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<br />NFS Form 10-900-a OMB No. 1024-0018
<br />(8.86) .
<br />United States Department of the Interior
<br />National Park Service
<br />NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
<br />CONTINUATION SHEET
<br />Section 8 P..age 13 Murphey School
<br />name of property
<br />Orange County, NC
<br />county and state
<br />a combined library/cafeteria room (which also could be used as a classroom space), a kitchen,
<br />two bathrooms, drinking fountains, two entry vestibules on the east and west sides, and a central
<br />corridor dividing the rooms. Murphey School taught grades one through seven and employed
<br />around three to four teachers; one of them also serving as a principal. The first principal and
<br />#eachers are unknown; however, in 1930 Mr. H. F. Pickett was approved as principal's
<br />By 1929 North Carolina public schools totaled 5,500 elementary schools with 19,500 teachers and
<br />almost 750,000 students. Approximately three-fourths of these students were enrolled in rural
<br />schools. The average school term length was 150.5 days. The training of teachers had improved
<br />tremendously by this time, with the~rate of teachers without college degrees decreasing from
<br />32.2% to 12.3%-from 1925 to 1929. During this period, the consolidation movement had spread
<br />widely, with over 900 one-, two-, and three teacher schools eliminated and 172 consolidated
<br />schools added.' However, the onset of the Great Depression caused new school construction to
<br />slow and teachers' salaries to decline; still, enrollment and attendance continued to show
<br />improvement. The Great Depression made schoo! particularly difficult for rural children, as their
<br />help was- needed more than ever on the farm. Many children during the depression attended
<br />school only sporadically and with inadequate clothing and school suppties.18
<br />During the 1934-1935 school year Murphey School enrolled 182 students and was one of nine
<br />schools plus Chapel Hill city schools in the Orange County district. The district comprised the
<br />following schools in addition to Murphey: Hillsboro, Orange Grove, Saint Mary's, Caldwell, Efland,
<br />Aycock, Carrboro, White Crass, plus the Chapel Hill schools.19 In 193fi Murphey School added an
<br />auditorium wing (thirty feet x eighty feet) onto the west elevation of the building. The addition,
<br />along with several o#her school construction projects for Orange County, was funded through a
<br />federal Works Project Admitaistration grant that called for-an "auditorium and sewerage plant at
<br />Murphey school." The grant to the Orange County School Board from the federal government
<br />p: 31 B, 337-338. Anderson, Jean Bradley. A History of Durham County, (Historic Preservation Society of
<br />Dufiam, Duke University Press, 1990), p. 177-180. Jackson, C. David and Charlotte V. Brown, The North
<br />Carolina Chapter of The American /nsfitute of Architects, 1913-1998, (Raleigh: North Carolina Chapter, The
<br />Amercah Insf~fute of Architects, 1998).
<br />~s Orange County Board of Education Minutes, 1872-1962, microfilm {Raleigh: State Archives Research Room,
<br />c. 073.94002), p. 95.
<br />17 Siinkard, Thomas Raikes. °Public Education in North Carolina During the Depression, 1929-1933," Masters
<br />Thesis, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1948), p. 1-13.
<br />i8 Ibid, p. 76-79. Davis, Anita Price. North Carolina During the Great Depression: A Documentary Portraif of a
<br />Decade (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. publishers, 2003), p. 128.
<br />19 Division of Schoolhouse E3lantiing, Study of Local School Units 1935-9936, Department of Public Instruction,
<br />(Raleigh: State Archives Research Room), table 5.
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