Alvin Marcus Fountain (July 10, 1899 – May 2, 1989) was a former professor of English at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

and a notable college historian.

Biography

As a student at NC State from 1919 to 1923, Fountain served as the editor of the ''Technician'', NC State's student newspaper and the co-author of the NC State Alma Mater, originally composed at ROTC summer camp at Camp (later Fort) McClellan in Alabama in 1922: "Where the winds of Dixie softly blow o'er the fields of Caroline, There stands ever cherished, N.C. State, as thy honored shrine So lift your voices! Loudly sing from hill to oceanside! Our hearts ever hold you, N.C. State in the folds of our love and pride." Fountain graduated from NC State in 1923 as salutatorian with a degree in electrical engineering, later receiving and M.S. in sociology with a thesis on the spending patterns of mill workers at Pilot Mills in Raleigh, North Carolina (1926); an M.S. in English literature from Columbia University with a thesis on ante-bellum Charleston, South Carolina, as a literary center (1930); and a Ph.D. in English from the

George Peabody College Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development (also known as Vanderbilt Peabody College, Peabody College, or simply Peabody) is the education school of Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. ...

in Nashville, Tennessee, with a dissertation on courses in technical writing (1937). Fountain co-authored several English textbooks including ''The Engineer's Manual of English'' (1943) and ''Manual of Technical Writing'' (1957). In 1991 NC State University named Fountain Dining Hall in honor of the former professor. NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center serves as the repository for the Alvin Marcus Fountain Papers.

References

1899 births 1989 deaths North Carolina State University people {{US-nonfiction-writer-stub