New Collections: Sickness, Farewell, and Other Daily Operations

We have a number of new collections that are preserved, processed, and now available for research. Some highlights:

  • Collection materials span from 1733-2016.
  • Subjects geographically range from Kentucky coal mines to Guyana.
  • Looks like we have a summer cold: many collections touch on death, illness, and medical care.
  • Some interesting mentions include a suspected slave uprising in Hillsborough, NC, medicinal recipes from the 1890s, and studies of medieval crusades.

Click on any of the collection titles to learn more about the materials, view any digital items, and request them for use in our reading room.


Documenting Daily Life

Dockery Family of Sunflower County, Miss., Papers, circa 1900-2000 (bulk 1940s-1990s) (#05554)
The site known as Dockery Farms (also Dockery Plantation), located on Highway 8 between Cleveland and Ruleville, Sunflower County, Miss., is the historic center of a large family enterprise that included: cotton and rice farming and other agricultural interests; oil and gas exploration and production; fishing; shipping; and other businesses.

Franklin Garrett Papers, 1856-1876 (#05696-z)
Family letters dated 1856 to 1866 from Franklin Garrett (1840-1896) of Monroe, La., comprise the bulk of the collection. In his letters home from Centenary College in Jackson, La., and later from the University of North Carolina, Garrett describe student life. A few Civil War letters reflect Garrett’s experience serving in the Confederate States of America Army.

Major Brown and Leona Brown Papers, 1961-1985 (#05603)
The papers of African American coal miner Major Brown and his spouse Leona Brown are chiefly financial items reflecting their household expenses and income from the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s in Lynch, Ky., a United States Steel Corporation company town in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky.

Edwin R. MacKethan Papers, 1794-1970, 2003, 2015-2016 (bulk 1884-1932) (#04298)
(Addition)
Two bound volumes of genealogical material about the MacKethan family prepared by Edwin R. MacKethan, III.

J. and M. Schultz Store Ledgers, 1855-1903 (#04815)
Store ledgers, 1866-1903, from store in Afton, Va. The ledgers contain accounts with individuals in Albemarle and Nelson counties, Va., for purchases of groceries, fabric, clothes, shoes, hardware, and other supplies. The name J. and M. Schultz is printed on the spine of the volume.

Pettigrew Family Papers, 1776-1926 (#00592)
*Includes digital content | (Addition)
Correspondence among family members and close acquaintances. Much of the correspondence documents the family’s experiences immediately before, during, and after the Civil War and is topically similar to materials in the original deposit. Letters describe family affairs and the state of their plantations and property, particularly in 1862 when the family had moved with many of their slaves to outside of Raleigh, N.C. Of particular note is a letter, 29 December 1830, describing how a slave rebellion planned for Hillsborough, N.C., had been thwarted. Also included are letters of General James Johnston Pettigrew and other Confederate officers.

William Kauffman Scarborough Papers, 1951-2015
(Addition)
Professor William Kauffman Scarborough’s papers document his professional academic career as a historian of the American South specializing in the study of slavery, the antebellum plantation system and economy, agriculture, the secession crisis, and the American Civil War. The papers also document his affiliations and participation in political organizations, particularly white citizens’ councils. Other political items illustrate Scarborough’s support of former Alabama governor George C. Wallace’s multiple bids for president of the United States, his disdain of political correctness, and his defense of flying the Confederate battle flag in public spaces.


Sickness, Health, and Death

Henry Quincy Alexander Medical Ledgers, 1893-1902 (#05630)
*Includes digital content
Henry Quincy Alexander (1863-1929) was a physician working in the rural areas of Providence, N.C., and Matthews, N.C., in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This collection consists of Henry Quincy Alexander’s medical ledgers, containing the names of patients treated, the remedy prescribed, payments received or not received, and other information. The ledgers include both African American and white patients and a broad spectrum of diseases. The ledger covering the years 1893-1895 also includes remedies and recipes for medicines.

Jake Carpenter Obituary Book, 1841-1900, 1915 (#04068)
Typescript of “Anthology of death on Three Mile Creek” by Jake Carpenter of Avery County, N.C. From 1842 until 1900, Carpenter recorded local deaths and frequently added comments on the life of the deceased and the cause of death. In 1915, he added a comment on the death of bank robber Frank James.

Sabine County (Tex.) Lynching Postcard, 1908 (#05694)
A postcard depicting the lynching of five African American young men in Hemphill, Sabine County, Tex., on 22 June 1908. Below the image is a poem about white supremacy titled “The Dogwood Tree.”

Student Health Coalition Project Collection, 1968-2016 (#05649)
Materials documenting the work of the Student Health Coalition, an organization developed at Vanderbilt University in 1969 to reach out to medically under-served communities in upper East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia, and to join with local leaders with the goal of building a network of primary care clinics and bringing health services to Appalachian regions lacking reliable access to health care.


Authors & Reminisces

James Reston Jr. Papers, 1955-2015 (#05692)
*Includes digital content
Author James Reston, Jr.’s collection chronicles more than forty years of his writing career from the mid 1960s to the early 2000s and documents many of his interests including amnesty for Vietnam War resisters, civil rights especially for African Americans in the American South, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March, the downfalls of President Richard Nixon and Major League Baseball player Pete Rose, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, astronomy and space exploration, the medieval crusades and modern jihad, the millennium and apocalyptic thinking, disabled children, theater, and Jim Jones, the People’s Temple, and the 1978 Jonestown tragedy in Guyana, South America.

Shelby Stephenson Papers, 1965-2009 (#04653)
(Addition)
Letters written by Shelby Stephenson to Sanford J. Smoller between 19 March 2004 and 30 September 2009.

Sybil Austin Skakle Papers, 1944-2013 (#05648)
Sybil Austin Skakle is a Hatteras, N.C., native, writer, poet, and an early woman graduate of the University of North Carolina’s School of Pharmacy (1949). The collection contains Sybil Austin Skakle’s correspondence from the 1960s to the 2000s, documenting her involvement with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus institutions, the Republican Party, many Christian initiatives, and opinions as expressed in letters to the editor. The collection also includes her daily writings from 1980 to 2013 and a few letters received during World War II.

Elizabeth Evans Papers, 1941-2007 (#05025)
(Addition)
Photocopies of Anne Tyler’s baby book, 1941-1958, which tracks her development from birth to age 6 and includes inserts of report cards, acceptance letters, photographs, and other materials; photocopies of Anne Tyler’s 1949 childhood diary; and undated photocopies of early outlines of Tyler’s work Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

George E. Stuart Collection of Archaeological and Other Materials, 1733-2006 (#05268)
(Addition)
A bound volume with pre-printed illustrations largely containing notes of farewell to Cora M. Alford dating from 1858-1859. A number of signees list themselves as being in Bastrop, Tex., and at the Bastrop Military Institute and refer to school days spent together with Cora.

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