He was an influential chemist. One year after graduating from UNC,  Morehead discovered acetylene gas while working at his father’s aluminum company in Spray, NC. He used this new-found gas as a way to mass-produce calcium carbide, subsequently co-founding one of America’s most influential corporations: Union Carbide. Morehead would go on to work at Union Carbide for 56 years as the company’s chief chemist and construction engineer.
  3. He was heavily involved in WWI. In addition to being an Army major, Morehead III also served on the Interdepartmental Ammonia Committee, the War Industries Board as chief of the Industrial Gases and Gas Products section, and also as secretary to the Explosives Committee. Under his supervision, it is said that the Americans’ supply of toluene–the second “T” in T.N.T–increased ten-fold.
  4. He was once a mayor. Proving to be just as proficient in politics as he was in chemistry, Morehead served as the mayor of Rye, New York from 1925 to 1930.
  5. He served as the United States Minister to Sweden. Cognizant of Morehead’s outstanding scientific work in WWI, former engineer President Herbert Hoover appointed Morehead to the title of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Sweden in 1930. Adding yet another achievement to his already illustrious resume, Morehead III served as Minister to Sweden for three years, ultimately receiving the gold medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from King Gustav V. Morehead was the first non-Swede to ever receive the honor.
  6. The Bell Tower’s current location was not Morehead’s first choice. During the early 1920s, as plans were being made to renovate South Building, Morehead sought to replace South’s belfry with an extravagant Bell Tower if the university agreed to change the building’s name from ‘South’ to ‘Morehead’. Although Morehead’s proposal was denied, the Bell Tower would eventually be completed in 1931 in its current location right outside Kenan Stadium.
  7. Morehead Planetarium, funded by and named for Morehead, has hosted astronauts including Neil Armstrong and John Glenn. Completed in 1949, Morehead built the luxurious Morehead Planetarium as a way to reinvigorate Chapel Hill’s and the South’s thirst for scientific knowledge. Since its construction, the advanced facilities of Morehead Planetarium have been used to train and host an impressive number of NASA astronauts. Famous visitors to the planetarium include Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, John Glenn (pictured below), and the crew of the Apollo 13 mission.

    p0004_373_planetarium
    John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, pictured with his family on the Morehead Planetarium Sundial. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection (#P0004), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive.
  8. John Motley Morehead III is the creator of one of the nation’s most prestigious scholarships: The Morehead-Cain Scholarship. First handed out in 1951, the Morehead-Cain Scholarship has become one of the most prestigious undergraduate merit-based scholarships in the United States. Notable recipients of the scholarship include three U.S. congressman, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, a Pulitzer-prize winning historian, and an ACC commissioner just to name a few.
  9. The name of Morehead’s grandfather, Governor John Motley Morehead, is inscribed on the Bell Tower’s largest bell. Dedicated in 1931, the Morrison-Patterson Bell Tower included 12 bells (now 14), ranging in weight from 300 to 3,500 pounds. Each bell was inscribed with names from both the Morehead and Patterson families, with Morehead III dedicating the largest bell to his grandfather who was an important influence not just in his own life, but in the life of the university they both called home.
  10. He was affectionately referred to by UNC students as “Uncle Mot.” Despite his adventures around the globe, Morehead  always maintained a close relationship with UNC Chapel Hill and its students. From the familiar peal of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, to the peerless altruism of the Morehead-Cain Scholarships, and the scientific advancements of Morehead Planetarium, multiple generations of Tar Heels have been influenced by the life and contributions of John Motley Morehead III.

 

A Sudden Ending and a New Beginning: The Assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Birth of UNC’s Black Student Movement

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, AL on April 30th, 1966. From the Records of the Black Student Movement, #40400, University Archives, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, AL on April 30th, 1966. From the Records of the Black Student Movement, #40400, University Archives, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

On April 4th, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  As the nation reeled in shock, UNC-Chapel Hill also reacted to the vicious ending of a life dedicated to the non-violent pursuit of Civil Rights.

UNC-Chapel Hill officials held a memorial service attended by over 2,000 people, but the Black Student Movement (BSM) staged its own remembrances of Dr. King. On April 6th, members of the BSM marched down Franklin Street and burned several Confederate flags on the lawn of the Kappa Alpha Fraternity house.  At the time, Kappa Alpha was supportive of the Old South and the Confederacy.

