Julian Carr (industrialist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Julian Carr
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| Born | October 12, 1845 |
| Died | April 29, 1924 (aged 78) |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Occupation | Industrialist, banker, philanthropist |
| Known for | Namesake of Carrboro Speech at Silent Sam dedication |
| Spouse(s) | Nannie Graham Parrish |
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Julian Shakespeare Carr (October 12, 1845 – April 29, 1924) was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and white supremacist. He is the namesake of the town of Carrboro, North Carolina.
Contents
Early life
Carr was the son of Chapel Hill merchant and slaveowner John Wesley Carr and Eliza P. Carr (née Eliza Pannell Bullock). Carr was from a prominent North Carolinian planting family and was a cousin of Governor Elias Carr and of Mary Hilliard Hinton.
He entered the University of North Carolina (today the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) at the age of sixteen, in 1862.
His studies were interrupted in 1864 by service as a private in the Confederacy, serving with the Third North Carolina Cavalry.
Career
After the war, Carr became a partner in the tobacco manufacturing firm W. T. Blackwell and Co. in nearby Durham. His business acumen led to the firm's becoming known worldwide through its recognizable Bull Durham trademark. Carr became one of the state's wealthiest individuals, engaging in successful textile, banking (Durham's First National Bank), railroad, public utility (Electric Lighting Company), and newspaper endeavors.
In 1909, Carr purchased the Alberta Cotton Mill from Thomas F. Lloyd in what was then called West End, North Carolina, by Chapel Hill. In 1913, after agreeing to extend electricity to the town, it was named Carrboro in honor of him. In the 1970s, the mill, abandoned for many years, was restored and opened as Carr Mill Mall.
Politics
National
Carr was nominated for Vice President of the United States by delegates from North Carolina (and one from Montana) at the 1900 Democratic National Convention, at which he gave a speech. He served as a delegate himself to the 1912 convention.
Bolstering white supremacy in North Carolina
Julian Carr played an essential role in bolstering white supremacy in North Carolina during the era of Jim Crow. He publicly endorsed the Ku Klux Klan, opposed the 15th Amendment (1870) giving the vote to African-American men, and promoted racial unrest and turmoil in the late 19th century to defeat an interracial "Fusion" political party. Carr promoted his racial views through the News & Observer newspaper, which he bought, setting up white supremacist Josephus Daniels as its Editor. In numerous speeches, he suggested that African Americans were better off enslaved and celebrated violence against black citizens.
In 1880 he was nominated for Lieutenant Governor. Carr was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1900 Democratic primary for senator.
Carr was the largest single donor to the Silent Sam monument to Confederate alumni on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. The statue was toppled on August 20, 2018.
Philanthropy
Carr was also instrumental in the founding of Duke University (where the history building on East Campus was named after him from 1930 to 2018). As Trinity College struggled to overcome postwar dependency on uncertain student tuition and church donations, interested Methodist laymen were crucial to its survival. Carr's name first appears in college records signing a note to forestall foreclosure on a mortgage due in 1880. Carr was elected a trustee of Trinity College in 1883, and over the course of the decade acted as benefactor and administrator of the struggling institution that was eventually renamed Duke University. He engineered the selection of John F. Crowell as the institution's new president, and along with Washington Duke won support to remove the school from its rural setting in Randolph County, North Carolina to Durham. The move was made possible by Carr's gift of 62 acres (250,000 m2) of land for the site.
Carr was noted in Volume VI of The History of Woman Suffrage for his encouragement of the formation of the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina: "At this time, when it was far from popular to stand for this cause, Judge Walter Clark, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Gen. Julian S. Carr, Archibald Henderson, Wade Harris and E.K. Graham acted as an Advisory Committee and gave freely of their time and money to help the League."
A long-time advocate for the welfare of Confederate veterans, the "high-private," as he liked to refer to himself, was Commander-in-Chief of North Carolina's United Confederate Veterans. At the 1913 dedication of the Confederate Monument (later known as Silent Sam) on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carr gave a speech wherein he credited the Confederate soldiers of having "saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South," and as a consequence, "the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States," after which he ended his speech by relating a personal anecdote when he was 19 years old of having soon after the war "horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds" in Chapel Hill for having "publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady," and having performed this "pleasing duty" in front of a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers after she sought protection at the university.
General Jule, as he was known, served as the representative for the Methodist Episcopal Church South to the United States Food Administration during World War I.
Carr was instrumental in the Western education of Charles Soong and the financing of Soong's Shanghai Bible-publishing business, who later was active in Sun Yat-Sen's attempts to establish a modern republic in China. Though it is largely forgotten today, Carr was a major financial backer of the Chinese Revolution.
Legacy
- The city of Carrboro, North Carolina.
- Carr Hall, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Carr paid the entire cost of this building, erected in 1900 as a dormitory. When new it was described as "one of the stateliest buildings on its [UNC-CH] beautiful campus", but in 2017 it was "a decrepit administrative office building". The building was renamed in 2020.
- "Duke University's Carr Building is a different story. Its original name, in 1927, was "Classroom Building". It was renamed "Carr Building" in 1930. In 2018 the original name of Classroom Building was restored (see below).
- A building at the Durham School of the Arts, originally Central Junior High School, was named for Carr. On August 24, 2017, in addition to prohibiting the Confederate flag, the Board of the Durham Public Schools voted unanimously to remove Carr's name from the building.
- The Durham chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is named the Julian S. Carr Chapter.
- In 1945, the 100th anniversary of his birth, Governor R. Gregg Cherry proclaimed October 12, 1945, as Julian S. Carr Day in North Carolina. On that day, an editorial in the Durham Sun said that "Named for him are a great many things, churches, a factory, a library, a Sunday School class, a host of children whose parents admired the man, and, now, Durham's Central Junior High School."
- A portrait of him hangs in the house of the UNC System President
Personal life
He married Nannie Graham Parrish, daughter of Colonel D.C. Parrish, in 1873. They had four sons and two daughters. Their main residence, Somerset Villa, was "an ornament to Durham". The Carrs owned a secondary residence, a planation in Hillsborough called Poplar Hill.
Later in life, he was known as "General Carr," the unofficial rank having been bestowed by the state veterans' association due to his long service in veterans' affairs and generosity toward widows and their children. In 1923, UNC bestowed an honorary degree upon Julian Carr.
Julian Carr died at his daughter's home in Chicago on April 29, 1924.
Removal of Carr's name
- The Durham Board of Education voted to remove Julian Carr's name from a building (the former Central Junior High School, mentioned above) at the Durham School of the Arts and to adopt a new dress code specifically prohibiting items that "intimidate other students on the basis of race." Mentioned were the Confederate flag, the Nazi swastika, and Ku Klux Klan symbols.
- In 2018, the Duke University History Department suggested renaming Carr Hall, which houses the department. As a result, Carr's name was removed from the building and the Hall temporarily returned to its original name, "Classroom Building", until a new name is decided upon.
- In July 2020, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Carr Hall was renamed the "Student Affairs Building."
