10BThe Daily Tar HeelThursday, June 28, 1990
Campus Mstoiry
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By MARA LEE
and LAURA WILLIAMS
Staff Writers
UNC's 197-year history is full of
legends and little-known facts that are
sure to raise an eyebrow or evoke a
chuckle.
In the beginning
It all started when William
Richardson Davie, "Father of the
University," stopped to give his horse
a drink of water and stuck a twig in the
ground to declare the site of the first
state university in the nation. From
that stick grew what is known as the
Davie Poplar (actually a tulip tree).
In 1793, the cornerstone of Old
East was laid, making it the first state
university building. It became the
center of residential and instructional
life, but was extremely overcrowded,
with 56 students packed into 14 one
window rooms. To escape, students
erected huts in the forest and inside
the unfinished South Building, which
later housed horses.
UNC's first University president,
Joseph Caldwell, was known for the
way his ankles cracked when he
walked. Caldwell would patrol cam
pus in the middle of the night, but
students who were playing cards or
involved in some other mischief were
always warned by the cracking before
he could catch them.
Once, a group of students stole
Caldwell's carriage and took it to the
edge of a swamp two miles from
campus. Caldwell told his coachman
to fetch it back, but the students heard
him, beat the coachman to the spot
and hauled the carriage farther into
the swamp.
Much to their surprise, Caldwell
was seated inside with the curtains
drawn. He leaned out the window and
said, "Well, young gentlemen, I've
had a very pleasant ride. Now take me
back home."
A bygone era
In 1800, tuition was $ 1 0, Old East
was still the only building on campus
and the staff of clergy-professors and
tutors watched three men graduate.
Six more buildings were built in
the first half of the century, along with
several stone walls to keep cows from :
entering the classrooms.
By the 1850s, about 425 students
were enrolled, two-thirds of them from
North Carolina. UNC was second in
size only to Yale, and taught Latin,
Greek, pure mathematics and phi
losophy. Back then, a UNC diploma
was not proof of scholarship rather,
a diploma meant a graduate could
manage an estate.
Students were required to attend
chapel services twice a day. In class,
students passed cheat sheets through
holes sawed in the floors.
Then came the Civil War. Despite
the Union's occupation of Chapel Hill,
the University continued to conduct
classes, but the graduating class of
1866 only had three members.
The new University
Reconstruction closed UNC from
1871 to 1875. When it reopened, it
more like the modern University; ag
riculture, engineering, natural sci
ences, literature, applied math, po
litical science and history were added
to the curriculum.
The new professors all seven of
them were secular, with master's
degrees, and they started the system
of percentage grades. Labs and a
modern elective system for upper
classmen replaced recitations and oral
quizzes.
Some campus buildings acquired
legendary status during this time.
In 1 875, Old East was vandalized
and the commemorative plate was
stolen. Forty-one years later, the plate
was discovered in a pile of scrap brass
destined for melting at a foundry in
Tennessee. The foundry's owner, an
alumnus of UNC, recognized the plate
and returned it to its rightful place.
The student body also saw major
changes. The first female student at
Carolina arrived in 1897, but during
the next 15 years, only six women
attended. In fact, in 1912, former
President Kemp Battle said, "The
experiment has not met with much
success,"
But the summer session of 1916
saw an unusual majority of female
students much to the shock of the
predom inately male student body. The
"magnificent sight, Summer School
girls of all description," led to a
"Summer School diversion popular
among the masculine element, ser
enading the girls as they marched by
from supper. A crowd of boys would
sing to the passing girls, 'I'll not rest
until I labelled Mabel mine,"' ac
cording to The Daily Tar Heel.
The lost generation
The effects of World War I hit
UNC in 1 9 1 7. By the fall of 1 9 1 8, the
"university (was) virtually converted
into a government camp," the DTH
said. But just as the war effort really
began to take over the University, the
armistice was signed.
The athletic program resumed, and
in 1 924, head cheerleader Vic Huggins
decided that UNC should have a mas
cot. Since football player Jack Merritt
was known as "The Battering Ram,"
Huggins hit upon the idea of a ram.
Rameses was purchased for $25. He
arrived the day UNC played VMI,
and when UNC won the game,
Rameses received the credit.
