Abstract: The Southern Governors’ Association, formerly the Southeastern Governors’ Conference, is a regional association of state governors that was founded in 1934 to represent the common interests of chief executives of the southern states and to provide a vehicle for promoting those interests. The collection consists of annual meeting transcripts and programs, annual reports, and other related publications. Materials span 1983-2010 and cover such topics as aging, agriculture, banking, business, climate change, diversity and race issues, drug prevention, economic development trends, education, emergency response management, energy, environmental concerns, finance, globalization, government, health care, infant mortality, housing and urban development, immigration, industry regulation, international relations with Latin American and African nations, national and international politics, poverty, the prison system, regional challenges and cooperation, technology, tourism, trade, transportation, and welfare reform. Annual meeting speakers include southern governors and other politicians, academicians, and military and business leaders.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Materials in the collection cover a vast number of topics, including race relations and diversity. Annual Meetings discuss issues such as race and diversity (Folders 28-29) and include prominent African American politicians as speakers, including Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Young. Folder 84 also contains a 1993 report on the “African Heads of State” summit for that year.

Abstract: Blackwell Markham (1897-1977) was a general surgeon in Durham, N.C. He received his medical training at the University of North Carolina and at Harvard University. He served in the United States Army in World War II in North Africa and Europe. The collection contains correspondence, greeting cards, diaries, personal papers, a few business papers, and photographs relating to Blackwell Markham and his family. Topics include family matters and life during World War II. Much of the correspondence is between Markham and family members and with Mary Poteat, an English teacher at Duke University with whom he corresponded for 40 years; the bulk was written from Italy and Algeria, 1942-1945. There are also detailed diaries kept by Markham during World War II that include descriptions of specific patient cases, travel, and hospital and general military life. Also included is a diary, written in Italian, that was at least partially compiled by internees at an Italian prisoner of war camp in Algeria where Markham was stationed. There are also scrapbooks and other materials primarily relating to Markham while he attended Durham High School; the University of North Carolina; and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. There are also materials, many annotated by Markham, relating to earlier generations of Markhams, including John L. Markham Sr., who owned a general store in Durham and died circa 1900. Some materials relate to Markham and Brogden relatives, including letters of John L. Markham Jr. while serving in the United States Army in Columbia, S.C., during World War I, 1917-1919; letters of Markham’s nephew, Blackwell M. Brogden, while serving in the United States Navy, 1942-1945; and papers relating to North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Willis J. Brogden Sr. Also included are materials relating to Ritta Geer, the Markhams’ longtime African American domestic servant. Photographs are of Markham and the Markham family members, 1860s-1972, and include three tintypes, circa 1860. Photographs between about 1900 and 1930 include formal portraits and candid shots of the Markham family; posed portraits of servants, including Ritta Geer; and images of various locations around Durham. There are also World War II photographs taken by Markham in North Africa and Europe; photographer Margaret Bourke-White appears in a few of the images.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: A significant amount of Markham’s correspondence discusses being stationed as a military surgeon overseas, including North Africa (see particularly Folders 5-30; 35-72). He also describes the end of a military campaign in Tunisia in 1943 (Folder 185).

There are also letters related to Ritta Geer, the Markham’s longtime domestic servant. Folder 223 contains a 13 November 1934 receipt for Geer’s funeral expenses addressed to Blackwell Markham; an 11 October 1926 letter from Ritta Geer’s niece Cleora that discusses a family rift and Cleora’s desire to bring Geer to live with her in Pittsburgh, Pa.; and a Bible belonging to Geer, with a few handwritten annotations. There are also letters from John Markham, Jr. to Ella Markham from Camp Jackson between 1917-1919  writing about missing comforts of home including Ritta Geer’s homecooking  (Folder 218-220).

