Margaret C. Moore

Margaret C. Moore Building entrance, 1995
 

Let’s take a stroll through campus.  As you walk down the McIver pedestrian mall towards McIver Street, a red brick building stands on your left.  One of the Moore buildings.  To be exact, the Margaret C. Moore Building.  

Ms. Moore, like many names that grace our campus buildings, remains largely unknown to current students, faculty, and staff.   So here are some things you might like to know:




Margaret's senior picture at WC

Margaret Catherine Moore of Baltimore, Maryland, attended the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in physical education and biology in 1935.

While in school, Margaret was a member of the Adelphian Literary Society, the Athletic Association Cabinet, College Chorus, Playlikers, and the Student Government Association Judicial Board.



 

Margaret and her friends at Camp "Ahutforfun"

Evidence of  Margaret's activities while at the WC can be found in her scrapbook, which is part of the Margaret Catherine Moore Papers housed in the Special Collections and University Archives.   The scrapbook contains numerous notes, letters, programs, and photographs, making it easy to see how much she was involved with the activities (both social and academic) at her school.

After graduating from WC, Margaret attended New York University where she received her Master of Arts degree in guidance and counseling.  She then went on to receive a diploma in nursing from Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing in New York, and then a second graduate degree, a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Professor Moore, c. 1960

It was with her career in nursing that Margaret's life found meaning.  As Chancellor James Ferguson said of Ms. Moore, "She entered into a conscientious application of her understanding and energies to an expansion of knowledge of health and the means by which health service might be employed to lessen suffering, to succor the weak, and to sustain the strong."

Margaret served on the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill for six years, then returned to UNCG in 1967 as one of the first ten faculty for the newly formed School of Nursing.  The Search Committee was pleased to hire one of UNCG's own graduates as one of the members of the original faculty to teach
nursing.

Margaret made significant contributions to UNCG's School of Nursing, particularly the School of Nursing building.  She served as Chairman of the Building Committee, contributing  her creativity and knowledge of learning needs to develop plans for the building.  The School of Nursing building was dedicated on Founder's Day (October 5th) 1969. 

Professor Moore passed away in 1975 at the age of 62.  The School of Nursing building was name in her honor during the tenth anniversary observance of the founding of the School of Nursing, held on October 5, 1976.

"Woodsy Paths" and "Ferocious Creatures" at Camp Ahuntforfun

Camping and outdoor recreation have been a staple of UNCG student life since the early 1900s. The student Athletic Association, soon after its founding in 1900, coordinated short hikes around campus. In 1922, a need for longer hikes and more outdoor recreational opportunities led faculty members and students to begin renting cabins around the Greensboro area for overnight excursions. Students who hiked at least 100 miles in shorter campus-based outings were allowed to attend these off-campus trips.

The log cabin at Camp Ahuntforfun

While this gave students the opportunity for outdoor recreation and education, issues arose which led students and faculty members to request the College purchase its own camp site. In the 1924 annual report for the Department of Physical Education, Department Head Mary Channing Coleman wrote that the Athletic Association would not be returning to their previous campsite as “the lodge has been broken into and the greater part of our meager equipment stolen.” Three years later in the 1927 annual report, Coleman argued a “college camp is urgently needed, not only as an item of our sports and recreation equipment, but as one factor in our teacher training.”

Fun times at Camp Ahutforfun

When the College did not purchase a camp, the Athletic Association began raising funds to purchase one itself. The group sold gym uniforms and swimsuits to fellow students in order to raise the $3,500 needed to purchase a camp site on Pleasant Garden Road, about five miles from campus. The two-acre site featured a log cabin with a large front porch and sleeping space, a well approximately 80-feet deep and a stream which the students hoped could later be developed into a swimming pool.

Students visiting Camp Ahutforfun

On Saturday, March 23, 1929, nine students and one faculty chaperone made the inaugural visit to the camp. Rain on the first day kept the campers near the cabin, where they entertained themselves with bridge, dancing, horseshoes and an Easter egg hunt. On Sunday, however, clear skies allowed the students to take what the Carolinian described as “a long hike through the woodsy paths and pastures, carefully avoiding those that were suspected of containing ferocious animals.”

