The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. It is a member of the American Association of University Presses (AAUP) and the Green Press Initiative.
History
In 1922, on the campus of the nation's oldest state university, thirteen faculty members and trustees met to charter a publishing house. Their creation, the University of North Carolina Press, was the first university press in the South and one of the first in the nation.
UNC Press was the first scholarly publisher to develop an ongoing program of books by and about African Americans, beginning in the late 1920s. By 1950, nearly 100 such volumes had appeared under its imprint. In the 1970s, UNC Press took an early lead in publishing feminist literary and historical works of distinction.
In 2006, UNC Press started the distribution company Longleaf Services as an affiliate.
In 2009, the Press announced plans to bring back into print all of its out of print titles as print-on-demand titles through a series called "Enduring Editions." These editions are published unaltered from the original and are presented in paperback formats, bringing both historical and cultural value to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers.
Output
Over the Press's ninety-year history it has published more than 4,000 books. Many have won awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.
Notable UNC Press authors include historians such as John Hope Franklin, Edmund Morgan, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, and Nell Irvin Painter; writers and critics such as Elizabeth Lawrence, Cleanth Brooks, and Paul Green; journalists such as Josephus Daniels and Lillian Smith; and local celebrities such as Mildred "Mama Dip" Council, Bland Simpson, David Stick, and Bill Neal.
The press has published many multi-volume documentary editions, such as The Papers of John Marshall, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, The Black Abolitionist Papers, and The Complete Works of Captain John Smith.
External links
- University of North Carolina Press
- UNC Press Blog
