This collection profiles the people who helped shape life in North Carolina in the 20th century. It includes 160 biographical sketches of Tar Heels who made a difference, highlighting their accomplishments in the areas of agriculture, the arts, business, education, law, media, and politics.

North Carolinlans who shaped life in the state; This collection profiles the people who helped shape life in North Carolina in the twentieth century. It includes 160 biographical sketches of Tar Heels who made a difference, highlighting their accomplishments in the areas of agriculture, the arts, business, education, law, media, politics, popular culture, public service, religion, social movements, and sports. Some of those profiled are familiar because of their prominence in public life - Thomas Wolfe, John Hope Franklin, Doris Betts, Jesse Helms, Doc Watson, and Richard Petty, for example. Others are less well known today but made contributions that deserve to be remembered: James E. Shepard, founder of what is now North Carolina Central University; Ellen Winston, the first U.S. Commissioner of Welfare; and former state Supreme Court Justice Henry Frye, the first African American elected to the General Assembly in the twentieth century. All had a hand in shaping North Carolina between 1900 and 2000, a period during which the state emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War and became a model for development and progressive movements across the South.