The Athletic Association continued to grow their camp, adding a large outdoor fireplace, volleyball nets and other equipment. In 1932, after a campus wide contest, the camp was officially named “Camp Ahutforfun.” Students continued use of the camp site until 1943, when the Athletic Association purchased a larger tract of land near the Guilford Battleground site.

1932: The Year of the Co-eds at Woman's College

Until it was made co-educational in 1964, Woman’s College (now UNCG) was pretty clear in the fact that it was a single-gender institution. Male students were allowed to enroll in summer school courses and graduate programs (at least until the 1950s and 1960s when the UNC system asserted limitations over male enrollment at the school), but they did so in small numbers. Undergraduate education, however, remained reserved for women only - with a single exception.

The Men of 1932: Undergraduate male students at Woman's College

During the 1932-1933 academic year, President Julius Foust decided to allow young men from the Greensboro area to enroll at WC. Parents and the young men themselves petitioned for admittance, citing dire financial constraints due to the Great Depression. Were they not allowed to attend WC, they might not be able to enroll in college at all that year.

In total 80 men enrolled at WC that year (48 freshman, 21 sophomores, two juniors, and nine others). With the exception of a hygiene course, these co-eds took the same courses as the female students. While they represented only a tiny fraction of the 1,556 students enrolled at the college at the time, these men met resistance upon their arrival. An October 13, 1932 letter to the editor in The Carolinian argued that the men were “so abominably conceited.” They weren’t allowed to wear their own swimsuits for gym classes; instead, they were required to wear the same baggy tank suits used by the women. 

The men did adapt to life at the Woman’s College, however. They founded their own Men’s Association, formed for the purpose of “dealing with campus problems and administrative relations peculiar to the men students.” Wyatt Taylor, a former standout basketball player at the University of Texas who was serving at the time as a swimming instructor at the local YMCA, was hired to manage an athletic program for these men.

Officers of the 1932-33 Men's Association at Woman's College

Part of the athletic program included an intercollegiate basketball team, known as the Tom Cats. Games were scheduled against Elon, High Point, Guilford College, and other nearby institutions. In January 1933, the team scored its first victory, with a 14-11 win over Liberty. The Carolinian noted that the team was “starting off well, and when they get in condition they are due to show the college some real basketball.” A swimming team and a football team were also developed for competition against local schools.

Although the Pine Needles yearbook stated that “it is believed now that co-education will be a permanent fixture on campus,” the experiment with co-education at the WC lasted only a single year. Indeed, president Foust strongly advocated for co-education. In a September 1933 letter to Frank Porter Graham, president of The University of North Carolina system, he wrote, “we can not justify from the standpoint of justice, right and consistency, the admission of girls to the Chapel Hill and Raleigh units without extending the same privilege to boys at the Greensboro unit.” Ultimately, however, the undergraduate population remained reserved for women until the institution officially admitted men to classes in the Fall of 1964.

Farming and Feeding the Campus

Looking at the current site of the Quad, you might never guess that it was once the home to a campus farm and dairy barn that supplied State Normal (now UNCG) with milk, pork, and produce. But in 1897 Charles Duncan McIver established the first campus farm on a newly-acquired plot of land on the western side of the campus. In addition to providing the school with food products, the farm also served as a teaching laboratory for horticulture classes.

Campus dairy farm (near site of current Aycock Street), 1922

Initially the farm was managed by Thomas L. Brown, an English horticulturalist who was then working at the Biltmore Estate. McIver, however, did not allow the farm to proceed without his direct supervision and impact. In fact, he bought much of the livestock himself. The campus also constructed a substantial dairy barn near the current site of Shaw Dormitory.

It took seven years (as well as Brown’s replacement and a reduction in the livestock herd) for the farm to begin turning a profit for the school. After 1904, however, the farm operations grew substantially. By 1910, the cattle produced more milk than the students could consume, allowing the college to sell and profit from the surplus.

Soon, however, campus expansion (specifically the newly-constructed Woman’s Dormitory) led administrators to search for new sites for the barn. In 1913, the livestock and their barn were moved further west, closer to Dairy Street (now Aycock Street).

