William George Randall: Campus Artist

William G. Randall

William Randall (1860-1905) only spent a short time on the campus of the State Normal and Industrial College, now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), but while he was at the school he created portraits of some of the most important people of the college and the state. Randall’s early life in the mountains of Burke County, North Carolina spanned the years of the Civil War. At a young age he showed a precocious talent for drawing, but had little training. He attended school sporadically and made extra money sketching portraits of his Burke County neighbors.

Committed to furthering his education, he walked out of the mountains and arrived at the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1880 with 30 cents to his name. At the University, he began to draw portraits of the people in Chapel Hill, fellow students, and professors. Although he was described as thin, pale, and unassuming, other students took note of him - one of those students was Charles Duncan McIver, founder and first president of the State Normal and Industrial College.  After college, he took several positions in local schools and it was at this time that he met his wife, Annie J. Goodloe of Warrenton, North Carolina. Soon he realized that he preferred art to a career in education. He studied in New York, England, France, and Germany and had a studio in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, specializing in portraiture.


Sarah Bailey

Randall's path would cross that of McIver once again when his wife, Annie, took a job at the State Normal and Industrial College in 1898 as the school Registrar. Randall had completed a few paintings for the college and he soon had a small studio in the attic of the current Foust Building. He painted several notable people who had a direct impact on the school; including a life-size portrait of McIver.

In addition to his many commissions, Randall worked with the students. Several years after he arrived on campus, he offered to set up a full art program at the college, but there is no indication that his offer was accepted. This may be because of general ill health. Randall had been diagnosed with tuberculosis at a young age and it was about this time that he was sent to New Mexico for the beneficial climate. Randall rented a small adobe house on the outskirts of the city and planned to use it as a residence and studio but he soon returned to North Carolina. On December 11, 1905, he died at Blowing Rock and his body was taken to Washington DC for burial in Glenwood Cemetery.


Evelyn Bailey

Ultimately, Randall’s legacy is not only as one of the most  famous 19th century North Carolina portrait artists, but also as an early advocate of the importance of formative art (architecture, sculpture, and painting) to a liberal education.  On June 23, 1896, he gave an address on the subject before the North Carolina Teachers’ Assembly in Asheville. Interestingly, Randall’s speech included his belief that women had a more highly developed sense of color and felt it was possible that the “early man” who attempted to “imitate” the world around them through painted images – may have actually been early woman. He was committed to the equality of arts and sciences within the liberal arts curriculum and this may have been one of the reasons that McIver found him a kindred spirit.

Sadly, few of Randall’s painting survive on the UNCG campus. Through the years, they have been donated to other institutions or lost as original school buildings were razed or remodeled. Life-size portraits of Charles Duncan McIver and Jabez Curry remain on campus, exhibited in the Curry Building Auditorium. Additionally, his beautiful painting of Lula Martin McIver can be viewed at the Alumni House on College Avenue.  Portraits of Sarah and Evelyn Bailey (students who succumbed to the 1899 typhoid epidemic) and philanthropist George Peabody are housed at the University Archives and may be viewed by appointment.

The Curry School: Practice Teaching on Campus

On February 18, 1891, the North Carolina Legislature passed "An Act to Establish and Normal and Industrial School," officially chartering the institution that would become UNC Greensboro. As the State Normal and Industrial School, the institution focused heavily on training women to become teachers in North Carolina's public schools. As part of this training, the institution established a practice school so that students could gain practical classroom experience as part of their education.

State Normal opened its practice and observation school in 1893 under the direction of Philander P. Claxton. Initially, the school had ten pupils, with ages ranging from five to eight. Two of these pupils were the children of State Normal president Charles Duncan McIver. Classes were held in rooms within the Wooden Dormitory, one of two student residence halls on the State Normal campus.

Curry School students, circa 1910

By 1898, the practice school student body had grown to nearly 200 pupils, and the school was officially incorporated into the Greensboro public school system. The Wooden Dormitory building also grew to accommodate the expanding student population. Meanwhile, McIver and others at State Normal advocated for funding to build a separate building on campus to hold the practice school.

In 1902, that goal was finally achieved and the new practice school building opened. Named after Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, who helped advocate for the founding of the State Normal, the practice school building was located on College Avenue. With the new building came even more growth in the practice school student body. Beginning in 1913, the Curry School added each year a new grade from eighth to eleventh (which was at the time the state's standard senior year). It produced its first high school graduating class in 1917. Due to interruptions from World War I, however, Curry School would not graduate another class until 1927.

In the mid-1920s, construction on a new and more modernized Curry School Building on Spring Garden Street began. As the new building was nearing completion in 1926, the original Curry building on College Avenue burned to the ground. Faulty electric wiring and poor original construction were to blame for the fire. The portico framing the front entrance to the building was the only part of the structure to survive. It remained in place for over a decade, with students referring to it as "the ruins."

Curry School students, circa 1940

By this point, well over a third of the juniors and seniors at the college (known in 1926 as the North Carolina College for Women) were education majors. Many others majored in a specific subject area but planned to teach high school after graduation. The Curry School population also grew, with an enrollment of 402 students in December 1928. A kindergarten was added in 1935 and the twelfth grade of high school in 1946. Total enrollment at the Curry School, however, remained steady, due primarily to the size of its building. In 1944, the school reportedly had a lengthy waiting list and rejected numerous applicants.

By the 1950s, the number of students at Woman's College who needed practice teaching experience greatly outpaced the ability of the Curry School to offer them on-campus opportunities. More and more students found these experiences in other local public schools. Additionally, the facilities at the Curry School had deteriorated to the point that a candidate for the school's deanship in 1958 proclaimed it the worst he had ever seen.

A state bond referendum in 1959 helped improve the physical plant. The repairs and additions included the construction in 1961 of Park Gymnasium next door to the Curry School Building. But by this time, the small student body and the limitations in offerings for high school students (both varieties of classes and extracurricular activities) started to impact the school. Additionally, Curry's operating costs per pupil were almost double that of the other nearby public schools.

Curry School students, 1970

Outside consultants and an education faculty study in 1966 all recommended closure of at least the high school at Curry. Robert O'Kane, dean of the School of Education, agreed and the high school officially closed in 1969. The elementary grades (kindergarten through sixth grade) followed in 1970. Today, the Curry School building remains on Spring Garden (although the Park Gymnasium was razed in 2004 to make way for the Moore Humanities and Research Administration Building).