Clubs at UNC have historically ranged from highly public — social justice initiatives and performance groups to private—greek organizations and secret-societies. According to an exhibit in Wilson Library, however, there were also clubs that didn’t exist at all.
According to artifacts presented in From Di-Phis to Loreleis, some organizations documented during the 1890s in the Yackety Yack were inventions of the yearbook’s staff, intended to amuse and to deceive. Clubs included The Sampson County Club and Wake County Club.
The exhibit, which will be on view in the North Carolina Collection Gallery until May 31, presents these and many other artifacts from UNC clubs and organizations dating back to the university’s founding.
Have you heard of The Ugly Club? This unauthorized organization from the 1830s hazed homesick UNC students in order to relieve them of their woes.
Interested in UNC secret societies? The cat’s out of the bag now that a photograph from a 1950s Order of Gimghoul’s banquet is on display.
And, of course, there’s plenty of information about the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, the Loreleis other UNC institutions.
In charge of a student organization on campus? You can join UNC archivists on April 6 to discuss how you can preserve its historical documents.
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