Doris J. Stanley and William Van Eaton Sprinkle Architectural Drawings and Papers 1940-1989

Doris (Dee) Stanley (1926-2018), a native of Farmington, Maine, and graduate of the University of Maine in Orono (1948), majored in psychology but also took drafting classes, specializing in Navy architecture. She worked two years in newspaper display advertising for the Bangor Daily Commercial before coming to Durham, North Carolina, in 1950 with a friend who was attending graduate school. When the Durham employment office asked about her skills, she mentioned drafting and was told an architect was looking for help, so she took the job with local architect William Van Eaton Sprinkle.

“The first day I put paper to pencil, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” she told interviewers Lynn Richardson and Frank DePasquale at her home in Durham on Feb. 28, 2007. Sprinkle did his initial drawings at 1/8” scale, then handed them over to Stanley to recreate them at 1/4”. All the sketches and drafting in Sprinkle's office were completed by Stanley. During this time, Stanley also worked as a supervisor at Air Defense Filter Center and as one of the technical crew doing prop work for the Durham Theater Guild.

Stanley was the only female draftsman practicing in North Carolina until 1952 when Elizabeth "Lib" Lee graduated from North Carolina State College’s architectural school and began practicing in Lumberton. After Sprinkle's death in 1965, Stanley continued to operate his architectural firm. Stanley retired in 1989.

William Van Eaton Sprinkle (1906-1965) was from Mocksville, North Carolina, and earned his undergraduate degree at Duke University and studied architecture at Yale. In 1930 he returned to Durham and worked for the architect Howard Haines. He opened his own office in 1934, and began working with Stanley in 1950.

This biography was adapted from the finding aid for the Durham County Library's North Carolina Collection, Sprinkle-Stanley Architectural Drawings collection.

The Doris J. Stanley and William Van Eaton Sprinkle Architectural Drawings and Papers, 1941-1987, contains floorplans and elevations created by Stanley and Sprinkle. Drawings include numerous residences, some businesses, and one funeral home. Also included are project files and specifications.

This collection was originally titled the Doris J. Stanley Architectural Drawings but was renamed the Doris J. Stanley and William Van Eaton Sprinkle Architectural Drawings due to their collaborative work on architectural projects.

This collection is organized into two series: 01. Drawings and 02. Specifications and Project Files.

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[Identification of item], Doris J. Stanley and William Van Eaton Sprinkle Architectural Drawings and Papers, MC 00153, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Sprinkle-Stanley Architectural Drawings, North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library, Durham, North Carolina

This collection was sent to North Carolina State University Libraries from the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 or 2008. The original donor is unknown. Several additions were made by other donors: Laura Harris (Accession no. 2013.0306), North Carolina Modernist Houses (Accession no. 2015.0025), and Doris J. Stanley (Accession no. 2017.0081) (Doris J. Stanley).

Processed by: Elizabeth Missey; machine-readable finding aid created by: Matisha Wiggs and Emily Walters, 2011 June; finding aid updated by Taylor de Klerk to reflect additions to the collection, 2017 March-May; series 2 processed by Jennifer Baker with assistance from Liz Wardzinski and Edwin Lohmeyer, 2017 October; entire collection and finding aid reviewed by Bennett Chapman, 2017 November; additional material processed by Oliver Robinson, 2019 June; addition processed and finding aid updated by Shima Hosseininasab, 2021 May.

This collection was processed with support from the Council on Library and Information Resources Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program.