Abstract: The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources is the state agency responsible for arts, history, and library programs; among its divisions is the State Library of North Carolina. The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources films collection documents a variety of topics, some relating to North Carolina and others to the wider world, covered in films made by a variety of filmmakers, 1951-1988. Topics include folklife, folk dancing, folklore, and folk art in various parts of the world; tattooing; women’s folklore; African American history, culture, and music; Indians of North America; Canadian Iroquois Indians; Aboriginal Australians; folk, gospel, jazz, and blues music; folk singers and composers Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotten, and Malvina Reynolds; gospel singer Mahalia Jackson; various religious communities; Colonial Williamsburg; poet Carl Sandburg; filmmaker Tom Davenport; and the social life and customs of the American South. All of the films are 16mm commercial release prints with sound. Both narrative and documentary films are represented.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Several of the films in this collection relate to African American history and  culture. A few examples include

Afro-American Music: Its Heritage (1969): This film traces the history and evolution of black American music from enslavement to contemporary music ( Film 20448/22)

Black Genesis: The Art of Tribal Africa (1970 ): The film shows masks, carving sculptures, statues, drawings jewelry and tattoo art of different areas of tribal Africa, as well as songs and musical rhythms (F-20448/15)

Black Music in America: From Then Till Now (1987):  traces the evolution of African American music from its African origins today and showcases  of Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Leadbelly, Count Basie, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Billie Holiday, Cannonball Adderley, and others (F-20448/60)

 

 

 

 

Abstract: Charles Iverson Graves of Newton and Floyd counties, Ga., and Caswell County, N.C., attended the U.S. Naval Academy; served as a U.S. and Confederate naval officer; taught school and operated a farm near Rome, Ga.; spent 1875-1878 in Egypt as an officer in the Egyptian army; and worked as a civil engineer on construction of the Georgia Pacific and Memphis & Vicksburg railroads, 1881-1884. Charles and his wife, Margaret (Lea) Graves (fl. 1860-1898), had five children: Charles Iverson, Jr., William Lea, Mary Hinton, Robert William, and Anne Parke. The collection is chiefly correspondence of Charles Iverson and Margaret (Lea) Graves, especially documenting his military career in the U.S. and Confederate navies and his civil engineering career, particularly his service in Egypt, but also his work on the Georgia Pacific and Memphis & Vicksburg railroads. The pair exchanged several hundred letters from 1875 to 1878 detailing his experiences in Egypt and her life at Locust Hill, Caswell County, N.C., where she tried to raise five children with limited economic resources. There is also correspondence relating to Charles’s time at the U.S. Naval Academy; to the couple’s courtship; to the couples’ independent struggles–he on active duty and she on the the homefront at various places, including Mobile, Ala.–during the Civil War; and to the operation of the family farm in Rome, Ga. Other letters contain information about the experiences of other family members, particularly members of the Lea family, who moved to Alabama and Mississippi before the Civil War, and those of a relative in California after the war. Also included are genealogical materials about the Graves, Lea, and related families, reminiscences by Margaret (Lea) Graves, and Charles Iverson Graves’s writings on Egyptian culture. There are also other writings, notes, and pictures, including materials relating to a book on Civil War veterans in Egypt by William Best Hesseltine.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Image 2606/5 depicts an unidentified group of eight white children with three black women and one donkey. Subseries 1.5 also contains correspondence of Graves while working in Egypt, description the life and culture in various areas of North Africa.

Abstract: Political activist Allard Kenneth Lowenstein (1929-1980) served as a lawyer, teacher, speaker, author, United States congressman from New York, United States representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and founder and leader of several organizations. Correspondence, organizational records, political campaign records, congressional files, writings, speeches, press clippings, research materials, scheduling files, financial and administrative records, diaries, scrapbooks, family papers, photographs, sound recordings, videocasette tapes, and other items documenting the life and career of Allard K. Lowenstein. Correspondence, 1940s-1970s, covers Lowenstein’s service in World War II; years as a student activist at the University of North Carolina; work with the United States National Student Association, Democratic Party, Coalition for a Democratic Alternative, and other organizations; relations with Eleanor Roosevelt, Frank Porter Graham, Adlai Stevenson, William F. Buckley Jr., Aaron Henry, Eugene J. McCarthy, Norman C. Thomas, and Hubert H. Humphrey; interests in political and social affairs including civil rights, voter registration, and political reform in the United States and relations with other countries, especially Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the Soviet Union; work at Stanford University; anti-Vietnam War activities; the Ditch Johnson campaign; his successful campaign for Congress from the Fifth Congressional District of New York; various unsuccessful political campaigns for United States House and Senate seats from New York; his investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination; his United Nations work; his work on Edward M. Kennedy’s 1980 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination; and other matters. Activity files, 1935-1980, document Lowenstein’s various United Nations appointments during the Carter Administration; attempts to reopen the investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination; involvement in Americans for Democratic Action; attendance at the University of North Carolina; African travels; and other activities relating to civil rights, international relations, and other topics. Political campaign materials, 1942-1980, relate to campaigns of Lowenstein and others, chiefly Democrats. United States Congress materials, 19

