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No restrictions. Open for research.

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Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Business and Professional Women's Club of Chapel Hill, N.C., Records, #1648-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Gift of Mrs. B.B. Lane, 1949.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Laura Clark Brown, December 2012

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Business and Professional Women's Club of Chapel Hill, N.C.
• Clubs--North Carolina--Chapel Hill--History--20th century.
• Women--North Carolina--Societies and clubs--History--20th century.

• Guion Griffis Johnson Papers (04546)

The Chapel Hill Business and Professional Women's Club held its first meeting on 12 May 1943. The club was affiliated with the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc. and with the North Carolina State Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc. The stated objective of the club was "to clarify thinking and to become more articulate on social, economic and political questions in line with the National objective which reads: 'We seek to vitalize the processes of democracy that all people may enjoy the basic satisfaction of life in a world at peace.'"

At the second meeting on 26 May 1943, members discussed what the club could contribute to the war effort, especially in the area of "woman power" and what could be done to keep talented women from leaving the southeast in pursuit of more opportunities and higher salaries in other parts of the country. The club sought to address inequities in salaries and wages, working conditions, and opportunities for women in the South and particularly in Orange County, N.C. and to instill a "greater sense of civic responsibility" in women. Equal pay for equal work was a priority.

Charter members held a variety of positions including secretary, typist, clerk, teacher, professor, physician, public health nurse, librarian, bookkeeper, and home maker. Social science researcher Guion Griffis Johnson and photographer Bayard Wooten were among the notable charter members.

The collection contains the records of the Chapel Hill Business and Professional Women's Club of North Carolina. Records include by-laws, minutes of the club's meetings, minutes of the executive committee's meetings, membership rolls, lists of officers, resolutions, and 1942 guidelines from the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc.