Of the carolina inn. They had an auction of town lots. So, they understood that there needed to be a town to support it for businesses, places for people to live. They were, in essence, born on the same day. The university was chartered in 1789. The ground broke for the first building in 1793, and about a year and half later, 1795, the university opened. They had events on campus here. No student showed up. It took another few weeks before the First Student arrived. He came 100 miles off the coast of North Carolina. He was the entire student body for about two weeks before more students drifted onto campus. For the first century, it was a school for white men only. It was only in the 1890s that women were admitted to the university, and the university did not allow africanamericans and other students of color until the 1970s. It is really impossible to talk about the University Without talking about slavery. Slave labor was involved in all of the buildings. The earliest building, the one behind me, the construction, the subsequent renovations. We also know that slavery played a role in the financing of the university, and this was due to the fact that the state legislature did not originally allot funding for the university. Instead, they allocated escheats, which meant if someone died without a legal heir, the property would revert to the university, the university would sell it and take the proceeds. This was usually land. There were a number of cases where the university inherited enslaved people and immediately ordered them to be sold to finance the university. So leading up to the civil war, slavery was an integral part of life in the town of chapel hill and at the university of North Carolina, and students and faculty were overwhelmingly on the side of the confederacy. Campus kind of dwindled during the war. A lot of students left to enlist. The universities stayed open, but barely. Only at the end of the war did troops make it into the village of chapel hill. The University Administrators and other state leaders managed to negotiate to prevent the universities from being destroyed, but there were many soldiers from the United States regiment house on campus and in nearby towns. So things really began to change for the university and the town in the 1880s and 1890s. In the 1880s, a branch of the railroad came, just west of town. There were a couple of textile mills develop there. Finally, industry began to develop outside of the university. In the 1890s, the university began a drive to becoming a modern university. This involves standing enrollment, building a graduate school, and really making a more concerted effort to be involved in the life of the entire state of North Carolina. The university began to grow in prestige and national reputation, i would say, in the 1920s and 1930s, and this is when it was embarking on a really ambitious building and growth campaign. To some extent inspired by state universities in the midwest and other parts of the country, but the university really began to engage not just with the state of North Carolina but also the region. And those academic programs attracted students from all over the country, and they also brought a lot of attention to the University Faculty and began to develop its reputation as a regional leader, certainly, but also a National Leader in public higher education. The other thing that is dramatically different from how it was when it was founded, some of the buildings were still here, but it is hard to imagine this rustic place in 200 years ago in the bustling Public University it is now. What we see now is a modern, global Public University, deeply committed to the state of North Carolina, but also has ties to programs and Research Facilities all over the world. So it is still located in the heart of the state, and it is still the center of public life in North Carolina. I think that is something that is really important. You can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country at cspan. Org citiestour. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, it every weekend only on cspan3. Like us on facebook. 18 92 and 1954, about 12 Million Immigrants were taken to ellis island for questioning and processing. Up next on American History tvs theican artifacts, we visit ellis island museum. Says that good morning. I am a park ranger