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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 re-opening 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.
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    This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), a collection of over 4,000 interviews housed at the Southern Historical Collection.

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  • 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-
  • Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.