Guion Griffis Johnson (1900-1989)
Women began to earn doctorates from the university in 1924. Guion Griffis Johnson was one of the most distinguished of the early female graduates. Receiving the Ph.D. in history in 1927, she authored the award-winning Ante-Bellum North Carolina: A Social History (1937). She and her husband, sociology professor Guy Johnson, participated in the research team that produced Gunnar Myrdal's groundbreaking study of race relations, An American Dilemma (1944), but she was never allowed to join the university faculty. She dedicated herself to volunteer leadership instead.