Julian Shakespeare Carr (October 12, 1845 – April 29, 1924) was an American tobacco and textile industrialist best known for his work establishing "the first major brand-name [tobacco] product" Bull Durham Tobacco and pioneering the world's first international, mass-market advertising campaign.
He helped finance the 1911 Chinese Revolution, providing his godson Charlie Soong, Soong Ching-ling, and Sun Yat-sen over one million dollars.
He is the only individual to serve on the board of trustees for both Duke University (then Trinity College) and the University of North Carolina.
He is the namesake of Carrboro, North Carolina, and Carr Township.
Early life Carr was the son of Chapel Hill merchant John Wesley Carr and Eliza P. Carr (née Eliza Pannill Bullock). Carr's father "did not grow up on a plantation," and his grandfather who was also named John Carr "was a yeoman farmer without wealth or influence, but with an impressive lineage" that traces back to Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset. Unlike his chief business rival, fellow Confederate Veteran, and namesake of Duke University Washington Duke, Julian Carr never owned slaves.
In 1862, he entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the age of sixteen, where he developed a life-long friendship with Eugene Morehead, son of North Carolina governor John Motley Morehead.
In 1863, Carr became eighteen and "decided to enlist" in the Confederate Army, becoming a member of Company K in the Third North Carolina Cavalry.
Career After the war, he resumed his university education. Subsequently, he spent two years working in business with his uncle in Little Rock, Arkansas. Upon his return to North Carolina, Carr purchased one-third of the Durham-based tobacco company W. T. Blackwell and Company, eventually becoming the firm's president and sole owner. His work as the chief marketer made the Bull Durham Tobacco brand famous which later influenced many facets of both Durham and baseball culture, including the town nickname "Bull City," the term bull pen, and the movie Bull Durham.
Carr became one of the state's wealthiest individuals and North Carolina's first millionaire, engaging in successful textile, banking (Durham's First National Bank), railroad, public utility (Electric Lighting Company), and newspaper endeavors.
In 1909, Carr purchased the Alberta Cotton Mill from Thomas F. Lloyd in what was then called West End, North Carolina, by Chapel Hill. In 1913, after agreeing to extend electricity to the town, it was named Carrboro in honor of him. In the 1970s, the mill, abandoned for many years, was restored and opened as Carr Mill Mall.
Philanthropy
Charlie Soong and the 1911 Chinese Revolution
Carr was instrumental in the Western education of Charlie Soong, Duke's first international student and founder of the Soong Dynasty. Carr financed Soong's Shanghai Bible-publishing business. Soong was active in Sun Yat-sen's attempts to establish a modern republic in China.
The Carr family's adoption and education of Charlie In the 1880's the Carr family took in the young Soong, making him a part of their family and providing him a room of his own in their mansion Waverly Honor. Carr paid for Soong's education, starting at Trinity College (now Duke University) and later at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.
Funding the 1911 Chinese Revolution
As an adult, Soong returned to America where he raised over $2,000,000 for the Alliance party (Tongmenghui), with Carr providing the majority of the funds. Soong and Carr's efforts significantly contributed to the success of the 1911 Revolution and the Kuomintang's subsequent rule of China and later Taiwan.
Following the revolution, Carr travelled to Shanghai where Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling hosted him at their residence (see Former Residence of Yat-Sen) in the French Concession. The leadership of the newly formed government honored Carr with multiple banquets, and Sun gifted Carr three porcelain vases.Photograph of Urn given to Carr, in the Mena Webb Papers #4507, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carr remarked in letters home, "They treated me like royalty--like a king."
The Spanish–American War
During the Spanish–American War of 1898, Carr personally backed two companies of soldiers, one white and one black, each comprising roughly 120 soldiers each. Carr contributed over $100,000 to these men and their families: He paid the bills of the soldiers' families at home in North Carolina and personally travelled down to Jacksonville, Florida, to deliver the commanding officer of the 1st North Carolina Regiment $25,000.
Trinity College (now Duke University)
Early financial assistance to Trinity College Carr was instrumental in the founding of Duke University. As Trinity College struggled to overcome postwar dependency on uncertain student tuition and church donations, interested Methodist laymen were crucial to its survival. Carr's name first appears in college records signing a note to forestall foreclosure on a mortgage due in 1880.
Trustee, administrator, and donor of Duke's Campus Carr was elected a trustee of Trinity College in 1883, and over the course of the decade acted as benefactor and administrator of the struggling institution that was eventually renamed Duke University. He engineered the selection of John F. Crowell as the institution's new president, and along with Washington Duke won support to remove the school from its rural setting in Randolph County, North Carolina, to Durham. The move was made possible by Carr's gift of his Trinity Park for the grounds of Duke's original campus (today East Campus).
