Textiles, Teachers, and Troops: Greensboro, 1880-1945

Textiles, Teachers, and Troops makes available more than 175,000 digital images documenting the social and cultural development of Greensboro from Reconstruction to World War II. Photos, books, personal papers, scrapbooks, and oral histories demonstrate how the textile industry, education, and the massive World War II military presence helped Greensboro grow into one of the leading manufacturing and education centers in the Southeast.

Textiles, Teachers, and Troops is a collaborative project among seven cultural heritage institutions in Greensboro and was funded in part through a Library Services and Technology Act Grant administered by the State Library of North Carolina.

Collections included:

Pages

: DAR Scrapbooks; These four newspaper scrapbooks were compiled by members of the Rachel Caldwell Chapter, NSDAR, which was founded in Greensboro in 1935. During World War II, the chapter undertook the herculean effort of cutting and pasting newspaper clippings about local soldiers, no matter their gender or race. Although almost all the clippings are from the Greensboro Daily News, the articles and photographs document servicemen and women from towns throughout Guilford County, and even from neighboring counties.

: Jerry DeFelice Photographs; A resident of Rochester, New York, for most of his life, Jerry DeFelice (1920-2005) worked in the Public Relations office at the military base in Greensboro from April 1943 until the base closed in September 1946. He had trained as a military aerial photographer at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, but when he arrived in Greensboro he was put to work taking photographs for the base newspaper. Since the base was still under construction when he arrived, it had no darkroom facilities. DeFelice reached out to the Greensboro Daily News and became friends with its photographer, Carol Martin, who allowed him to use the newspaper darkroom until the camp facility was ready. Martin also taught DeFelice a lot about photojournalism, and they remained lifelong friends. It was through their friendship that in the early 1990s the Greensboro Historical Museum received not only a full run of the base newspaper, but many of DeFelice's original photographs. A short reminiscence by DeFelice has also been digitized (https://gateway.uncg.edu/islandora/object/ghm%3A19643).

: Stephen and Stella Dow Letters; A series of letters from Marianna Dow to her parents Stephen and Stella, telling of her freshman experiences at Guilford College in 1936.

: Duke Memorial Hall Dedication Papers; Transcripts of speeches given at the dedication of Duke Memorial Hall in 1898.

: George C. Eichhorn Papers; George C. Eichhorn (1901-1983) worked for the City of Greensboro as a purchasing agent in the 1920s-1930s and became the city's first director of traffic safety before transferring to Vick Chemical Company. This collection consists primarily of printed materials from his time with the city, including traffic reports and Greensboro's first police handbook, but the only digitized items relate to Vick Chemical Company.

: Luis Felicia Papers; A native of Ohio, Private Luis Felicia (1911-2008) was stationed in recreation at the Overseas Replacement Depot (ORD) during World War II. As head of Service Club #1, he performed in shows for the soldiers and provided dance instruction. After the war, he remained in Greensboro as a dance instructor and owner of Felicia Studios of Dance. This collection consists of photographs and printed material relating to his wartime service and post-war career, but only material relating to the ORD has been digitized. The photographs document daily life and recreational activities on the military base, as well as a visit by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, while the printed material includes copies of news clippings, ephemera, and an original 1945 base telephone directory.

: File Collection (Friends Historical Collection); A collection of subject files on a variety of topics.

: Robert Frazier Papers; Robert Frazier was chairman of the Guilford College Board of Trustees.

: Class Of Files; This collection contains commencement programs, reunion materials, and other materials related to graduating classes and class activities at UNCG from its opening through today.

: Greensboro Board of Education Collection; This collection consists of two bound books, one being the minutes of the Board of Education from 1906 to 1911, and the other the testimony in the case of the "Mother's Association vs. J. L. Mann, Superintendent City Schools" in 1912.

: Greensboro History Museum Inc. Archives; As the institutional archives for the Greensboro History Museum, this collection consists of materials relating to the governance of the museum and the functions of its departments. The digitized items include scrapbooks documenting the museum's early history, museum newsletters, and material relating to the "Army Town" exhibit about Greensboro during World War II, which was on display from 1993 to 1995.

: Greensboro Pictorials Collection; These illustrated promotional publications from the 1890s and early 1900s provide general information about Greensboro and document local businesses, business owners, and both commercial and residential buildings.

: Greensboro Pictorials Highlights; Images taken from a group of illustrated promotional publications from the 1890s and early 1900s that document both commercial and residential buildings.

: Greensboro Public Library Collection; This collection of historical materials owned by the Greensboro Public Library now resides at the Greensboro History Museum.

: Guilford College Parent Teacher Association; Records of the Guilford College Parent Teacher Association.

: Guilford College Photograph Album; This album contains sepia photographs of Guilford College from around 1880 to 1900, inclduing classrooms, campus buildings, student rooms, and other subjects.

: Ned Harrison Collection; This collection consists of materials gathered from war veterans and civilians for a newspaper column commemorating the 50th anniversary of U.S. involvement in World War II. Ned Harrison invited people to submit their recollections of events and experiences from 1943 to 1945 to be published in the News & Record, where his column ran from January 1993 to January 1996. The digitized items include only the few that shed light on Greensboro during World War II. Min Klein describes her and her husbandâ€™s involvement in supporting troops stationed at the Overseas Replacement Depot. Corrine Fagg and John Lowe tell about what they were doing and thinking on September 2, 1945, the day President Harry Truman declared the official end of World War II.