UNC Press Directors
Louis Round Wilson: 1922-1932
UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate (B.A. 1899, M.A. 1902, Ph.D. 1905),
University (UNC-CH) Librarian (1901-32), co-founder of the North Carolina
Collection and the Southern Historical Collection, organizer and first
director of the University's School of Library Science, first director of
the University Extension Division, and one of the incorporators and
original board members of the UNC Press, Wilson also served as the Press's
first director. He was instrumental in securing funding from the Laura
Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and establishing the Press as the South's
leading scholarly publisher.
William Terry Couch: 1932-1945
A UNC-Chapel Hill graduate (1926), student editor of the Carolina
Magazine, and assistant, then director of the Press, Couch is best
known for his intellectual candor and for developing the Press's regional
publishing program. He insisted that the Press do more than merely bring
out "nice, inoffensive books, perfect examples of modern scholarship."
Rather he sought out works that took a critical look at the problems of
the South. As he wrote in a letter to Lewis Gannett, he hoped "to cause
some creaks in our [the South's] rusty intellectual machinery." By all
accounts, he did.
Thomas J. Wilson: 1946-47
A Chapel Hill graduate (1921), Rhodes Scholar, and former assistant
professor of French literature at UNC-CH, Wilson began his publishing
career at Henry Holt. Following service as a naval commander in World War
II, he accepted the directorship of the UNC Press. In addition to
overseeing the publishing of the fourth volume of Josephus Daniels'
memoirs, The Wilson Era: Years of War and After (1946), and the
second printing of Josephina Niggli's popular novel, Mexican
Village (1945), he streamlined Press efforts to sell, promote, and
advertise its books. He left in 1947 to become director of Harvard
University Press.
Lambert Davis: 1948-70
Prior to his appointment as Press director, Lambert Davis edited the
Virginia Quarterly Review and worked for several years at Harcourt
Brace and Co. This dual background served him well during his tenure at
the Press. Not only did he initiate the Press's successful publishing
partnership with the Institute for Early American History, he also
published several "best sellers" that were outside the normal range of
Press publications, including Gwen Terasaki's Bridge to the Sun
(1957) and Michihiko Hachiya's Hiroshima Diary (1955). A strong
believer in the Press's regional program, he was particularly proud of the
American Drawings of John White 1577-1590 (1964), one of the most
beautifully and painstakingly produced volumes ever published by the
Press.
Matthew Hodgson: 1970-1992
Another UNC graduate (1949), former editor of the campus humor
magazine, Tarnation, and the Carolina Magazine, Hodgson
worked in commercial publishing at Houghton Mifflin & Co. and at the
University of Kentucky Press before his appointment as director. By adding
to the Press's endowment and by making sure the Press was on the cutting
edge of technological advances in book production, he stabilized the
Press's financial base and ensured the quality of its publications. He
spearheaded the development of a new list of Civil War studies, initiated
publication of The Papers of John Marshall (1974-) and The
Papers of Nathanael Greene (19176-) and oversaw the publication of the
best selling Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989).
Kate Douglas Torrey: 1992-present
Educated at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Massachusetts, Torrey came to the Press from the University
Press of Kansas as editor-in-chief in 1989. Torrey is currently president
of the Association of American University Presses, the third consecutive
director of the Press to hold this prestigious post and to serve on its
Board of Directors.
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