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<br /> NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval 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 number 8 Page 12 North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls
<br /> Orange County,NC
<br /> (1882) in Melvale, Maryland, a private facility, received state and city subsidies. Publicly funded and
<br /> run facilities included Industrial Home for Negro Girls(1909) in Tipton, Missouri; Virginia Industrial
<br /> Home for Negro Girls (1915) in Peak's Turnout; Industrial School for Colored Girls (1920) in
<br /> Marshaliton,Delaware; and Oklahoma Industrial School for Colored Girls (1920) in Taft.20
<br /> NCIHCG served a statewide constituency. Eighteen residents in 1930 were from Buncombe, Carteret,
<br /> Durham, Forsyth, Guilford,Mecklenburg,Pasquotank,Robeson,Vance, and Wake counties,with the
<br /> largest number(five) coming from Durham County. All had been committed by juvenile court order.
<br /> The three-person staff included interim superintendent Marie Clay Clinton of Charlotte, appointed in
<br /> December 1929, her assistant Bertha Vincent, and a local man who guided the farm's operation. Staff
<br /> oversaw academic instruction as well as agricultural and domestic skills training. Clinton, a forty-five-
<br /> year-old widow, had garnered some experience working with youth through NCFCWC initiatives,but
<br /> was not a social worker or teacher. Therefore,Vincent, a thirty-two-year-old Scotia Seminary
<br /> graduate, led academic classes. Both women served as house mothers and taught food preparation and
<br /> preservation, laundry, and sewing.21
<br /> Residents participated in a wide variety of activities. The girls shared one sewing machine and sewed
<br /> by hand, fabricating clothing,handkerchiefs, a quilt, sofa pillows, and other items. Classes were held
<br /> during the mornings and afternoons during the winter,when there were fewer outdoor chores to
<br /> complete. The remainder of the year, residents often studied in the mornings,worked outside in the
<br /> afternoons, and reconvened for academic instruction in the evenings. Most of the young women had
<br /> limited prior scholastic experience. This factor, coupled with disparities in age and aptitude,resulted
<br /> in a rudimentary curriculum. The girls and the farm manager cut wood; cultivated corn,wheat, and
<br /> vegetables; and tended chickens,pigs, and dairy cows. In spring 1930, Lindley Nurseries donated
<br /> seventy-five fruit trees and twenty-five grape vines that University of North Carolina students planted
<br /> for NCIHCG.22
<br /> Farm production supplemented meager rations. Residents assisted with meal preparation and service.
<br /> Breakfast was typically hash, grits, and bread. One additional meal was provided in the winter and two
<br /> in seasons that required significant physical labor. These meals often comprised white beans,bacon,
<br /> and corn bread, or macaroni and tomatoes. In 1930, dining room furnishings included two oilcloth-
<br /> covered tables, chairs, and a dish-washing sink. Plates,forks, spoons, serving dishes, and cooking
<br /> 20 Margaret Reeves,Training Schools for Delinquent Girls(New York:Russell Sage Foundation, 1929);Wiley
<br /> Britton Sanders,Negro Child Welfare in North Carolina:A Rosenwald Study(Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina
<br /> Press, 1933),50.
<br /> 21 Clinton later served as NCFCWC's president. Sanders,Negro Child Welfare in North Carolina,51;United
<br /> States Census,Population Schedule, 1930;"Co-Laborers in a Grand Task,"Federation Journal,May 1, 1952,p.4.
<br /> 22 Sanders,Negro Child Welfare in North Carolina,55.
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