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Main Quad for Arch
This sketch depicting the West Campus quad was created by the Horace Trumbauer firm during campus construction in the 1920s. Trumbauer’s firm included Julian Abele, a Black architect credited with designing many of the buildings that we now recognize as Duke University. Duke’s construction grew under the leadership of William Preston Few, who was President of Trinity College (1910-1924) and the newly named Duke University (1924-1940). Along with English professor and first University Comptroller Frank C. Brown, Few was instrumental in the Georgian architecture on East Campus and the Neo-Gothic architecture on West Campus. -
Chapel Architectural Drawings
The Duke Chapel was designed by Black architect Julian Abele, who worked at the firm of Horace Trumbauer. The cornerstone of the Chapel was placed in 1930, and the Chapel first opened for the 1932 commencement. Reflecting Duke’s origins as a Methodist university, the Chapel serves as a symbol of Duke’s early emphasis on religion. For example, a student’s religious affiliation was often noted in their student record, and attending Chapel was a required part of student life. Today the Chapel is an interfaith institution supporting the religious and spiritual life of the Duke community. -
First Centennial Exhibit
Did you know this isn’t Duke’s first centennial exhibit? In 1939, an earlier library exhibit celebrated one hundred years since the founding of Brown’s Schoolhouse, the small educational institution that would eventually become Duke University. The exhibit showcased various items from the Duke Libraries, such as southern journals, rare manuscripts, and historical photographs and illustrations. -
Pictorial Bulletin of Duke University College of Engineering
This bulletin covers the College of Engineering’s civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering opportunities. Due to World War II, the bulletin demonstrates a clear relationship between the college and the military, with quotes on the value of civil engineers in the army, how navigation courses are useful for air and sea duty, and highlights on the mechanical engineering aeronautics concentration. The bulletin exclusively features men; however, the first women engineers, Marie Foote Reel and Muriel Theodorsen Williams, enrolled in the college in the early 1940s, graduating in 1946 -
Report of the Director of the Duke Forest, 1937-1938
In 1931, the Duke Forest was founded under the stewardship of Dr. Clarence Korstian, providing almost 5,000 acres of land to the School of Forestry—now the Nicholas School of the Environment. The first report from Korstian to President Few described the imminent need for professional training in technical forestry. In 1937, the Duke Forest had hosted over a hundred professional foresters from fifteen states, the District of Columbia, and five foreign countries. Today, the Forest contains over 7,000 acres, used for teaching and research by the Nicholas School and the rest of the university. This glass lantern slide from 1935 depicts a scene from the Forest, which maintains its same natural beauty almost a century later. -
Lemur Skull and Zoboomafoo Video
Founded in 1966, the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) is a non-invasive research center housing the most diverse lemur population in the world outside of Madagascar. This fossil cast is an Aegyptopithecus specimen, or “The Egyptian Monkey.” It was named in 1965 by Elwyn Simons, the father of modern primate paleontology and the founder of the DLC Division of Fossil Primates, now the DLC Museum of Natural History. This VHS copy of Zoboomafoo was an Emmy Award-winning children’s television series hosted by Chris Kratt and Martin Kratt (T’89). It originally aired on PBS from 1999 to 2001. The title character, Zoboo, was played by a Coquerel’s sifaka named Jovian, who was a resident of the DLC. -
Duke University Marine Laboratory 50th anniversary celebration: a half century dedicated to education, training, research, and service
This book celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Duke University Marine Laboratory and its founding on Pivers Island by Dr. A. S. Pearse in the 1930s. Located in Beaufort, North Carolina, the Marine Lab is a coastal campus dedicated to the disciplines of marine biology and conservation, marine environmental health, and physical oceanography. -
Law School Application
This undated admissions application provides insight into what a typical law school application looked like. This greatly differs from the robust application system that current Duke law students undergo prior to matriculating. -
WWII Military patches worn by Duke alums
Worn by Duke alumni during World War II, these military patches represent branches of the U.S. military: Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. Many students gained military training by joining divisions like the Duke Naval Reserves Officer Training Corps and the 65th General Hospital Unit. Cooperative relationships with the government fostered a surge in engineering studies and advanced experimental research in chemistry, medicine, and other disciplines. Identifying markers in each of the patches include the Navy’s ship wheel, the Marines’ anchor and seahorse, and an Air Force troop carrier plane. -
Freeman center opening program
The dedication of the Freeman Center in 1999 was a welcome celebration of Jewish Life at Duke. Jewish students have attended the institution since before Trinity College became Duke University, but the Freeman Center is the first physical space dedicated to the Jewish community. Gil Scharf (T'70) originally approached President Brodie about establishing a physical center for Jewish life more than ten years before the eventual construction of the Freeman Center. The Freeman Center now serves as the primary space for Jewish Life at Duke, hosting events and religious services. -
Trowels