In addition to holding a separate memorial service for Dr. King, the BSM also called on the campus’ African American workers to not attend work on April 9th.  Although Chancellor Sitterson had announced a half-day for campus workers on April 7th, Preston Dobbins (the president of the BSM) encouraged the day of remembrance because he felt that the University had not responded to Dr. King’s assassination with the appropriate amount of respect. Ninety percent of the African American workers on campus stayed home from work that day.

The Constitution of the Black Student Movement from folder 25, box 3, of the Records of the Black Student Movement, #40400, University Archives, Wilson Library, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Constitution of the Black Student Movement from folder 25, box 3, of the Records of the Black Student Movement, #40400, University Archives, Wilson Library, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The BSM may be most remembered for the 23 demands of December 1968, but the students’ collaboration with the campus workers in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination was an important first step in the relationship between the two groups. Over the years, students of the BSM have supported UNC-Chapel Hill’s non-academic workers such as groundskeepers, food workers, and housekeepers.

Today, we at University Archives remember the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the birth of the Black Student Movement on our campus.  Although the group began in such dark times, we commend them for forging relationships on our campus and moving forward.

Visit The Carolina Story, UNC’s virtual history museum, for more information on the Black Student Movement.

Caption Contest Winner!

And we have a winner, folks!  Thank you to everyone who submitted captions for our latest Caption This! contest and to everyone who voted for their favorite.

This round’s winner was Matthew Farrell, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus!  Congrats Matthew!

Ambiguously worded dress codes lead to all sorts of problems...
Ambiguously worded dress codes lead to all sorts of problems…

Stay tuned for our next round of Caption This! in the coming weeks!

UNC Students Call for Health Care Reform!

It’s not what you think. We are not discussing the Affordable Care Act or even paying for health care. This is a historical look at just one health care issue at Carolina. In the 1980s, the question for some students was not what they would pay for health care but whether or not they would receive it with equity.

From Box 1:1:15, Records of the Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine, #40118.
From Box 1:1:15, Records of the Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine, #40118.

In November of 1983, Brian Richmond wrote to the Daily Tar Heel to reprimand the School of Medicine for turning down the opportunity to offer a scholarship to medical students who had come out as gay or lesbian. Richmond, the acting director of the Sexuality Education & Counseling Service, condemned the decision because as a sex counselor on a college campus, he had come to realize how difficult it was for lesbians and gay men to find good doctors for a variety reasons including prejudice, misconceptions, malpractice, anti-gay laws, and fear of AIDS. Richmond believed that supporting gay men and lesbians in their pursuits to become health care providers would be a step in the right direction. In his letter, he called on the Dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. Stuart Bondurant, to work with the gay and lesbian community on his campus.

A student's letter expressing his willingness to serve on the Committee. From Box 1:1:15, the Records of the Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine, #40118
A student’s letter expressing his willingness to serve on the Committee. From Box 1:1:15, the Records of the Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine, #40118

Dr. Bondurant stood by the decision not to offer a scholarship exclusively to gay and lesbian medical students, but he did acknowledge that the School of Medicine could better respond to the health care needs of gay and lesbian students. So, the idea for a Committee for Gay/Lesbian Health Concerns was born. The Committee would be composed of students, School of Medicine faculty, and Student Health Services staff. Due to scheduling conflicts in the Spring semester of 1984, however, the committee failed to meet and was put off until the following semester.

The next interaction we found between the School of Medicine and the gay and lesbian community occurred in 1985 when North Carolina’s Lesbian and Gay Health Project called upon the school to update their curriculum. The Project asked for health care issues unique to gay men and lesbians to be incorporated into study. The idea was to improve doctors’ understanding of health concerns particular to the homosexual community while dispelling common misconceptions.

Another Caption This! Contest

From the records of the Institute of Latin American Studies (#40089) comes this week’s funny photo and another opportunity for a Caption This! caption contest.

Department members got a behind-the-scenes visit with the actors of the Lost Colony.
Department members got a behind-the-scenes visit with the actors of the Lost Colony.

Leave us a note in the comments with your caption suggestion.  You can caption as many or as few of the gentlemen in the picture as you like, but be sure to give your man’s number so we know who you’re captioning! Like last time, we’ll hold a vote for the best captions!

Now let’s see what you’ve got!

Love It or Hate It? Snow at UNC

Most North Carolinians have a love/hate relationship with snow. We love snowy days, but hate the havoc just a dusting of the white stuff can wreak on our lives.

