Map - Ackland Art Museum (Ackland Art Museum)

Ackland Art Museum (Ackland Art Museum)
The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland (1855–1940) to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is located at 101 S. Columbia Street near the intersection of Franklin Street at the northern edge of campus.

It is free of charge to visitors, and offers a wide selection of events related to exhibition, community, and university topics.

William Hayes Ackland, a native of Tennessee and an amateur art collector, wanted to leave money in his will to establish an art museum at a Southern university. In a 1936 will, he initially narrowed his choices to Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Rollins College in Florida, in that order, with UNC receiving the donation if Duke refused it. After a visit to Duke's campus and meetings with the then-eager administration, Ackland decided that only Duke should receive the $1.25 million bequest and removed UNC from his will, with Rollins receiving a much smaller donation. Ackland, who had turned down the chance to attend Harvard College due to family pressure to stay near home, always regretted the decision. Some commentators speculate that he might have viewed Duke as "the Harvard of the South."

Ackland bequeathed Duke his entire fortune on the condition that he be buried within the newly built museum. After Ackland died in 1940, Duke decided the gift had "too many strings attached" and declined it. But three Duke benefactors—all from the Duke family—had already been buried on the Duke campus.

Ackland's nieces and nephews went to court to claim the inheritance for themselves, and Rollins College (represented by former United States Attorney General Homer Cummings) and the University of North Carolina (represented by attorney O. Max Gardner) followed in an attempt by each college to receive the funds for the art museum. The relatives took the case to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that since only Duke had been mentioned in their uncle's will, only Duke could receive the gift. They should receive the money due to Duke's refusal.

Five years after the suit was filed, Ackland's family members lost their case in the Supreme Court. In 1947 a Washington, DC court found that in his final days, Ackland had been more partial to Rollins than UNC; it ruled for Rollins to receive the bequest. But the Ackland trustees had decided that UNC-Chapel Hill should receive the donation, based on both the financial condition of the university and its proximity to Duke. An appeal of the lower court decision resulted in UNC being ruled the recipient of Ackland's bequest (which had grown to $1.4 million) in 1949. Ackland's remains were moved from Mount Olivet cemetery in Nashville and he was reinterred at the museum at UNC.

 
Map - Ackland Art Museum (Ackland Art Museum)
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The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C., and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Americas for thousands of years. Beginning in 1607, British colonization led to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. They quarreled with the British Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution and proceeding Revolutionary War. The United States declared independence on July 4, 1776, becoming the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of unalienable natural rights, consent of the governed, and liberal democracy. The country began expanding across North America, spanning the continent by 1848. Sectional division surrounding slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment.
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