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<br />NPS Form 10 -900 -a OMB No. 1€2"018
<br />United States Department of the Interior
<br />National Park Service
<br />NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
<br />CONTINUATION SHEET
<br />Section 8 Page 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 />teachers are unknown; however, in '1930 Mr. H. F. Pickett was approved as principal.'
<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.17 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 school 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 supplies. 1e
<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 />fallowing schools in addition to Murphey: Hillsboro, Orange Grove, Saint Mary's, Caldwell, Efland,
<br />Aycock, Carrboro, White Cross, plus the Chapel Hill schools.19 In 1936 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 other school construction projects for Orange County, was funded through a
<br />federal Works Project Administration 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..318, 337 -33:8. Anderson, Jean Bradley. A History of Durham County, (Historic Preservation Society of
<br />Durham, Duke University Press, 1990), p. 177 -180. Jackson, C. David and Charlotte V. Brown, The North
<br />Carolina Chapter of The American Institute of Architects, 1913 -1998, (Raleigh: North Carolina Chapter, The
<br />American Institute of Architects, 1998).
<br />16 Orange County Board of Education Minutes, 1872 -1962, microfilm (Raleigh: Mate Archives Research Room,
<br />c, 073. 94002), p. 95.
<br />17 Slinkard, Thomas Ralkes. "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 />is lbld, p. 76-79. Davis, Anita Price. Nov h Carolina wring the Great Depression: A Doeurnentary Por&aff of a
<br />Decade (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. Inc. publishers, 2003), p. 128.
<br />19 Division of Schoolhouse Planning, Study of Lml School Vn& 1935 -1936, Department of Public Instruction,
<br />(Raleigh: State Archives Research Room), table 5.
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