Abstract: Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, in the course of his research on the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. Rosengarten recorded a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974). The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes, most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with Ned Cobb and other members of the Cobb family. The interviews describe Cobb’s life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with African American sharecropper Ned Cobb and other members of his family. These interviews were used as the basis of Rosengarten’s book All God’s Dangers, which describes Cobb’s life as a sharecropper in east-central Alabama, his involvement with Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Abstract: Microfilm only. Record kept by James P. Postell of Kelvin Grove Plantation, St. Simons Island, Ga., including lists of slaves and stock, diagrams of the plantation, and notations, 1853-1854, of daily work in growing cotton, corn, and potatoes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Records of three generations of the Ball family at a group of Cooper River plantations, Charleston District (later Berkeley County), S.C., including Cedar Hill, Halidon Hill, Hyde Park, Jericho, Limerick, Midway, and Quinby. Volumes include intermittent slave, planting, and weather records, 1804-1890; minutes, 1847-1858, of the Strawberry Agricultural Society; and a hog killing record, 1819-1834, detailing distribution of meat to slaves.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Records of three generations of the Ball family and a group of Cooper River plantations, Charleston District (later Berkeley County) South Carolina. Included are records of slave births, the names of slave mothers, and slave deaths (1808-1835, 1838-1879); an account of blankets and cloth distributed to slaves (1821-1833, 1840-1860); and a hog killing record that details the distribution of meat to slaves (1819-1834). Microfilm only.

Abstract: The Manigault family of Charleston, S.C., and plantations in the Berkeley District, S.C., and on Argyle Island in the Savannah River, Ga., included Charles, merchant and rice planter; and his sons Gabriel Edward, planter, physician, and curator

of the Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston; and Louis, planter. The collection is chiefly plantation records of the Silk Hope (Berkeley District, S.C.) and the Gowrie and East Hermitage plantations (Argyle Island, Ga.). These volumes contain information on slaves (including, in volume 5, a photograph of a runaway slave), rice growing, market conditions, the weather, and other topics. Other items include papers of Charles Manigault, including a will and essays on slavery and other topics and a manuscript autobiography of Gabriel Edward Manigualt, detailing his studies in medical schools in Europe and at the Medical College of the State of South Carolina, and his Confederate army career; and an album, 1861-1868. There are also papers of Louis Manigault, containing letters, bits of a wartime diary, wartime clippings, and other papers related to his service as a Confederate surgeon and to Joseph Jones (1833-1896) under whom he served.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Records contain information on slaves, slave auctions, and runaways. Volumes 1-5 contain documentation of enslaved individuals and free blacks on different plantations from 1833-1877, including allocations of clothing, medical treatment, and their movement among the different properties (Folders 1-6). Folder 3 contains a runaway advertisement for an enslaved woman named Dolly, including a photograph.

Folder 9 also contains a draft of an essay entitled “The Close of the War–The Negro, etc”.

Materials from this collection have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.

Abstract: Letters received by Betton, vice president of the National Agricultural Workers Union at St. Louis, Mo., from Harry Leland Mitchell and others, concerning the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and its successor organizations, and related printed material.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: George Washington Carver (1864?-1943), African-American scientist of the Experimental Station of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Insitute, was known for his work in agricultural experimentation, especially in investigations of uses of peanuts and sweet potatoes and extraction of dyes from soils and clays. He was also an accomplished painter and lectured extensively in behalf of agricultural improvements and interracial cooperation. Wilson L. Newman first met Carver when Newman was a student at Vanderbilt University and chair of the Commission on Race of the Regional Council of the Student Y.M.C.A. Newman later taught in the Home-Study Department of the University of Chicago. Correspondence between George Washington Carver and Wilson L. Newman, beginning in 1926, when Newman asked Carver to tour Southern colleges in support of interracial communication. An instant rapport developed between the two men, who corresponded frequently until Carver’s death in 1943. Letters, chiefly from Carver to Newman, are personal in nature, reflecting Newman’s membership in Carver’s “family,” which was made up of young men who were expected to keep in touch with Carver by mail and to visit him periodically. Among these men were Howard Kester and Paul Newman Guthrie. Although most letters are filled with news of “family” members and with Carver’s unbridled praise of Newman’s mental and physical attributes, some letters address questions of race relations, Carver’s work in agricultural experimentation, activities at Tuskegee, and the pleasures of music and painting that Carver and Newman shared. Also included are clippings, 1927-1943, chiefly 1943 obituaries and appreciations of Carver, but also earlier announcements of speeches and lay reviews of his work; six small landscapes and floral paintings, 1928-1932 and undated, apparently painted by Carver and sent to Newman as Christmas greetings; and miscellaneous printed materials relating to Carver, including a few brochures on agricultural topics and advertisements for books by him and for penol tonic, a “Tissue Builder and Germ Arrester” derived from peanuts and marketed by the Carver Penol Company.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence with Carver, of the Experimental Station of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, by Newman who asked Carver to tour Southern colleges in support of interracial communication. Although most of the correspondence contains personal news, some letters mention race relations, agricultural experimentation, music, and painting. There is also a letter dated 18 July 1930 where Carver mentions a lynching that took place in Texas (Folder 5).

