Oral History Interview with Cornelia Spencer Love, January 26, 1975. Interview G-0032. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Abstract
Cornelia Spencer Love, granddaughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (the "woman who rang the bell" to signal the reopening of the University of North Carolina after Reconstruction) talks about her family, life at the University in the "old days," and her relations with Chapel Hill's black community. Born in 1892, raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and educated at Radcliffe, Love came to Chapel Hill as a young woman in 1917 to work in the UNC library, where she remained for the rest of her years. She talks in this interview about attending dances at UNC as a teenager, recollects early encounters with UNC's Kemp Battle and Frank Porter Graham, and speaks about her grandmother's attitudes towards women and education. She also talks extensively about her brother, J. Spencer Love, founder of Burlington Industries. Her relationship with African American educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown and her philanthropy toward Chapel Hill's African American community are also discussed.
Excerpts
Ritualized dancing and courting at off-campus balls
Northern belief in education for women
Women's liberation movement won't change relations between sexes
Cornelia Phillips Spencer wielded the power of her pen
J. Spencer Love as a child
Women's suffrage movement leaders were ridiculous
Charlotte Hawkins Brown provided excellent education to blacks
White philanthropy toward blacks in Chapel Hill
Learn More
Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
Resources for Educators
Southern Women Trailblazers Learning Object
Subjects
North Carolina--Race relations
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
American Association of University Workers
Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946
Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-
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