THE HANES FAMILY: A Millionth-Volume Tradition

The Hanes family of Winston-Salem has a long and distinguished history of involvement with the University, its Library, and the Rare Book Collection. In 1929, the family donated the funds for the purchase of a very important collection of approximately four hundred books printed before 1501, which became the foundation both of the Hanes Incunabula Collection and of the Rare Book Collection itself. At the same time Frederick Hanes (Class of 1903) announced the family's resolve to continue to support the development of the UNC collections -- especially its holdings of early printed books and manuscripts -- with additional funding and books in memory of his parents, John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes. In 1972 the family established the Hanes Family Library Endowment, which has greatly facilitated the efforts of the Library to build on the earlier Hanes gifts and enhance strengths, even then of national importance, in the history of printing, publishing, and the book arts. In addition to on-going acquisitions in these areas, the Rare Book Collection uses income from this fund to administer the Hanes Lecture Series. Begun in 1980, this well-known series has enabled the Library to bring to Chapel Hill more than a dozen internationally prominent scholars and writers to speak on topics within the general areas of the history of the book and bibliography.

What was already a very strong tradition of support was further reinforced when the Library reached its first millionth volume in 1960. The gift of the Hanes family at that time allowed the purchase of the Confessio amantis (1483). The Gower book is an historical document of the first order in addition to being very rare. This particular copy has the additional interest of being in its original binding, placed on the book by the binder employed by William Caxton himself. In 1974, the Hanes family provided the funding for the two-millionth volume, Dame Juliana Berners's Book of Hawking, Hunting and Heraldry (St. Albans: Schoolmaster Printer, 1486), the first English book with color printing. In 1984, the John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes Foundation enabled the Library to acquire its three-millionth volume, in this case, a collection of books -- three hundred volumes printed by the Estiennes, the famous sixteenth-century French family of scholar-printers. Eight years later (1992) the Foundation donated the funds for the purchase of the four-millionth volume, Anne Bradstreet's Several Poems (Boston: Printed by John Foster, 1678), the first book of poetry by a woman to be published in America.

It was not surprising then when the family, acting through its Foundation in Winston-Salem, came forward again last summer to provide the funds for the purchase of the collection of William Butler Yeats as a gift in memory of John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes. We believe such an extended tradition of support on landmark occasions such as millionth volume celebrations to be without precedent in American libraries. It has allowed the Library to add the kind of special materials, both individual volumes and entire collections, that have helped to consolidate its place of distinction among American academic research libraries.

In recent years two members of the Hanes family - Frank Borden Hanes (Class of 1942) and his son, F. Borden Hanes Jr. (Class of 1967) -- have been among the most significant philanthropic supporters the libraries at UNC in Chapel Hill have known. Carrying on the tradition established by the children of John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes, who were Frank's grandparents, each has played a role in nurturing the excellence of the collections and services. A novelist, poet, journalist and businessman, Frank has been particularly interested in the Rare Book and North Carolina Collections, and has been a major supporter of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at Carolina. He served as chairman of the Friends of the Library from 1964-68, and presented the first, second and third millionth volumes to the Library as gifts from the Hanes family and later, the John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes Foundation. Borden Hanes, also a businessman and philanthropist, helped form the first board of directors of the Friends of the Library in 1986, served as its chairman from 1991-1996 and remains a member. He played a leadership role in the fund-raising effort on behalf of the Library during The Bicentennial Campaign from 1989 to 1995 and made the presentation of the four-millionth volume to the Library in 1992.

The Hanes generosity to the Library extends well beyond the gifts of millionth volumes. It continues to support and add to the Hanes Family Library Endowment created in 1972, furnished the conservation laboratory in Wilson Library, completed the purchase of the papers of Walker Percy and Shelby Foote, and has created or added to several library endowments honoring friends and university supporters.