New Collection: Washington A. Lemons Papers (#5508-z)

Washington A. Lemons of Greene County, Tenn., was born in 1833. He served in the Union Army’s Company C, 2nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 6 October 1863-16 August 1865, in locations throughout western North Carolina, including Deep Gap, Boone, and Asheville. The collection contains two letters, 11 April 1865 and 1 May 1865, from Washington A. Lemons to his wife, Harriet Lemons, of Greeneville, Tenn., and two related documents. The April letter recounts capturing Confederate soldiers and supplies in Jefferson, N.C., and acquiring a secession flag in Boone. The May letter refers to the Shelton Laurel massacre of January 1863, in which the Confederate 64th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, led by James A. Keith, killed 13 alleged Union sympathizers in Madison County, N.C. The letter also describes the capture of a perpetrator of the massacre, insinuating that the soldier was punished severely. Also included are a transcription of the May letter and a list of North Carolina Union regiments that highlights Lemons’s regiment and company.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection…

New Collection: James B. Caldwell Diary (#5365-z)

James B. Caldwell of Alabama was 19 years old when he entered the Civil War in the 13th Tennessee Infantry Regiment. He served in the regiment in Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The collection contains the diary James B. Caldwell kept during his service with the 13th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, 23 May 1861-13 August 1962. The diary chiefly describes daily activities of the regiment as it travelled throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, and camp life while waiting for active service, including card-playing and nightly dances. Included is a description of the Battle of Belmont, 7 November 1861, in Columbus, Ky.; sketched maps of camps and lists of Caldwell’s personal expenses; and declarations of love and verses dedicated to Caldwell’s fiance Maggie, including a passage written on 7 April 1962 that Caldwell recited when he proposed to her while on furlough. Most diary entries are undated and do not appear in chronological order. Also included are a typed transcript of the diary and other materials providing historical and geographical context for the diary.

Click here to view the finding aid…

Now accepting applications for 2012 Visiting Scholars Grant Program

The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is accepting applications for five visiting scholar awards in fall 2012:

2012 VISITING SCHOLARS GRANT PROGRAM

Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1200 award)
For projects examining African Americans or race relations in the American South

Guion Griffis Johnson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining women in the American South

John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the literary culture or traditions of the American South

J. Carlyle Sitterson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the antebellum period in the American South

Parker-Dooley Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining North Carolina’s history

Please visit our website to learn more about eligibility and application requirements…

Four activists to be honored in Chapel Hill, SHC preserves documentation of their legacy

This Sunday, August 28, 2011, four names will be added to a plaque at Chapel Hill’s “Peace and Justice Plaza.” Yonni Chapman, Rebecca Clark, Rev. Charles M. Jones and Dan Pollitt will all be honored posthumously for their contributions to civil rights, social justice and equality in the Chapel Hill community. The ceremony will begin at 3pm in front of the Historic Chapel Hill Post Office on Franklin Street, just across the street from UNC’s McCorkle Place. For the full story, see the article, “Four Honored for Activism,” from the Chapel Hill News.

The Southern Historical Collection is proud to preserve a large body of material that documents the lives and legacies of these four activists, including:

Charles Miles Jones Papers – The collection includes correspondence, church documents and publications, clippings, and other items reflecting Jones’s ministry and concern for civil rights. Materials generally focus on his public rather than personal life with a special emphasis on the 1952-1953 investigation of his Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church ministry. General correspondence includes letters from supporters (among them Frank Porter Graham) and detractors, commenting on the investigation, Jones’s sermons, and several well-publicized actions in support of social justice causes.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark (1 interview available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project) – In this interview, Rebecca Clark recalls living and working in segregated North Carolina. She finished her schooling in all-black schools, so the bulk of her experience with white people in a segregated context took place in the work world. There she experienced economic discrimination in a variety of forms, and despite her claims that many black people kept quiet in the face of racial discrimination at the time, she often agitated for, and won, better pay. Along with offering some information about school desegregation, this interview provides a look into the constricted economic lives of black Americans living under Jim Crow.

