150th Anniversary (1838-1988) of the beginnings of Duke University, circa 1988-2000

Scope and content:

Collection includes articles, printed matter, correspondence, clippings, subject files, photographs, programs, and financial materials. Major subjects include Sesquicentennial Celebration planning and events, the historic marker for Brown's Schoolhouse, and the plaque and maintenance of the Trinity College Memorial Gazebo. Materials range in date from 1988 to 2000 (bulk 1988-1989). The collection also includes a program from the Centennial Celebration of the relocation of Trinity College to Durham, 1992.

Biographical / historical:

Faculty, students, alumni and friends of Duke University travelled to Randolph County, North Carolina, in September 1988, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Duke's beginnings as a log schoolhouse about 75 miles west of Durham, N.C. The celebration in Trinity -- a rural town that grew up around the college before it moved to Durham and became Duke University -- was among the first of several festivities planned to observe Duke's sesquicentennial. At the celebration, participants walked to the spot where John S. Brown built his one-room subscription schoolhouse and placed a marker commemorating the site where Duke University was born. Although the institution's name has changed in the course of 150 years, university historians have settled on Duke's origins as 1838, when the farming community around Brown's Schoolhouse hired Brantley York to provide continuous education for its children.

Sesquicentennial events in Trinity, N.C., included a dedication of the Archdale-Trinity Historical Society Museum, a program, a birthday party at the Trinity College Memorial Gazebo, and tours. Other celebration events included a Duke-Durham birthday party, a Blackburn Society meeting, and a seminar, lecture series, and symposium.

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