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection documents Lowenstein’s deep interest in issues of race, especially in the Civil Rights Movement. Materials documenting his activities and interests in civil rights include research notes from 1940-1968 (Series 6); speeches from 1951-1980 (Series 7.3); and interviews from between 1952-1980 (Subseries 10.2 ). The collection also contains manuscripts recording Lowenstein’s involvement in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1967-1980 (Subseries 2.18); Americans for Democratic Action from 1947- 1957 and 1966-1980 (Subseries 2.22); United States National Student Association from 1950-1967 (Folder 87 in Series 2.3 and also in Subseries 2.6); and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1963- 1964; in Subseries 2.14). Included are papers relating to Lowenstein’s opposition to apartheid in South and Southwest Africa from 1954-1963 (Subseries 2.11 and 2.27).

Abstract: Harry E. Groves (1921- ), Colorado-born African-American lawyer and professor of law, with special interests in constitutional law, particularly of newly formed nations. He served as law school dean at Texas Southern University, 1956-1960, the University of Malaya, 1962-1964, and North Carolina Central University, 1976-1981; president of Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio, 1965-1968; and Brandis Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1981-1986. Correspondence and other items, 1951-1999, relating to Groves’s work with Texas Southern University, the University of Malaya, the Asia Foundation, Central State University, North Carolina Central University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; to his interest in constitutional law, particularly relating to Malaysia; and to his law practice. Writings, 1942-1999, include articles, speeches, and lectures on affirmative action, domestic law, constitutional law, African-Americans in education, and the future of African-American institutions;unpublished book-length manuscripts, one of which is a Groves family history; and day journals containing travel descriptions, including one from 1984 with Groves’s impressions of South Africa. Personal papers include items relating to Groves’s school career and activities of family and friends, 1929-1998; military service, 1944-1946; real estate holdings in Ohio, North Carolina, and Houston, Tex.; Groves family history; and other items. There are also a few photographs of Groves engaged in various activities and of the institutions in which he served.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Writings, 1942-1999, include articles, speeches, and lectures on affirmative action, domestic law, constitutional law, African-Americans in education, and the future of African-American institutions; unpublished book-length manuscripts, one of which is a Groves family history; and day journals containing travel descriptions, including one from 1984 with Groves’s impressions of South Africa.

Abstract: James McDowell was born 13 October 1795, son of Col. James McDowell and Sarah Preston. He married Susanna Smith Preston in 1818. McDowell was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1833. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1831-1835 and 1837-1838, as governor of Virginia, 1842-1846, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1847-1851. Among McDowell’s major political concerns were internal improvements, slavery, and public education. The collection includes correspondence, writings, financial and legal material, and other papers of James McDowell. Most of the papers are letters, addresses, and essays relating to affairs in Virginia and the nation, including slavery in the territories, internal improvements, temperance, nullification, Democratic party politics, colonization societies, collegiate and literary societies, and colleges in Virginia.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence covers topics such as McDowell’s involvement with colonization societies (1820-1851) and views on slavery in the territories (1831-1851). Of particular note is his correspondence in two letters from 1828 and 1830 with Ralph Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society (Folders 12-13)

Financial and legal materials contain an inventory of McDowell’s slaves as well as an emancipation contract (c. 1831) between McDowell and his slave, Lewis James, requiring that Lewis both purchase his freedom and apply for emigration to Liberia (Folder 65).

McDowell’s writings contain several speeches and articles on slavery in the territories, colonization of Africa by slaves; the “Great Slavery Debate” in the Virginia General Assembly, 1831-1832; and miscellaneous notes on slavery (Folders 67-75).