Fourteen buildings, including
Wilson Library and the Bell Tower,
were built in the 1 920s and '30s. And
yes, the Bell Tower really was meant
to be a dunce cap for Wilson Library.
John Motley Morehead wanted to
construct a bell tower on the top of
South Building and to change the
name to Morehead Building. Librar
ian Louis Wilson strongly disap
proved of this site and opposed
Morehead on every other site he
mentioned.
While Wilson was on vacation,
Morehead had the land behind Wilson
Library cleared and began building
the tower. On Thanksgiving Day,
193 1 , much to Wilson's chagrin, the
tower was dedicated. Morehead and
his family were served Thanksgiving
dinner on the lawn while the bells
played "How Tedious and Tasteless
the Hours." Standing on the steps of
South Building, one can see the cone
of the tower sitting on top of Wilson's
roof.
The second world war
In the beginning of 1 942, The Daily
Tar Heel reported, "The University
of North Carolina is rapidly throwing
off its hom-rimmed spectacles and
academic robes to become an all-out
laborer producing victory."
That same year, half of the pro
fessors left to serve in the war, and the
student body population decreased
by 700. When 18-and 19-year-olds
began to be drafted, 900 students
enlisted in one week, Steele Building
became the only civilian male dor
mitory left on campus.
The DTH published an editorial
promoting the war effort. ''There's
only one issue to WIN this war
now," it read. "There'll be only one
question when the Man with the
whiskers comes calling: 'What can
you do to help win the war?"
Bell-bottoms and sideburns
Many of the veterans who came to
UNC "wanted to pick up with life.
They were very businesslike, highly
motivated, many married," said
Carlyle S itterson, Kenan professor
emeritus of history, "Then the '50s
came, in which it was said students
had little intellectual curiosity. A 'me'
generation who wanted to succeed
materially and leave social problems
to somebody else."
Sitterson, who has been at UNC
since 1 935, served as chancellor from
1966 to 1972.
Although protests peaked in the
late '60s and early '70s, "there were
some antecedents to the '60s. The
'50s saw the first blacks tenta
tively and very slowly coming to
the University. The first undergradu
ates came in 1 955, and as late as 1966,
only a small number had come," he
said.
The bell-bottom jeans and love
beads that replaced the bobby socks
and pearls were worn by "certainly a
minority," he said. Only about 15
:, percent of the campus were hippies,
he estimated.
Bohemians didn't dominate the
: protests, said Associate Dean of Arts
and Sciences Richard Cramer; who
began his work in the sociology de
partment in 1 96 1 and who participated
in the anti-war demonstrationsThey :
were around," he said. "Some of them
were drop-outs who were never in
volved." In fact, student leaders and
faculty members, some conforming
in appearance, were the ones who
were the most active, he said.
Anti-war demonstrations began in
the mid-1960s. For five years, pro
testers conducted weekly peace vig
ils in front of the post office.
The largest protest came in the
wake of thefatal Kent State shootings
and the Cambodi a i nvas ion, S itterson
said. Nearly 9,000 students "as
sembled from South Building to Wil
son Library and covered the whole
area. It was the biggest crowd I've
ever seen outside of a large athletic
event."
Cramer described the change in
students in the '60s: "The earlier stu
dents were less scruffy, less hippie
looking, more trying to show how
good they were and expecting to be
treated well. Toward the end of the
decade, they were more hardened and
had more anger, less naivete."
Why did the students lose their
passion to change they world?
"The end of the draft," Cramer
said. "Watergate was sort of a cathar
sis; The new students had baby-boom
parents, growing up with prosperity,"
But students did not lose their sense
of fun. In 1974, diligent students
looked up from their books to see 200
naked men run through the Under
graduate Library. A week later, 924
UNC students including 65 women
broke the national streaking record
as they ran naked through campus
with 5,000 people looking on.
And how will the classes of the
'80s be remembered? Silent Sam
probably knows, but he isn't telling.
This article is reprinted from the
October 1 1 ,1989, edition ofThe Daily
Tar Heel. The information on UNC
was gathered from materials in the
N.C. Collection and James Leloudis'
dissertation, "AMoreCertainMeans
of Grace"
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