These trowels belonged to stonemason Pete Ferettini and were used for the construction of West Campus in the late 1920s. At that time, all stone was delivered to campus by train from a quarry in Hillsborough and cut by hand. Chisel marks can still be seen on some buildings. James B. Duke's death in October 1925 meant that he never saw the “new” campus realized. His only daughter, Doris Duke, symbolically laid the cornerstone on June 5, 1928, on the family’s behalf. Descendants of the Duke family have remained engaged and generous supporters of the university, and have served as trustees for Duke University and the Duke Endowment. -
Negatives, Photos re: Duke's FIRST Centennial
The year 2024 actually marks Duke's second centennial celebration. Duke celebrated 100 years of being an academic institution in 1938-1939, marking a century since the foundation of Brown’s Schoolhouse, which would become Trinity College in 1859. The celebration included speeches, free food and drinks, and a museum exhibit. The 2024 centennial marks 100 years since Trinity College became Duke University after the Board of Trustees changed the name to honor Washington Duke on December 29, 1924. -
East and West Campus Sketches
The Horace Trumbauer architectural firm sketched many iterations before settling on the architecture we see today. West Campus and East Campus were both designed to have water features and monuments that were never realized due to financial constraints. Today Duke stretches far beyond the original blueprint, with varying architectural styles, from the concrete Edens Quad to the brick Biological Sciences building. -
Duke Stone
The Collegiate Gothic style of Abele Quad is carved out of “Duke Stone,” a special stone from a quarry in nearby Hillsborough. The proximity of the quarry and versatility of the rock has made this an essential and valued building material for Duke. Duke’s “stone era” was first interrupted by the construction of the College of Engineering—now Hudson Hall—and the Physics Building following World War II; each was built of less expensive red brick in a Georgian style. Duke returned to stone with the completion of the Classroom and Administration Building—now the Allen Building—in 1954. Since then, buildings at Duke have varied in style and primary building materials, but have retained accents of the characteristic stone. -
Fuqua School of Business Brochure, ca. 1980s
This brochure promoting the Duke Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program details specific reasons Duke students chose to pursue an MBA at the Fuqua School of Business. Originally chartered as the Graduate School of Business in 1969, the school was renamed the Fuqua School of Business with a financial gift from J. B. Fuqua in 1980. Fuqua’s motivation for donating such a large gift to the university stemmed from the fact that as a boy he borrowed books from the Duke Libraries through a borrow-by-mail program that the university participated in. It was through these books that Fuqua gleaned much of his education. Fuqua never attended college, but through his determination and intelligence he went on to build Fuqua Industries, a Fortune 500 company. -
DukEngineer, vol. 21, no. 1 (October 1958)
This 1958 edition of DukEngineer magazine includes articles about engineering advancements at Duke and recruitment advertisements for Duke engineering students in the workforce. Many of the recruitment ads and campus interviews during this time pertained to the looming Space Race against the USSR, as Sputnik launched just a year prior. DukEngineer has been issued periodically since 1940 and became an annual publication in 2002. The Duke University School of Engineering was named the Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering in 1999, after Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. (E’47). -
Asiatic Arboretum Pamphlet
Invitations to the 1990 and 1992 Sarah P. Duke Gardens receptions celebrate the dedication of the Kasuga Lantern and the Main Gateway of the Asiatic Arboretum, a venue for Japanese cultural exploration. Durham is a sister city to Toyama, Japan. As President Brodie remarked during the Gardens’ fiftieth anniversary, the Duke Gardens “are the Chapel’s proper complement, for the gardens also speak to the deepest human needs for spiritual regeneration, providing a sanctuary, a refuge from the heat of the day and the turmoil and worries of the world.” -
JB Duke's pocket watch
James Buchanan (J. B.) Duke (1856-1925), a Durham native and son of Trinity College benefactor Washington Duke, is perhaps best known for his establishment of the Duke Endowment and the subsequent creation of Duke University. He made his fortune through the American Tobacco Company and later through harnessing hydroelectric power, creating Duke Power—now Duke Energy. After years of conversations with President William Preston Few and Benjamin Duke, J. B. Duke signed the Indenture and Deed of Trust, establishing the Duke Endowment on December 11, 1924. This pocket watch is engraved with J. B.’s initials on the front and would have been attached to a long chain. -
Groundbreaking Ceremony pamphlet, April 3, 1992
This ceremonial hard hat was worn by President Terry Sanford at the 1992 groundbreaking ceremony for the Sanford Institute of Public Policy. While the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs had existed since 1971, the name change recognized President Sanford’s commitment to public service as a former governor and U.S. senator. During his tenure as Duke President from 1969 to 1985, Sanford was widely credited with transforming Duke into a world-class research institution. The Sanford Institute became the Sanford School of Public Policy in 2009. -
"Hard" hat used by Terry Sanford at groundbreaking ceremonies for the Institute's building
This ceremonial hard hat was worn by President Terry Sanford at the 1992 groundbreaking ceremony for the Sanford Institute of Public Policy. While the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs had existed since 1971, the name change recognized President Sanford’s commitment to public service as a former governor and U.S. senator. During his tenure as Duke President from 1969 to 1985, Sanford was widely credited with transforming Duke into a world-class research institution. The Sanford Institute became the Sanford School of Public Policy in 2009.
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