Abstract: Mary L. Woods was an African American woman from Smithfield, Va. The collection is a photograph album belonging to Mary L. Woods containing 69 snapshots of friends and family members, labeled with names, dates, and comments. The images are posed portraits of African Americans, including a few children; they were taken outdoors in rural settings, urban settings, and at the beach. Locations mentioned include Smithfield, Va., Yorktown, Va., Portsmouth, Va., and Washington, D.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Papers collected by William S. Powell pertaining to Iredell and adjacent counties of North Carolina. The bulk consists of family correspondence, 1867-1901, and account books of two generations of the Goodman family. Letters are personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Amity, Iredell County; his wife Ellen; and his sons and a nephew, including a building materials merchant at Hillsboro, Ill., a railroad employee at Birmingham, Ala., a resident of Lavon, Tex., and others. Letters from Hillsboro, Ill., discuss weather, prices, wages, opportunity that led to leaving North Carolina, the high cost of food in Illinois, and homesickness. Other personal letters discuss farming and give family news, especially about illnesses, deaths, and estates. Account books, chiefly from Iredell County, are for general merchandise and lumber sales, 1853-1856; church contributions (perhaps Presbyterian), 1855-1856; farm crops and miscellaneous labor, 1891; and a blacksmith, Goodwin and White, of Statesville, N.C., 1891-1893. Also included are miscellaneous Goodman family bills and receipts; deeds of other persons; and fourteen letters, 1922-1924, from a North Carolina black medical student, William D. Washington, at Howard University, Washington, D.C., to a friend, Janie Lee Norton, in Davidson, N.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 13 contains fourteen letters from William Washington, and African American medical student at Howard University to a friend, Janie Lee Norton.

Abstract:  Helen Laura Ruth was a teacher at Leland University in New Orleans, La., a private institution of higher learning for African Americans founded in 1870. It closed in 1915; was re-named Leland College and re-opened in Baker, La., in 1923; and finally closed in 1960. The collection includes two scrapbooks of Helen Laura Ruth and a student essay. The 1913 scrapbook contains photographs of Ruth’s family and Leland students, some taken on the Leland University campus, and pictures, postcards, and brochures relating to her travels to Washington, D.C.; around New Orleans; Altlanta, Ga.; and other locations. Most of the scrapbook items have diary-like annotations. The 1940 scrapbook documents travel with friend Jenny Feiser around the western half of the United States, including Los Angeles, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and Seattle, Wash. The undated and unascribed essay, “School in the Year 2000,” appears to have been written by a Leland student.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: William McWhorter Cochrane (1917- ) of Newton and Chapel Hill, N.C., and Washington, D.C., worked for the United States Senate in various capacities for more than 40 years. Correspondence, reports, writings, clippings, pictures, awards and certificates, and other materials document Cochrane’s life and personal affairs, including his childhood in Newton, N.C.; his student years at the University of North Carolina, 1934-1942; his service in the United States Navy during World War II and in the United States Naval Reserve; and his family, including his wife, writer and teacher Shirley Graves Cochrane.Political materials detail Cochrane’s activities on Capitol Hill from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s and chiefly concern the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. These materials also document Cochrane’s work with presidential inauguration ceremonies; Senator W. Kerr Scott; Senator B. Everett Jordan; the Joint Congressional Committee on the Library; the Architect of the Capitol; and Terry Sanford, as well as Cochrane’s vast network of friends and colleagues in North Carolina and Washington, D.C.Correspondence, reports, clippings, lists, and other materials also relate to Cochrane’s interest and involvement in North Carolina state politics and affairs, the B. Everett Jordan Lake and Dam, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Institute of Government. Family history material, extensive clippings, and pictures are also included.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: There is a folder entitled “African American Leaders” (Folder 1438). Family scrapbooks (scrapbook 1 in Series 6 “Family History”) contain a record of “Our Colored Folk”. In series 8, there are numerous clippings related to civil rights, race, and gender.

Abstract: Howard Robinson Kornegay was a United States representative from the 6th Congressional District of North Carolina to the 87th through 90th Congresses (January 1961-January 1969) and lawyer of Greensboro, N.C. Legislative, personal, committee, and general files of Kornegay as Democratic United States representative of the 6th Congressional District of North Carolina to the 87th through 89th Congresses (January 1961-January 1967). Committee files include those Kornegay kept when he was a member of the Veterans’ Affairs and Interstate and Foreign Commerce committees. Because the 6th District included Guilford and Alamance counties throughout Kornegay’s tenure, much correspondence deals with local affairs and personal concerns from those counties.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Boxes 1, 15, 21, 37, 39, and 40 contain folders with information about civil rights issues.