John K. Chapman Papers (available Fall 2011) – This collection documents Yonni Chapman’s social activism and academic achievements, and offers an account of nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in the central North Carolina region. Organizational materials, including correspondence, notes, newsletters and reports, document the activities of the Communist Workers’ Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, in Chapel Hill, N.C., Durham, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Greensboro, N.C. Workers’ rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including those of the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats.

Daniel H. Pollitt Papers (available Fall 2012) – This collection documents Dan Pollitt’s distinguished career as an attorney, professor in the University of North Carolina Law School, and civil rights activist in the American South. The collection documents Pollitt’s activities with a number of organizations, including: the National Labor Relations Board, the National Sharecroppers Fund, the NAACP, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, the Rural Advancement Fund, and other organizations. Material also covers Pollitt’s involvement with the Speaker Ban controversy at the University of North Carolina, his opposition to the death penalty in North Carolina, issues of congressional misconduct, and many other legal and ethical matters.

Oral history interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt (13 interviews, many of which are available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project)

Four activists to be honored in Chapel Hill, SHC preserves documentation of their legacy

This Sunday, August 28, 2011, four names will be added to a plaque at Chapel Hill’s “Peace and Justice Plaza.” Yonni Chapman, Rebecca Clark, Rev. Charles M. Jones and Dan Pollitt will all be honored posthumously for their contributions to civil rights, social justice and equality in the Chapel Hill community. The ceremony will begin at 3pm in front of the Historic Chapel Hill Post Office on Franklin Street, just across the street from UNC’s McCorkle Place. For the full story, see the article, “Four Honored for Activism,” from the Chapel Hill News.

The Southern Historical Collection is proud to preserve a large body of material that documents the lives and legacies of these four activists, including:

Charles Miles Jones Papers – The collection includes correspondence, church documents and publications, clippings, and other items reflecting Jones’s ministry and concern for civil rights. Materials generally focus on his public rather than personal life with a special emphasis on the 1952-1953 investigation of his Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church ministry. General correspondence includes letters from supporters (among them Frank Porter Graham) and detractors, commenting on the investigation, Jones’s sermons, and several well-publicized actions in support of social justice causes.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark (1 interview available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project) – In this interview, Rebecca Clark recalls living and working in segregated North Carolina. She finished her schooling in all-black schools, so the bulk of her experience with white people in a segregated context took place in the work world. There she experienced economic discrimination in a variety of forms, and despite her claims that many black people kept quiet in the face of racial discrimination at the time, she often agitated for, and won, better pay. Along with offering some information about school desegregation, this interview provides a look into the constricted economic lives of black Americans living under Jim Crow.

John K. Chapman Papers (available Fall 2011) – This collection documents Yonni Chapman’s social activism and academic achievements, and offers an account of nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in the central North Carolina region. Organizational materials, including correspondence, notes, newsletters and reports, document the activities of the Communist Workers’ Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, in Chapel Hill, N.C., Durham, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Greensboro, N.C. Workers’ rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including those of the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats.

Daniel H. Pollitt Papers (available Fall 2012) – This collection documents Dan Pollitt’s distinguished career as an attorney, professor in the University of North Carolina Law School, and civil rights activist in the American South. The collection documents Pollitt’s activities with a number of organizations, including: the National Labor Relations Board, the National Sharecroppers Fund, the NAACP, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, the Rural Advancement Fund, and other organizations. Material also covers Pollitt’s involvement with the Speaker Ban controversy at the University of North Carolina, his opposition to the death penalty in North Carolina, issues of congressional misconduct, and many other legal and ethical matters.

