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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 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-
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

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