Abstract: William A. Clement (1912-2001) was an executive of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and a business and civic leader in Durham, N.C. Clement was married to Josephine Dobbs Clement and had six children. Personal and professional papers of William A. Clement, including correspondence, clippings, speeches, reports, pictures, and other items documenting his family life, career, and business and civic activities, as well as his participation in church and fraternal organizations. Included are letters and other materials relating to North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company; insurance organizations, including American College of Bryn Mawr, Pa. (formerly the American College of Chartered Life Underwriters), the Life Insurance Agency Management Association, Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association, and the National Insurance Association; Penn Community Services (formerly Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School) of St. Helena Island, S.C.; corporate boards, such as Wachovia Bank and North Carolina Central University; civic and fraternal organizations, such as the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority, Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the Occoneechee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Democratic Party, Durham Academy, the Madeira School, Talladega College Alumni Association, the United Fund of Durham and Durham County, and White Rock Baptist Church. There are also photographs, apparently from the 1930s and 1940s, of African American men and women, both portraits and in groups engaged in social activities.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Ben Sparkman was a rice planter who owned or managed at least three plantations, probably in the Georgetown District of South Carolina. The collection is a plantation journal, dated 1848 and 1853-1859, recording slave tasks and weather conditions, in addition to describing the planting, cultivating, and processing of rice and food crops such as potatoes and corn for local consumption. Places mentioned include “Wilson’s Place” and “Black Ground,” both presumably in South Carolina’s Georgetown District.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Most entries note slave tasks in planting, harvesting, and cultivating crops, and in various other farm-related duties. Brief descriptions of these activities usually distinguish between labor performed by men and women.

This journal has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.

Abstract: Charles Horace Hamilton was a rural sociologist with particular interests in rural life, the rural church, the rural family, rural health issues, the land tenure system, farm labor, internal migration, methods of population analysis, and social statistics. After teaching at many institutions, including at Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Tex., the University of North Carolina, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Hamilton was appointed professor of rural sociology at North Carolina State University and consulted widely in his field. Chiefly Hamilton’s professional and personal correspondence. Personal correspondence includes a number of letters from family members. Most of the papers cover Hamilton’s years at Lon Morris College, UNC, VPI, and NCSU, and treat topics such as rural sociology, farm tenancy, interracial cooperation, and African-American education. Correspondence provides information about the interracial cooperation movement in Texas and the study of social science at UNC in the 1920s and 1930s. Correspondents include George Collins of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Rupert Vance, and Howard Odum. There are also a few items relating to Jessie Daniel Ames.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Professional and personal correspondence of Hamilton, rural sociologist with interests in rural life, the rural church, the rural family, rural health issues, the land tenure system, farm labor, internal migration, methods of population analysis, and social statistics. Before gaining a professorship of Rural Sociology at North Carolina State University, Hamilton taught at Morris College; the University of North Carolina; and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Correspondence discusses, among other topics, interracial cooperation and African-American education.

Abstract: William Ervine Sparkman, South Carolina rice planter of the Georgetown and Williamsburg districts on the Black River, married M.A.E. Burgess in December 1836. He was the brother of James Ritchie Sparkman (1815-1897). The collection is a plantation journal containing a wide variety of entries documenting work at Springwood and Cottage plantations, both on the Black River in South Carolina. Entries continuing after Sparkman’s death in 1846 were probably made by his brother, James Ritchie Sparkman, and his widow, M.A.E. (Burgess) Sparkman, and possibly also by an overseer.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Most entries relate to agricultural activities and often distinguish between work performed by male and female slaves. The journal also includes inventories of slaves, slave birth and death records, dates and circumstances of slave purchases, accounts of blanket and clothing distributions, and work details.