Abstract: William Augustus Heermance (fl. 1846-1847) of New York was supercargo on the Montgomery, an American cargo ship that traded along the coast of West Africa. The Montgomery, commanded by a Captain Hooper, carried goods assigned to George R. Sheldon. African travel journal (original, 44 p.; transcription 34 p.), 21 August 1846-11 April 1847, kept by William Augustus Heermance while supercargo on the Montgomery. The journal best documents the Montgomery’s sea voyage from New York to Liberia and its trading activities along the coasts of Liberia, Ghana, and Gabon, and on the islands of Principe and Sao Tome in the Gulf of Guinea. Only one entry pertains to the return sea voyage. Journal entries vary from daily to weekly.They are brief, but detailed, and offer considerable information on locations visited, including descriptions of local buildings and internal improvements; means of transport by land and sea; local merchants, trade officials, tribal leaders, missionaries, and colonists; and inhabitants’ social customs, religious practices, and modes of dress and adornment. There is limited information on the ship’s crew (African American sailors and temporary workers hired along the coast); Captain Hooper and occasional passengers; the diet aboard ship; and the sale and purchase of cargo.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Represented are four generations of the Pettigrew family of Washington and Tyrrell counties, N.C. Prominent family members included James Pettigrew (d. 1784), who emigrated from Scotland, eventually settling in Charleston, S.C., where the family name was changed to Petigru; James’s son, Charles Pettigrew (1744-1807), Anglican minister, and Charles’s son, Ebenezer Pettigrew (1783-1848), state legislator, who established plantations in eastern North Carolina; and Ebenezer’s children, including Charles Lockhart Pettigrew (1816-1873), planter; William S. Pettigrew (1818-1900), politician and Episcopal minister; and James Johnston Pettigrew (1828-1863), lawyer and Confederate Army officer; and James Louis Petigru, lawyer of Charleston, S.C. Business and personal correspondence reflecting the varied interests and activities of Pettigrew family members, including the involvement of Charles and his grandson William in the Anglican and Episcopal churches; the development and management of Bonarva, Belgrade, and Magnolia plantations by Ebenezer Pettigrew, sometimes in cooperation with family friend James Cathcart Johnston of Edenton, N.C., including unsuccessful efforts by the family to hold onto the plantations after the Civil War; slavery, especially William’s use of slaves as overseers (some letters from slaves are included); Charles’s involvement in the founding of the University of North Carolina and his sons’ attendance there; family life, including the education of children at the University of North Carolina and elsewhere; the evacuation of the plantations after the capture of Roanoke Island in 1862; James Johnston Pettigrew’s travels to Charleston, Spain and elsewhere in Europe, and Cuba; reestablishment of ties with the Charleston Petigrus that was formalized with the marriage of Charles Lockhart Pettigrew and his cousin Jane Caroline North; and the general decline of family fortunes after the Civil War despite the efforts of Jane Caroline North Pettigrew to hold onto land and other assets. Included are letters of Henry Clay, 1841-1842. Financial records document purchases for family and plantation use and educational expenses and include slave lists. Writings consist mainly of travel diaries, especially of James Johnston Pettigrew; some religious works; poems and acrostics by slave poet George Moses Horton; and other items. School materials consist of notebooks and other items. Commonplace books concern women’s activities and current events. William’s Episcopal Church materials relate to his service at various North Carolina churches and include journals of parochial visits; registers of salary, offerings, baptisms, burials, etc.; records of sermons delivered; and records of church-related expenses. Genealogical materials include information

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights:  The correspondence series contains information on the slave trade from the late 1700s and throughout the mid-1800s. This includes Charles Pettigrew’s attitude towards slavery as well as the sale of enslaved people (1802-1804; see Folder 8 ) and views on using slaves as overseers  in a 9 January 1849 letter (Folder 131). William Pettigrew also wrote letters on behalf of enslaved individuals, including one such letter from 31 October 1850.

Some of the material in this collection has been digitized and is available online. Click here to  link to the finding aid for the collection and to access the digitized content.