Abstract: Laura Randolph Daly was an instructor in the 1910s through the 1930s at Snow Hill Institute in Snow Hill, Ala., and at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Ala. She later worked for the United States government in the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS). Letters to Laura Randolph Daly and her daughters, Mildred Daly and Lillie Daly, from family members, friends, and colleagues. Most of the early letters deal with financial matters, including requests from Laura Randolph Daly’s mother that Daly move from Alabama to New Jersey and help her purchase property. Letters, 1920s-1930s, mostly relate to Daly’s work as an instructor at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and consist of donations to the Institute, an update about former students, and a woman inventor’s appeal to George Washington Carver for a “word of approval” for a new hair preparation.Later letters, dating from 1941, deal with Daly’s OPACS work. These letters include discussions of the formation of consumer committees in Alabama; instructions on which community leaders Daly should contact to ensure community involvement in OPACS projects; and suggestions about how she should deal with racism in the Birmingham office of the Social Security Board, where she was to work.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Guy Benton Johnson was one of the original research assistants at the Institute for Research in Social Science and joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina in 1927, retiring in 1969. In 1923, he married Guion

Griffis, also a social science researcher. They had two sons: Guy Benton Jr. (Benny) (b. 1928) and Edward (b. 1933). Papers, mostly correspondence and research project files, relating chiefly to Johnson’s work at the University of Chicago and at UNC on the Ku Klux Klan; musical abilities of African-Americans and white Americans; African-American folksongs; the John Henry legend; the folklore and language (Gullah) of Saint Helena Island, S.C.; Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, N.C.; and the desegregation of higher education. Many items relate to his and Guion’s participation in the Gunnar Myrdal Study of the American Negro, 1939-1940. There are also materials documenting Johnson’s work with the Southern Regional Council, of which he was director in 1944-1947; the North Carolina Council on Human Relations; the Phelps-Stokes Fund; and the Howard University Board of Trustees; and his service to professional sociological organizations. Also included are writings by Johnson, pedagogical materials, photographs and other materials relating to his family in North Carolina and Texas and career. Johnson’s correspondents included Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, C.C. Spaulding, H.L. Mencken, Carl van Vechten, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marion Wright, and many other intellectuals, scholars, writers, and activists, both black and white.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights:  Some of the materials on this collection have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid and to access the digital material.

Papers relate to Johnson’s extensive cultural and sociological studies and projects conducted under the auspices of organizations such as the Institute for Research in Social Science, the Southern Regional Council, the North Carolina Council on Human Relations, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and the Board of Trustees of Howard University.

Subseries 1.2 and 1.3 (Correspondence) contain a number of letters discussing race relations, school desegregation, the Ku Klux Klan, Gullah/Geechee culture and language,  and as well as Johnson’s trip to Africa and the idea for an exchange program for African students. Additional items of interest include a sermon by Pauli Murray, entitled “Gifts of the Holy Spirit to Women I Have Known,” enclosed in a letter to Johnson dated 18 May 1978, and a letter, dated 12 October 1983, to Johnson discussing the controversy over Langston Hughes’ appearance at University of North Carolina in 1931.

Series 2 (Alumni Office Files) contains letters on various topics including race relations, civil rights, music,  and different African American Freedom Celebrations. Johnson’s correspondents include a large number of black political leaders, journalists, and intellectuals, such as Will W. Alexander, Sterling Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Of particular notes in Subseries 3.2.2 (Publications) are drafts and research notes for “The Police and The Negro” (Folders 795-797).

Also of note are the various research projects Johnson conducted with focus on African American life and culture. See Series 5 for a complete listing of the projects. Of particular note is the study he conducted on Gullah language and culture in South Carolina, entitled Folk Culture of Saint Helena Island. This research study includes stories and riddles from students of the Penn Center on the island, as well as some recordings of songs. Some of these materials have been digitized.

There are also a number of photographs in this collection related to Johnson’s family life and his research. Of note are the photographs of African American churches in Chapel Hill, N.C. (Image folder 3826/41) and various scenes and houses in the African American communities on Saint Helena Island, S.C. (Image Folders 3826/35-36).

Folders 94-99, 313, and 320 contain materials relating to the “Encyclopedia of the Negro” project in the 1930s and 1940s, including correspondence with Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois (who was principle editor of the Encyclopedia) and other noted academics.

