Act of Establishment Creating UNCG -- 125 Years Ago Today!!

Today marks the 125th anniversary of the passage of the bill that established the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNCG). On February 18, 1891, the General Assembly of North Carolina agreed to fund a "normal" (teaching) school for women. The act appropriated $10,000 per year for maintenance of the school, but did not include any money to support contribution, land, or other facilities costs. In fact, the act stated that "the institution shall be located ... at some suitable place where the citizens thereof shall furnish the necessary buildings of money sufficient to erect them."

Class of 1893, the first graduating class of State Normal

In June 1891, Greensboro was selected as the official site for this new school, making a bid of $30,000 plus a site location. The chairman of the school's founding Board of Directors, Major S.M. Finger, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, stated, "I congratulate Greensboro on the result. I believe this is the proper place for [the school]. The Piedmont is the coming part of the State."

Stop by Jackson Library between 1pm and 3pm to see a pop-up exhibit featuring the actual charter, the letter received by Charles Duncan McIver naming his as the first president of the school, and many more photographs and other records from the earliest years of UNCG.

New Air Force Recruiting Posters in the Women Veterans Historical Project

Recruiting posters and brochures are a great resources not only for information about the U.S. military, but also for the history of graphic design and cultural attitudes about women.

The Women Veterans Historical Project recently acquired two new WAF (Women in the Air Force) recruiting posters.

In the dark about your future? enjoy travel...prestige...and excellent job opportunities in the WAF is from 1960 and was designed by the team of John Morning and Sheldon Streisand (sadly, no relation to Barbra).  This poster packs quite a visual punch!

http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/ref/collection/WVHP/id/10374

Forecast with a smile--who cares about the weather? is from 1968. Well, it IS the first lieutenant's job, so I hope her commanding officer cares!

http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/ref/collection/WVHP/id/10375

New Online Exhibit on African Americans at UNCG: A Collaboration between the University Libraries and Google

Starting today, over 200 records from UNCG's University Archives can be viewed online by people around the world due to a new partnership between the Google Cultural Institute and the UNCG University Libraries. Staff in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives and the Libraries' Electronic Resources and Information Technologies departments uploaded the records and built the online exhibit "African Americans at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1892-1971."

Pete [last name unknown] and Ezekiel Robinson, early 1890s

This exhibit traces the history of African American faculty, staff, and students at UNCG, from its opening as the State Normal and Industrial School in 1892 until 1971. Through digitized photographs and documents as well as audio clips from oral history interviews conducted as part of the African American Institutional Memory Project, viewers can learn more about African American employees on campus prior to desegregation, Jim Crow-era debates over the use of facilities by African Americans, the fight to integrate the student body, student involvements in the sit ins and protest movements of the early 1960s, the founding of the Neo-Black Society in 1968, and the hiring of the first African American faculty members.

JoAnne Smart and Bettye Tillman, 1956

The Google Cultural Institute and its partners are putting the world’s cultural treasures at the fingertips of Internet users and are building tools that allow the cultural sector to share more of its diverse heritage online. The Google Cultural Institute has partnered with more than 1,000 institutions giving a platform to over 250,000 thousand artworks and a total of 6 million photos, videos, manuscripts and other documents of art, culture and history. You can learn more about the broader project in this article.

Students in the Neo-Black Society Lounge, 1971

If you have questions about the exhibit, please contact Erin Lawrimore, University Archivist, at scua@uncg.edu.