There are several letters beginning in 4 November 1852 that relate to the selling of a rebellious slave, as well other general letters  (Folders 152-159). There are also letters from enslaved overseers to William Pettigrew during the late 1850s, discussing conditions on the plantation, as well as a letter from June 1858 describing conditions in Liberia.

During the Civil War, there are numerous letters dealing with the Pettigrews moving their slaves from Chatham County into central North Carolina. There are also letters written or  dictated from enslaved individuals about being hired out as laborers in Raleigh during this time (Folders 238-273).

There are also legal and financial papers concerning the purchase of slaves, slave lists and accounts with slaves, and writings by slaves and on the topic of the slave trade. See Subseries 2.1.1 for information on the purchases of enslaved individuals, as well as 2.1.2.

Folders 474, 475, 479, 481-484, and 486 contains volumes that include lists of enslaved individuals as well as provisions. Subseries 2.2.2 also contains several volumes with slaves lists as well.

Folder 529 also contains a Minority report to the South Carolina General Assembly on the slave trade, 1857 (47 pp.), and includes a summary of arguments against the resumption of the foreign slave trade.

Folders 3 and 4 also contain discussion’s of Charles Pettigrew’s journey to Haiti to purchase enslaved individuals.

There are several letters that relate to Peter, an enslaved man owned by Charles Pettigrew. In October 1861, Peter was sent to serve Charle’s brother, Brigadier General James Johnson Pettigrew, in the Confederate Army. Letters from 1 October and 2 October 1861 describe Peter as being “well acquainted with horses, is a capable servant in many respects; he can make clothes and is a first rate nurse” (Folders 238-249).

For additional information on Peter see the online exhibition

“North Carolina and the Civil War: They Were There”: http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/civilwar/explore_section4e.html.

The letters from October 1 and 2 have been digitized and are available on the Southern Historical Collection’s “Civil War Day by Day” blog:

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/civilwar/index.php/2011/10/01/1-october-1861/

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/civilwar/index.php/2011/10/02/

Abstract: Arthur Franklin Raper (1899-1979) was a distinguished rural sociologist, civil rights activist, and social science analyst both in the United States and in other countries. Raper’s early career focused on analysis of rural

problems and racial discrimination in the South. In 1940, he began his 22-year career as a social scientist and research analyst for several federal government agencies. After World War II, he became involved with problems of rural development on a global scale, studying conditions in Japan, Taiwan, other Asian counties, and in North Africa and the Middle East. In 1962, he went to Pakistan as senior advisor to the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development. He returned to the United States in 1964 and was a visiting professor at Michigan State University until his retirement in 1967. Papers documenting Arthur Franklin Raper’s work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1926-1939; the Southern Commission for the Study of Lynching, 1930-1931; the Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the American Negro, 1939-1940; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1940-1952; the Foreign Operations Administration and the International Cooperation Administration, 1952-1962; and the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, 1962-1964. Of special interest are the data on counties and towns throughout the South, compiled for the Myrdal study, and photographs by Jack Delano and Dorothea Lange documenting the rural South during the Depression. The collection contains much information about aiding and implementing postwar development programs in foreign countries, including Japan, Taiwan, other Asian countries, North Africa, and the Middle East. The papers include Raper’s correspondence and private reflections; copies of, and correspondence concerning the ten books and dozens of articles he published; extensive genealogical and biographical information; clippings; photographs; slide sets; and tapes. Also included are other photographs of the South during the Depression.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: His papers document his participation in the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the Myrdal study of the American Negro, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The collection also includes correspondence and material about lynching (1925-1942), civil rights, and social justice.

Of particular interest is the data Raper collected on the Myrdal Study, and the numerous photographs that were taken by Dorothea Lange and other photographers of African Americans in Greene and Macon Counties in Georgie, as well as in the “Fourth Ward”, a poor district in Atlanta. See Series 1.3  (Photographs) for a listing and details about the photographs.

There are also slides and photographs of different African Countries such as Sierra Lione and Ethiopia, to orient individuals going to work on post-war development in various international locations. See Images Folder PF-3966/6 and 7.

Raper’s indexes to his materials and other items from this collection have been digitized. Click here to access the finding aid and link to the digitized material.