We’ve found some images illustrating our love of snow in our sister collection, the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives. Enjoy these photographs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection of a huge student snowball fight in McCorkle Place, probably taken in the early to mid-1900s, and the Arboretum during a snowstorm on February 2nd, 1921.

[Selected photographs from folders 0910 and 0191, in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection Collection #P0004, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.]

On the other hand, we’ve also found evidence of snow-hating in the archives.

The university was hit so hard with snow in January of 2000 that classes were canceled for three days. Not wanting to take away reading days or to infringe on spring break, Chancellor William O. McCoy made the unpopular decision to schedule make-up days on a few weekends later in the year.

Needless to say, his records contain more than a few letters of complaint from students and staff describing the weather conditions. In one letter regarding the administration’s initial reluctance to cancel classes, the writer asked “What kind of sadistic people are you?”

Click for a larger image.
[Letter of complaint, in the Office of Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: William O. McCoy Records #40227, University Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.]

But whether you love or hate snow, I think we can all agree that UNC is a beautiful place to be anytime of year.

A Beautiful Legacy: Collecting Greek Life at UNC

Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel and House Corporation Director Karen O’Donnell Dias discuss which materials the chapter will present to University Archives first.
Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel and House Corporation Director Karen O’Donnell Dias discuss which materials the chapter will present to University Archives first.

Over the past year and a half, UNC Chapel Hill’s University Archives has actively pursued student groups in an effort to better represent the history of student life. However, there are a lot of student groups to choose from on our active campus. One of our priorities has been to collect Greek life materials. Because more than 3,000 students on our campus are involved in Greek life, fraternities and sororities are a part of the Carolina Experience for many students.

This semester, Phi Mu will be the first of UNC’s sororities to deposit its materials in University Archives for safekeeping. While we have some fraternity records (including Delta Kappa Epsilon and Chi Psi), sorority records have been noticeably absent in our holdings. As the Gamma Lambda chapter of Phi Mu approached planning for its 50th anniversary in 2014, alumnae began to reflect on their chapter’s history. Realizing that historic materials were stored in several disparate places and that many items could use conservation and preservation, they were eager to find a way to store them in a single location under archival conditions. Participating in the new University Archives initiative will accomplish this and facilitate all future anniversary research.

Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel (center left) shows University Archives and Records Management graduate assistant Morgan Jones a construction photo of the sorority’s house at 211 Henderson Street as Chapter Historian Lauren Spoenimon (far left) and Chapter President Mary Maher (far right) look on.
Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel (center left) shows University Archives and Records Management graduate assistant Morgan Jones a construction photo of the sorority’s house at 211 Henderson Street as Chapter Historian Lauren Spoenimon (far left) and Chapter President Mary Maher (far right) look on.

When Phi Mu’s Gamma Lambda chapter colonized at Carolina in 1964, the Board of Trustees had just approved the admittance of women regardless of their residence or major; however, admittance was still extremely competitive because of the scarcity of housing for female students. With the loan of Phi Mu’s 1964-1965 scrapbook and other materials to University Archives, researchers and chapter sisters alike will be able to understand how Phi Mu began its first 50 years on Carolina’s campus.

We look forward to working with Phi Mu as well as other sororities this year to increase the representation of Greek organizations in University Archives!

If you are a member of a Greek fraternity or sorority and wish to deposit materials in the archives for safe keeping, please contact us!

New Accession: Dr. Herbert Bodman Papers

The University Archives recently acquired the papers of Dr. Herbert L. Bodman, Jr., a UNC professor of Islamic studies who passed away in 2011. Dating from the early 1950s when Bodman was studying in Lebanon, the papers deal primarily with his dissertation research on community identities in the Syrian city of Aleppo during the eighteenth century. To this day, Aleppo is considered the largest city in Syria and has been the site of many historical conflicts, both ancient and modern, from the Crusades to the current civil war.

A multi-linguist, Bodman’s research spans English, French, and Arabic and sheds light on his exhaustive use and translation of a variety of sources. More abstractly, it offers a window into the research process before the time of computers when copious indexing was necessary. Below are some interesting notes from a meeting he had with Arab political leaders–one of whom appears to be Akram al-Hawrani (or Hourani), a leading member of the Baath Party–on March 5, 1953, in which they discuss the idea of Arab unity:

Meeting Notes
“Meeting with Akram Hourani & al-Afflah, 5 March 1953,” Dr. Herbert Bodman Papers, #40388, University Archives

Faculty papers occupy an essential place in the university’s history and, as Herbert Bodman’s papers demonstrate, also offer insight on the world at large.