Davidson Stories: Oral Histories and Interviews

This collection consists of oral histories and interviews exploring the history and culture of Davidson College. The collection consists of interviews with Davidson College students, alumni/ae, faculty, staff, and campus partners.

This collection consists of oral histories and interviews that explore the history and culture of the Town of Davidson and other local communities. The collection contains interviews with long-time Davidson residents, select college faculty and staff, alumni/ae who live(d) in the area, and representatives from community organizations. Only a small percentage are currently available digitally.

This collection contains oral history interviews conducted for Dr. Pamela Grundy's HIS 353 course during the spring of 2007. The interviews focus on the Town of Davidson and cover four main topics: the Lakeside Park community, the Westside Stakeholders, the Davidson Fire Department, and the Ada Jenkins Center.

Oral history interviews conducted by former Davidson College archivist Jan Blodgett and Linda McGrath as a part of the “Under Lake Norman” project. The “Under Lake Norman” project was a crowd-sourced campaign to collect photos and oral histories from area residents with first-hand knowledge of locations covered by the lake. These interviews focus on the areas near East Monbo Cotton Mill.

A collection of oral histories conducted as part of the multi-institutional initiative titled "Before #MeToo: How Women Historically Navigated Higher Education at the ACS Schools." Students in Dr. Rose Stremlau's HIS 307 and HIS 444 courses interviewed Davidson College alumni about their experiences through the lens of gender and sexuality.

This collection explores the stories of Asians and Asian Americans at Davidson College. The interviews were conducted in 2020 by Ashley Ip ’22 and Yashita Kandhari ’22. Dr. Sarah Waheed supported Ashley and Yashita’s work as their advisor. The project was funded by the Stories (Yet) To Be Told grant initiative.

Common Ground was formed in August 1995. The purpose of this grass-roots organization is to promote communication and understanding and improve relations among people of all races in Davidson. A part of Common Ground, the Community Relations Task Force was formed at the request of Mayor Randall Kincaid. Originally a town committee, Common Ground took over the responsibilities of the re-formed Community Relations Task Force in 2001.

In 1973, the town of Davidson passed an ordinance to establish the "Mayor's Committee on Community Relations." This committee's responsibilities were to "anticipate, consider and deal with social problems within the community, including but not limited to open housing, fair employment and public accommodations."

This Record Group contains materials that pertain to student organizations on campus. There are nearly three hundred groups ranging from the historic and earliest organizations such as Philanthropic and Eumenean Societies to the Ugly Club to fraternities, Black Professional Development Working Group, to Mental Health Ambassadors, and Young Americans for Freedom. Examples of records are constitutions and bylaws, agendas, photographs, and promotional materials.

This collection consists of student papers given to the Archives by several academic departments. While most of the files are research papers, there are also examples of creative writing. The research papers address a wide range of topics including Davidson town history, housing in the town of Davidson, "the Black experience" at Davidson College, hospice care, Ingersoll-Rand, and Davidson College traditions. There are also papers on dating at Davidson, the North Carolina Medical College, the Vietnam War, the Davidson school, Foxfire, student activism, and "Antebellum" Davidson.

The collection consists of photocopies minutes beginning February 17, 1879. There is also a copy of the Ordinances of the Town of Davidson, 1912 and minutes for the Bicentennial Committee, 1975-76 and Parks and Recreation Committee, 1972-1973. The minutes for 2007 are primarily Planning Board minutes.