author
Cornelia Phillips Spencer
1825–1908
A lively 19th-century North Carolina writer, educator, and public voice, she is best remembered for championing the reopening of the University of North Carolina after the Civil War. Her work blends memoir, local history, and sharp commentary on Southern life.
1 Audiobook
The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina
by Cornelia Phillips Spencer
About the author
Born in Harlem, New York, on March 20, 1825, she moved as a baby to Chapel Hill, where her father joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina. She grew up in an academic household and became a prolific writer whose work included poetry, journalism, memoir, and history.
In 1855 she married James Monroe Spencer and lived for a time in Alabama, but after his death she returned to Chapel Hill with her daughter. Over the years she published books such as The First Steps in North Carolina History, Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina, and The Last Chronicles of Bartram, and became known as an energetic advocate for education and public life in the state.
She played a prominent role in the campaign to reopen the University of North Carolina in 1875, which made her a notable public figure in Chapel Hill. Modern accounts also note that her legacy is complicated by her support for white supremacist causes during and after Reconstruction, so she is remembered today both for her literary and educational work and for the limits of the world she defended.