Only four years later, however, the campus farm had proven too small for the growing student body, and the land it occupied was needed for other purposes. The Quad was carved out of the farm’s eastern side, and there were plans for a physical education building and golf course to occupy the remaining area. While the college had use of an additional farm southeast of Greensboro, it needed more space to produce more foodstuffs.

So, in 1923, president Foust purchased a 250-acre plot of land in Friendship Township about eight miles west of campus (near the current Piedmont Triad International Airport). Primarily, this site was used as a dairy farm, with Holstein cows providing milk for students and extra milk being sold to local dairies. The old campus barn was demolished, physical education facilities were constructed where the farm stood, and farming operations fully moved away from the immediate campus area.

During World War II, the campus experienced a shortage of workers for the farm. As a result, forty to fifty German prisoners of war were bused in daily from Winston-Salem to provide much-needed labor. Once American soldiers returned from overseas, however, the labor shortage continued. Foust and later president Walter Clinton Jackson were advised – but refused – to sell the farm as it began to lose money. Both cited distrust in the quality and quantity of milk available from local dairies as the primary reason for retaining the farm.

Mary Webb Nicholson: First in Flight

Courtesy of Greensboro Historical Museum

While many women of her time were grounded by more domestic roles, Greensboro native Mary Webb Nicholson yearned for the skies. Her passion for flight would earn her many "firsts" in women's aviation, but would also lead to her untimely death in the service of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. 

Nicholson entered The North Carolina College for Women (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) in 1924 to study music, but after her first airplane ride in 1927 her true interest became flying. She received her first flying lessons free of charge by agreeing to parachute from a plane as an advertisement for the flying school and continued to take jobs as a stenographer and a bookkeeper to support her passion. Soon, she gained enough experience flying at Lindley Field (now Piedmont Triad International Airport) and as a stunt pilot to become the first woman in the state to earn a private pilots' license, a commercial license, and a transport license. By 1931 Nicholson had set the North Carolina light plane altitude record.

By 1937, this North Carolina girl was living in New York City and working as a personal secretary to Jacqueline Cochran, another pioneer in flight, who was directly involved with the formation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). As the Second World War raged in Europe, Nicholson and Cochran formed a group of American women pilots who assisted the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) by delivering planes from factories to various RAF bases, transporting service personnel, and performing air ambulance duties. By fall of 1942, Nicholson was in England ferrying British planes. She flew her operations without benefit of radios or maps so they would not fall into enemy hands in case she, or her fellow ATA pilots, was shot down.

Nicholson was asked to make a speech for The North Carolina College for Women's fiftieth year celebration. She was in England at the time, but her speech on women in aviation was read by her mother. The speech foretold a greater involvement of women in aviation and the military. She wrote, "[It] is not too much to imagine that women will be given an even greater part in protecting the freedoms of our Democracy. And if they are called upon to give this service, the women of America will not be found wanting." In May of 1943, Nicholson's plane crashed in flames in Worcestershire County, England, after an oil leak caused the engine to freeze and the propeller to fly off mid-flight. Even though she never took her flight skills to the battlefield, she cleared a path for the over 600 women pilots who currently fight in combat zones for the United States military.

A Streaking Record!

In the 1973-1974 academic year, a new fad spent across the nation's college campuses -- streaking. As described in a March 1974 opinion piece in the Greensboro Daily News, "when the guys and gals finish booking, instead of talking about Marx ... they strip down and run en masse across the old campus while their friends look on and cheer." On the night of Sunday, March 3, 1974, the UNCG campus experienced a record-breaking night of streaking.

The crowd cheers on the streakers

According to a March 4 article in the Carolinian, between 1000 and 1500 people watched and cheered as UNCG students ran naked down College Avenue in what was dubbed the "First National Streaking Competition." According to the Carolinian, various streaking records were set during the night. Over 250 students streaked, including at least 75 women. Both of these numbers set a new "national streaking record," with the total number breaking the mark of 209 streakers who ran at UNC Chapel Hill the week before. Other records noted in the article include: "one for two nude persons (one man, one woman) who rode a motorcycle for one-half mile, one for five people in a Porsche, and one for six in an M.G.B."

