Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972)

The Great Depression brought financial crisis to the University of North Carolina. Even before the stock market crash of 1929, falling farm prices had caused widespread hardship in the state. With a precipitous drop in tax revenues, the legislature cut the higher education budget by 55 percent between 1929 and 1933. Faculty salaries in 1933 were about half what they had been in 1930. A determined campaigner, university president Frank Porter Graham traveled across the state trying to build support for the university.