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The Atlantic Coast Conference Was Created
An ACC football trophy from 1968
On May 8, 1953, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was created during the meeting of representatives from the Southern Conference in Greensboro. The initial members of the conference were Clemson, Duke, the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina, N.C. State, the University of South Carolina and Wake Forest. The University of Virginia was accepted as a member later that year. Wallace Wade, the former Duke football coach who was commissioner of the Southern Conference, agreed to serve as the ACC’s interim commissioner as well. Jim Weaver, the athletic director at Wake Forest, was named commissioner the following year.
The seven schools decided to pull out of the Southern Conference for two primary reasons. First, the Southern Conference’s 17-institution membership was making scheduling games in all sports very difficult. Additionally, the Southern Conference had banned post-season bowl games due to gambling and financial scandals, but some of the schools disputed the ban. The nascent conference elected to allow schools to play in bowl games as long as they did not profit greatly from the participation.
A number of new names were proposed for the new conference including Dixie, Tobacco, Blue-Gray, and the Southern Seven. Duke’s Eddie Cameron ultimately suggested the name that stuck: the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Other related resources:
- Sports-related articles on NCpedia
- The N.C. Sports Hall of Fame at the N.C. Museum of History
For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
ncpedia: RT @ncculture: #OnThisDay in #NC #history (1942): 77 Army and Navy nurses were captured in the Philippines: http://t.co/DwU7uSyj8s #WWII
Evelyn Whitlow, Army Nurse
An image of Whitlow from the N.C. Museum of History
On May 7, 1942, Evelyn Whitlow was among the 77 Army and Navy nurses captured following the fall of the Philippines. The Whitlow family of Leasburg, in Caswell County, saw six of their 12 children (four sons and two daughters) enter the service during World War II. Evelyn B. Whitlow was the first of the family to join the military. In May 1940, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) as a second lieutenant. Whitlow was serving as a nurse in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.
Known as the Angels of Bataan and Corregidor, the captured nurses were the first group of American women taken as prisoners of war. For three years she remained in Santo Thomas, a Japanese internment camp outside Manila, until being liberated on February 3, 1945. After the war, she left the ANC, married a fellow POW from Santo Thomas and moved to California. Whitlow died at the age of 78, in 1994.
Other related resources:
- North Carolina and the Two World Wars from N.C. Historical Publications
- North Carolina at Home and in Battle in World War II from the N.C. Museum of History
- Military women on NCpedia
- Timeline of women’s history in North Carolina from the N.C. Museum of History
- Resources related to women’s history from the State Library
For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
ncpedia: Did you know malaria was carried to NC in the "blood of the 15th century European explorers"? http://t.co/70DZk20meE
Steamship Launched at Swansboro
On May 6, 1818, 11 years after Robert Fulton’s invention of the steamship, Otway Burns launched a similar vessel in North Carolina. Burns, known for his privateering during the War of 1812, built the Prometheus at his waterfront lot, number six, at the mouth of the White Oak River in Swansboro. He attracted the attention of North Carolina newspapers as he strove to launch the Prometheus before the Henrietta, built that year in Fayetteville. The steamship Prometheus entered service on the Cape Fear River by the summer of 1818, shortly before the Henrietta.
The vessel operated a route between Smithville (now Southport) and Wilmington, which took about four hours and cost passengers $1 each way. Perhaps two of the most famous of the commuters on the Prometheus were President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, who rode the steamship to inspect Fort Johnston in April 1819.
For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
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