Streaking enshrined in the Pine Needles

Needless to say, campus administrators and local civic leaders were not pleased with the campus's new fad. After similar streaking events occurred at Greensboro College, High Point College, and Elon College in a one-week period, Guilford County District Attorney Douglas Albright urged the local college campuses to take disciplinary action against the streakers. He implied that if the campuses would not punish the students, he would encourage the local police to begin making arrests. "We're getting the word out that this is a violation of the law, and that the college campus is not a sanctuary for those who would break the law," he argued.

In a March 6 memo to the University community, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs James H. Allen stated that "the University Administration does not in any way condone the violation of the law. Indeed, the Administration recognizes and accepts responsibility to uphold the law and seek its enforcement as fairly and as reasonably as possible."

Ultimately no students were arrested and no formal criminal charges were brought against the streaking students. 1974 was the peak of the streaking fad (the year also brought us Ray Stevens' #1 Billboard hit "The Streak" as well as the appearance of a streaker on the 1974 Academy Awards broadcast), and no further reports of major campus streaking parties were made.

Walter Clinton Jackson, Race, and WC Resources

Throughout the first seven decades of its existence, the institution now known as UNCG grappled with a number of questions regarding facility use by students from neighboring colleges, particularly the nearby African-American institutions such as North Carolina A&T and Bennett College.

Interior of the College Library, circa 1923

As early as February 1929, administrators were discussing use of the Library by students from A&T. Then Vice President (and later Chancellor) Walter Clinton Jackson wrote College President Julius Foust on February 15, 1929, requesting that an A&T student be allowed to borrow books from the College Library. Jackson wrote, “it seems to me rather incongruous that we should refuse a little courtesy of this kind to a neighbor institution, even though a negro institution. It is a very small matter, in a way, but it has large consequences so far as the Negroes are concerned.”

Foust agreed to discuss the matter with the College Librarian and “do anything we can to aid these students.” He quickly added, however, that Jackson should be acutely award “that certain embarrassments may arise in our attempt to do what they request” and that he “doubt[ed] the wisdom of permitting negro students to take the books out of our library.” While he agreed to consider the idea, Foust added that he would ask the Librarian to consult with Dr. Anna Gove, the student health coordinator, to learn more “about the danger that may arise from disease if these students are permitted to take the books and use them when our students must use them when they are returned to the library.”

Jackson’s decision to support the use of the WC Library by African-American students ran counter to the Jim Crow laws that were prevalent across North Carolina at the time. Jackson, however, was well known as a champion of racial equality. He arrived at the institution then known as State Normal in 1909 to lead the history department. A native of Georgia, he studied at Mercer University and spoke frequently on the topic of race relations in American history. Although he was forced to work within the framework of the segregated South, he served as chairman of local, state, and southern regional Commissions on Interracial Cooperation. From 1938 to 1953, he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees at Bennett College.

Walter Clinton Jackson, 1948

Throughout his sixteen-year tenure as Woman’s College chancellor (1934-1950), Jackson opened many venues for progress and collaboration between WC and its neighboring educational institutions, including those that were African American. In a June 17, 1935, letter to Charlotte Hawkins Brown, he expressed dismay that WC would not be able to openly welcome students from Brown’s Palmer Institute, a school for African Americans in Sedalia, North Carolina, just outside of Greensboro. After Brown declined to bring her students to a music performance at the WC due to the segregated seating requirements, Jackson wrote, “I hope the time will speedily come when difficulties which confront us may be more easily resolved.”

State laws and regulations, however, did not support open sharing of resources between WC and its African-American neighbor institutions. “Separate but equal” policies resulted in the segregation of public schools, public spaces, transportation, restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains. Since 1901, North Carolina state law had explicitly required separate facilities for the consumption of library materials by white and black citizens. While a number of prominent North Carolinians, including Governor W. Kerr Scott (1949-1953), believed in extended some degree of civil liberties to African Americans, the general consensus across the state favored the continuation of segregationist policies.

Jackson’s willingness to push these boundaries and search for concessions whenever possible led to him being recognized as a “pioneer in the field of better race relations” when he received an honorary doctorate from Bennett in 1949. While Jackson was no longer Chancellor when the WC was officially desegregated in 1956, he stood as an early leader in creating a more open and accepting campus.