Charles Duncan McIver, the son of Matthew Henry and Sarah (Harrington) McIver, was born on a farm in Moore County, North Carolina. He was of Scotch Presbyterian descent, and as a youth lived amidst the austere surroundings which characterized the poverty-stricken era of reconstruction in the S.
In 1881 he graduated from the University of North Carolina, and after a few years of teaching in private and public schools decided to make education his life work.
At this time in North Carolina, as in the South generally, the idea that higher education, or even elementary education, should be at public expense found little acceptance. Except at the University, which each year received a few thousand dollars from the state treasury, such higher education as was afforded was paid for either by the churches or privately, and even this was wholly inadequate both in quality and quantity. McIver saw that wider opportunities for higher education would be distinctly advantageous to the state, and, despite the depleted condition of the state treasury, he urgently recommended that a system affording such opportunities, supported largely by taxation, be inaugurated. Having been appointed by the Teachers' Assembly of North Carolina chairman of a committee to appear before the legislature in 1889 and urge the adoption of a bill for the establishment of a training school for teachers, he argued eloquently for its approval. Although the measure did not pass, his earnestness reduced the opposition from a huge to a very scant majority. In that year, the state board of education transferred its appropriation from the short-term summer normal schools to a system of county institutes, and appointed McIver and Edwin A. Alderman co-conductors. They at once commenced a remarkable campaign. Beginning in September 1889, McIver appeared in virtually every county in the state, and almost every town and hamlet, urging the dual causes of universal public education for all children in the state and the higher education of women. In 1891, a bill was again presented to the legislature for the establishment of a college for women and this time it passed with little opposition. At the initial meeting of the board of directors of the newly formed North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College (later North Carolina College for Women), located at Greensboro, McIver was elected president. Despite numerous tempting offers of more remunerative employment in the business and educational world, he continued in this position for the remainder of his life.
Inasmuch as the University of North Carolina already constituted a skeleton for the widening of the advantages open to men, he turned his attention to the establishment of a similar institution for women. Since the greater part of elementary and high school teaching is done by women, he argued, it is the part of wisdom for the commonwealth to provide advantages that will better fit women to fulfill the function of teaching or the equally important function of motherhood. In arriving at these views he was aided largely by his wife.
Assisted by a few kindred spirits, he gave unstintedly of his time and energy to the further awakening of North Carolina from the lethargy into which it had fallen at the close of the Civil War. As a prime mover in the organization of the Conference for Education in the South, as secretary of the Southern Education Board, and as a public-spirited citizen, he carried on his crusade throughout the South for the extension of educational facilities. Although he died in the prime of life, he lived to see his section well on the way toward that educational renaissance which has been notable in recent years.
Charles Duncan McIver was married in 1885 Lula (Martin) McIver, a teacher, by whom he had five children.
21 April 1834 - 23 October 1894
25 October 1842 - 6 June 1922
8 June 1864 - 22 December 1944
20 March 1900 - 14 September 1975
9 August 1895 - 29 June 1909
12 May 1886 - 1 July 1957
23 July 1887 - 28 July 1948
