Month: October 2009

Legacy finding aids update

The latest group of finding aids updated and encoded during this project are now available.  For a full list of these finding aids, please click here.

A few highlights from this set include:

Andrew Henry Patterson Papers, #1419

In addition to his work as a professor of physics at the University of North Carolina, Patterson was a cooperative observer for the Weather Bureau, United States Department of Agriculture. The collection includes correspondence of Andrew Henry Patterson and members of his family, and weather records made by Patterson. There are seven volumes, 1908-1920, of daily records of temperature, rain, and wind at Chapel Hill.

William Dorsey Pender Papers, #1059

William Dorsey Pender (1834-1863), of Edgecombe County, N.C., was a West Point graduate and United States Army officer. He served briefly as colonel of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Confederate States of America, and as a colonel of the 6th North Carolina Infantry Regiment before transferring to A. P. Hill’s division and being promoted to major general, May 1863. He participated in many of the major engagements in Virginia and died in July 1863 as the result of a wound received at Gettysburg. The papers are almost entirely letters from William Dorsey Pender to his wife, Mary Frances (Fanny) Shepperd. Civil War letters were written chiefly from camps in North Carolina and Virginia to Fanny in North Carolina, giving an intimate account of Pender’s personal feelings, religious experiences, activities, ambitions, and opinions of his associates and superiors.

Jethro Sumner Papers, #705

Jethro Sumner (1733?-1785) was a Contintental Army officer. The collection contains Revolutionary War military correspondence of Continental Brigadier General Sumner. The bulk of the collection relates to the period 1781-1782, when Sumner was raising troops for General Nathanael Greene, whom he reinforced at the Battle of Eutaw Springs, and while he was in charge of forces in North Carolina.

New SHC Collection: George C. Stoney Papers

George C. Stoney (1916- ), a documentary filmmaker who specialized in socially relevant films, was a mentor and teacher to generations of filmmakers and media activists worldwide and a pioneer in the movement for the creation and use of public access television to enact social change. The collection consists of papers chiefly relating to George C. Stoney’s professional work as a documentary filmmaker, teacher, and early advocate of public access television.

Correspondence, 1944-1993 (bulk 1960-1990), is chiefly work-related in content, though many of Stoney’s correspondents were long-time friends and colleagues and wrote personally as well. Letters, 1944-1945, from Stoney to his future wife, Mary Bruce (1926-2004), are chiefly personal in nature and include love letters, but also, to a lesser extent, describe Stoney’s experiences as a photo intelligence officer with the 8th United States Army Air Forces in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Correspondence between Stoney and his long-time companion Betty Puleston (d. 2009), 1967-1968, also blend description of personal and working life. Subject files comprise the bulk of the collection and include materials relating to films Stoney wrote, directed, and/or produced for the Southern Educational Film Production Service and George C. Stoney Associates. Topics include sexually transmitted disease; outreach programs of the Methodist Church; cardiovascular healthcare; education; community mental health; race relations in the South; police training; old age and retirement; midwifery; urban redevelopment in New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, D.C.; and other social issues.

Some of Stoney’s early work as a journalist and social researcher is also documented in essays, a report on race relations in Mississippi, and materials relating to his work for the Farm Security Administration. Subject files also document classes and workshops Stoney taught, especially at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and his involvement with the growth of public access and local cable television, the Challenge for Change project of the National Film Board of Canada, the Alternate Media Center, and the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers. Additionally, there are film treatments and research materials for prospective projects and printed and other material relating to the documentary film and cable television industries. Loose papers, 1980-1990s, consist of memobooks that likely relate to Stoney’s filmmaking, and clippings, reports, readings, conference advertisements, miscellaneous printed materials, handwritten notes, and writings by others that are not clearly connected to his film projects or cable and public access advocacy work. Photographs depict the documentary filmmaking process for several of Stoney’s films, public access projects and the Alternate Media Center, the work of Farm Security Administration photographers in the South in the early 1940s, and Stoney’s family life.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Creator of the Month…John Harden

John William Harden (1903-1985) of Greensboro, N.C., was a journalist, newspaper editor, author, advisor to North Carolina governors and textile executives, and founder of the state’s first full-service public relations company. The collection contains materials, 1914-1986, including business records, correspondence, writings, speeches and speech materials, administrative records, newspaper clippings, diaries, scrapbooks, photograph albums, family papers, sound recordings, and videocassettes relating to John Harden.

Correspondence and other papers includes items relating to each of John Harden’s published books. Harden published The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories in 1949 and Tar Heel Ghosts in 1954. These books present stories gathered by Harden that deal with North Carolina locales, myths, and stories. Devil’s Tramping Ground grew out of a weekly radio program, entitled Tales of Tarheelia, presented over eighteen months on station WPTF in Raleigh in 1946-1947. Both books were illustrated by Lindsey McAlister, an acquaintance of Harden’s daughter Glenn Abbott, and were published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Here are some interesting items and images that can be found within the writings series that highlight Harden’s interest in the strange and unknown. Since Halloween is fast approaching, we hope that you will find items in this collection fascinating and ghoulish.

New SHC Collection: The Margaret Nygard Papers, 1965-2004

Margaret Nygard (1925-1995) was born in Nasik, India, where her father was a British civil servant. After leaving India, she lived in England and Canada. She married English professor Holger Nygard in 1944, received her masters and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and moved to Durham, N.C., where she taught English at Durham Technical Community College and later became a social worker. In 1965, she and others formed the Eno Historical Society, which became the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley in 1966 (often called the Eno River Association). In the early 1970s, the Association began acquiring land along the Eno River that became the Eno River State Park in 1973. While remaining active in the Association, Nygard was also involved in other local and state-wide groups that supported efforts to protect sensitive environmental areas.

The papers chiefly relate to Margaret Nygard’s involvement in founding and running the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley. Included are appraisal reports and other materials related to the acquisition of land along the Eno River for the Eno River State Park, as well as materials regarding opposition to those efforts. There are also meeting minutes, financial materials, and materials relating to the annual Festival for the Eno and other outreach events of the Association. Also included is documentation of Nygard’s involvement with the North Carolina Division of State Parks and North Carolina environmental organizations. Many of these items relate to Nygard’s opposition to development projects, including the proposed expansion of Raleigh-Durham Airport. Also included are some Nygard and related family materials; articles written in response to Nygard’s death; and photographs of Nygard and others, Nygard’s funeral, the Festival for the Eno, and the Eno River.

[You may click here to view to finding aid for this new collection.]