Folder 97 also contains a letter dated 4 November 1939 from Anson Phelps Stokes as a representative from the Marian Anderson Committee, which was formed after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to perform at Constitutional Hall in DC based on the fact she was an African American artist. The Committee formed after this refusal, to continue to petition the DAR to allow Ms. Anderson to perform.

Abstract: Chiefly letters from John Barnwell Elliott (1841-1921) while a Confederate soldier on the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, in Charleston, in Paris after the Civil War, and as a professor and physician at the University of the South, 1870-1885, written to his brother, Habersham, his father, Bishop Stephen Elliott of Georgia, and other relatives (21 original items, 3 typed transcriptions). Also included are papers (on microfilm) of J. B. Elliott’s mother-in-law, Mary Esther (Huger) Huger (b. 1820), daughter of Francis Kinloch Huger, including her reminiscences, written 1890-1892, of her early life at Pendleton and Charleston, S.C.; a plantation record book, 1858-1863; and her essays on slavery and the causes of the Civil War; and a memoir of the Prioleau family of Charleston, S.C. Scattered other family correspondence and letters to J. B. Elliott from prominent persons is included.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection contains the papers of Elliot’s mother-in-law, Mary Esther (Huger) Huger, which includes a plantation record book (1858-1863) and her essays on slavery and the Civil War (undated). Scattered family correspondence refers to African Americans in the New Congress in Washington DC (1866) and to an African-American politician in Charleston (1868). Microfilm available.

Abstract: Whig congressman from Bertie County, N.C. Chiefly correspondence of Outlaw to his wife while he was a member of Congress, 1847-1853. Subjects discussed are state and national politics, including the Mexican War, the slavery question, sectionalism, the Wilmot Proviso, the Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of 1850; social life in Washington, D.C.; and Outlaw’s family and his farm in Bertie County, near Windsor, N.C. In his absence from home, Outlaw’s farm was managed by one of his slaves. Also included are a few letters from Outlaw’s wife and daughter and genealogical material on the Outlaw and Anderson families of Tennessee (typed transcriptions).

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Chiefly letters of Outlaw, a Bertie County Whig, North Carolina, written to his wife while he was a member of Congress (1847-1853). During his absences Outlaw’s farm was run by his slave, George. Letters include directions for the hiring-out of slaves (1847) in Folder 1; discussions of the institution of slavery (1849- 1850) in Folders 6-11; and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia (1849) in Folder 6.

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

Abstract: Samuel James Ervin was an eminent North Carolina lawyer, jurist, legislator, congressman, and United States Senator, 1954-1974. Ervin chaired the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Watergate Committee), 1973-1974. The Senate Records Subgroup covers Ervin’s twenty-year career in the United States Senate. Significant series include: Series I, Correspondence, consisting chiefly of letters exchanged by Ervin and his constituents, colleagues, dignitaries, and various federal officials. Recurring subjects include agriculture, the state and federal budgets, civil rights, commerce, education, foreign affairs, foreign aid, labor, railroads, social security, veterans, the Vietnam conflict, and the Watergate controversy; Series 2, Subject Files, containing printed materials, correspondence, and miscellaneous items on topics such as agriculture, crime, defense, education, energy, foreign relations, labor, the national economy, the North Carolina economy, taxes, textiles, and Watergate; and Series 4, Political Campaign Files, including correspondence, names of potential supporters, and financial records documenting Ervin’s successful senatorial campaigns. Other significant groups include: Series 8, audio discs and partial transcripts of Ervin’s weekly radio program; Series 13, Military Files (RESTRICTED), consisting primarily of correspondence regarding assistance with military matters, including letters from servicemen and their families concerning discharges, transfers of assignment, combat duty, and medical treatment of veterans; Series 14, Prisoners Files (RESTRICTED), consisting of correspondence with prisoners in North Carolina prisons and prisoners with North Carolina connections serving time in federal prisons, concerning parole, transfers, medical treatment, appeals, and prison conditions; and Series 15, containing audio-visual materials including films and video tapes of interviews conducted in conjunction with the PBS documentary, “Senator Sam.” Series 16 contains volumes of printed transcriptions of Congressional hearings and a few items relating to Ervin’s law and Senate careers.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Ervin opposed civil rights legislation for African Americans as a violation of the Constitution. Series 2 of his Senate files contains six boxes of materials pertaining to civil rights. In Series 1.13.2. (Legislative Correspondence Files, 1966), there are also numerous documents regarding Ervin’s work on the Judiciary Committee regarding Civil Rights.