early student group

Antebellum College Life

Student and faculty life before the Civil War, including the classical curriculum and faculty struggles to maintain student discipline.

Enter the exhibit

  1. Earliest known daguerreotype of a student group, ca. 1853-57
  2. University of North Carolina, 1855. From Cyclopaedia of American Literature. New York: Charles Scribner, 1855.
  3. Joseph Caldwell (1773-1835)
  4. Observatory and instruments Caldwell purchased in Europe
  5. David Lowry Swain (1801-1868)
  6. University Catalog, 1819
  7. Elisha Mitchell, Statistics, Facts, and Dates, for the Sunday Recitations of the Junior Class in the University, 1850, example of a text students used to prepare for recitations
  8. Letter to parents sent at the close of the session, December 9, 1824
  9. 1840 Commencement Program
  10. Watch fob, 1850s, with emblem of the Dialectic Society
  11. James Phillips (1792-1867) and Charles Phillips (1822-1889)
  12. Elisha Mitchell (1793-1857)
  13. Mitchell's watch found in his pocket after he fell to his death in 1857. Now in North Carolina Gallery
  14. Judge and University Trustee Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870)
  15. Bell rung for class changes, 1850s
  16. Bartlett Yancey (1785-1828). After studying at the university for two years, he left to read law with alumnus Archibald D. Murphey and earned his license in 1807. Later a U.S. congressman and state senator.

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