Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Department of Psychology of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40085, University Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Periodic transfer from the offices that create these records.

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: University Archives Staff

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, February 2021

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.

• Education, Higher--North Carolina--History.
• General education--North Carolina--History.
• Psychology--Study and teaching--North Carolina.
• Universities and colleges--North Carolina--Departments.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Curricula.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Graduate work.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--History.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Department of Psychology.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Department of Psychology--History.

• University Archives started archiving selected websites of the academic and business units of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina General Administration, and student groups and organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in January 2013. To see if websites for this department or related departments have been archived visit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Harvested Websites (#40417).

The history of the psychology program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has its roots in the Philosophy Department, dating from 1795. However, it was more than a century before a course with recognizable psychological content was offered at the university. In 1891, Henry Horace Williams was selected to fill the chair of Mental and Moral Science, and in 1906 he began to offer his two-term psychology course as a junior/senior elective. In 1911, this course was taken over by Harry W. Chase. In 1914, Chase was appointed the university's first Professor of Psychology, and courses in experimental and scientific methodology were soon added to the original general course. With the election of Chase as President of the University in 1919, Professor J. F. Dashiell took over and continued to develop the curriculum and to expand enrollment.

In 1920, the Department of Psychology was formally established in the College of Liberal Arts. Harry W. Crane joined the faculty in 1921, adding clinical perspectives to the curriculum. Courses in social psychology were later developed by Professors Floyd H. Allport and English Bagby. In 1925, the School of Education assumed full responsibility for the course in educational psychology, increasing the department's resources for research and graduate training. With the renovation of New West in 1928, the department moved into expanded quarters with the first floor devoted to offices and classrooms, while the top two floors were furnished as laboratories.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the department continued to expand its undergraduate and graduate programs as well as its impact upon the curricula of other university departments and schools. In 1952, a major development was marked with the addition of Louis L. Thurstone and his Psychometric Laboratory from the University of Chicago. This addition made the department one of the centers of quantitative psychological research. The department's move into a renovated Davie Hall in 1967 further improved the research and teaching functions of the department.

Records include correspondence and other files relating to the administration of and programs in the Department of Psychology.