Carr Building (Duke) Following Carr's death in 1924, Duke University formally named a large building on its East Campus the Carr Building in 1930: "In memory of Julian S. Carr, who gave the land on which these buildings stand. ERECTED BY JAMES B. DUKE."
"General Julian S. Carr, of Durham...who responded to the financial needs of the institution and who in other ways meant much to the college, will be permanently honored..."The building designed by architect Horace Trumbauer is a "three-story Georgian style red Baltimore brick building, trimmed in Vermont marble, and with a Buckingham slate roof." Originally housing the Fine Arts Department, today it is home to the History Department. In 2018, Duke renamed Carr Building the Classroom Building.
University of North Carolina
Carr Building (UNC) Carr personally funded the construction of the Carr Building, originally named the Carr Dormitory, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, making it the first building on campus gifted by a single donor. At the time, his gift was the largest ever given to UNC. The Carr Building opened in 1900, and the building was renamed in 2020.
Alumni Association Carr (class of 1886) served as the President of the UNC General Alumni Associate Board of Directors from 1912 to 1917.
Silent Sam
Carr was the largest single donor to the Silent Sam monument to Confederate alumni on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. At its dedication in 1913, Carr, among other topics in the speech, told a story from when he was 19 years old, "less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox," in which he performed the "pleasing duty" of whipping an African-American "wench" until her skirts hung in shreds", because she had "publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady." This passage received a great deal of attention starting in 2011, after it was rediscovered in the university archives by a graduate student in history named Adam Domby and published in the campus newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. It contributed significantly to the discontent that culminated in the toppling of the statue on August 20, 2018.
Prior to Dr. Adam Domby making Carr's 1913 speech well-known, which ultimately triggered the civil unrest on UNC's campus, Carr's reputation was not one of racism. Carr's status as a beloved historical and cultural figure in the State of North Carolina was recognized through a state-wide holiday enacted by the legislature named Julian Carr Day, and in 1992 Duke University hosted a reunion for the Washington Duke and Julian Carr families to honor their moving of Duke University (then Trinity College) to Durham.
American University Carr was one of the founders of American University, helping enacting its 1893 charter still in effect today and serving on the board of trustees from 1921 to 1924.
Bolstering Durham's Black Wall Street
Booker T. Washington In 1915, Booker T. Washington, described Carr as a generous "white man." Washington detailed Carr's early investment in the career of former-slave John Merrick who became the most successful black business leader in Durham, Carr's role as one of the first business leaders to hire black operators, and his providing of training for black workers for a black-owned neighboring mill: "Mr. John Merrick, recognized as the leading Negro of Durham... began as a poor man, borrowing money from General Julian S. Carr, a leading white man, to begin his first business...the white people, and the best ones too, never feared...to aid them in securing an education or any kind of improvement....there is [a hosiery mill] owned by a white man, but operated exclusively by colored men. The proprietor is Gen. Julian S. Carr, to whom I have already referred. General Carr employs 150 women and a few men, and it argues the generous spirit typical here that he was willing to admit a rival Negro mill right here in his neighborhood; many of whose workmen had received their training from him."
W. E. B. Du Bois In 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote, "great as has undoubtedly been the value of the active friendship of...General Julian S. Carr," regarding the advancement of Durham's black citizens.
Woman's suffrage movement
Carr was noted in Volume VI of The History of Woman Suffrage for his encouragement of the formation of the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina: "At this time, when it was far from popular to stand for this cause, Judge Walter Clark, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Gen. Julian S. Carr, Archibald Henderson, Wade Harris and E.K. Graham acted as an Advisory Committee and gave freely of their time and money to help the League."
Confederate veterans
A long-time advocate for the welfare of Confederate veterans, the "high-private," as he liked to refer to himself, held the position of commander for the North Carolina division of the United Confederate Veterans from 1899 to 1915. He later ascended to the leadership of the national organization in 1921. The Durham chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is named the Julian S. Carr Chapter. In 1908, when a former judge wrote a newspaper article criticizing the Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction days, Carr responded to the article by defending the Klan and admitting that he himself had been a member of the KKK during Reconstruction. In April 1923, while giving the keynote address at the annual convention of the United Confederate Veterans being held in New Orleans, Carr proudly announced that he was now a member of the recently reestablished Ku Klux Klan, which had formed again in Georgia in 1915.
Public library Carr donated the land for North Carolina's first public library.
U.S. Food Administration Carr served as the representative for the Methodist Episcopal Church South to the United States Food Administration during World War I.
Politics
State and local
Carr was the acting Mayor of Durham, North Carolina in 1873. In 1880, Carr was nominated for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina.
National
1900 U.S. Senate campaign
Carr was a candidate in the 1900 Democratic primary for senator, running on a platform of free silver.
Nomination for vice president