Oral history interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt (13 interviews, many of which are available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project)

Winners announced for inaugural Parker-Dooley Award for Undergraduate Research in Southern Studies

We are proud to announce the recipients of the 2009 Parker-Dooley Award, honoring exceptional undergraduate research papers based on sources in the Southern Historical Collection.  Recipients receive a monetary award, and they will present their papers at a program hosted by the Southern Historical Collection on Friday, October 8, 2010.

  • Winner: Rachel Shope, “All the Writing Ladies: Three Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century”
  • Honorable Mention: Katherine Womble, “Myra Page Papers: Her Childhood and Self-Actualization (1897-1935)”

SHC partners with Southern Jewish Historical Society, grant supports digitization of part of the Mordecai Family Papers

Earlier this year, the SHC received $1,000 from the Southern Jewish Historical Society‘s Lowenstein Archival Grant program to support the digitization of 39 writings (diaries, travel accounts, memoirs, prose and poetry) from the SHC’s Mordecai Family Papers. The SHC’s Mordecai Family Papers are heavily used on site by scholars, students, and members of the local community. We were honored to receive this support from the SJHS and we are pleased that we can now make these writings available to researchers online, via the Digital SHC.

We are also pleased to share the news that the SJHS will hold its Thirty-fifth Annual Conference in Chapel Hill this year, October 22-24, 2010. In honor of the SJHS conference, the SHC will mount an exhibit celebrating the history of Jews in the American South.  The exhibit will run October 22-December 22, 2010 (on the 4th floor of Wilson Library).

From the Digital SHC

Detail from a page in the Martha Ryan Cipher Book, SHC #1940-z

Today’s digital feature is the Martha Ryan Cipher Book, SHC collection #1940-z. From the finding aid:

“School mathematics exercise book kept by Martha Ryan, probably of Perquimans County, N.C., circa 1781. The volume is bound in homespun fabric with ornate decorations on each page. Mottos, ship designs, and other patriotic decorations, and inscriptions such as “Liberty” or “George Washington” on many of the pages reflect the Revolutionary influence.”

We have digitized the entire cipher book. Please see the finding aid to view it online (once you reach the finding aid, scroll down and click on the link for “Folder 1” to view the digitized material). Enjoy!

Video of Governor Terry Sanford’s “emancipation” speech to the North Carolina Press Association

We are pleased to share this video of Governor Terry Sanford’s remarkable January 18, 1963 speech, given before the North Carolina Press Association at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C. In this speech, delivered on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Governor Sanford called on citizens, “to quit unfair discrimination and to give the Negro a full chance to earn a decent living for his family and to contribute to the higher standards for himself and all men.” Sanford’s address is preserved in the SHC’s Terry Sanford Papers (Collection #3531, Videotape VT-3531/1a; view finding aid).

Special thanks to Wilson Library’s Moving Image Archivist Stephanie Stewart for transferring the film to a digital file, and to James Leloudis, UNC Chapel Hill history professor, for uploading the video to YouTube so that all could view this moment in Southern history. Prof. Leloudis is co-author of a new book on the anti-poverty work of the North Carolina Fund, To Right These Wrongs (out this month from UNC Press). Prof. Leloudis and his co-author, Robert Korstad, professor of public policy and history at Duke University, will present a lecture at Wilson Library later this fall on their new book.  Check back soon for more details about this program.

The Taylor Family in Chapel Hill

Taylor kids in Chapel Hill, December 1957: (l to r): Alex, James, Kate, Liv, Hugh
Taylor kids in Chapel Hill, December 1957: (l to r): Alex, James, Kate, Liv, Hugh

“The Taylor Family in Chapel Hill,” featuring a screening of the new documentary film “Kate Taylor: Tunes from the Tipi and other Songs from Home,” q&a with the filmmakers Liz Witham (daughter of Kate) and Ken Wentworth, and a musical performance by Kate. Tuesday, February 9, reception at 5:00, event at 5:30, Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium on the UNC campus. Sponsored by the SHC and the Southern Folklife Collection.