Abstract: James A. Hutchins Jr., an alumnus of the University of North Carolina, grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C. He came to Chapel Hill on a scholarship to play tennis, but wound up playing football instead, becoming a star fullback for the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. In 1939, he accepted his first job with the United States Department of Agriculture. Hutchins served in the United States Navy during World War II, after which he returned to the Department of Agriculture. At the Department of Agriculture, Hutchins worked against rural and urban hunger and helped create one of the nation’s first school lunch programs. He also served as the chief of the Department of Agriculture’s Direct Distribution Branch, where he coordinated programs in 84 countries, and as the head of the federal government’s Commodity Credit Corporation, where he helped stabilize and protect domestic prices and farm income. Hutchins married Marguerite Hutchins in 1940; the couple had three children: Julia, Alex, and Glenn. The collection contains a scrapbook and other materials chiefly chronicling the college football and United States Navy career of James A. Hutchins. Included are photographs, letters, ticket stubs, game programs, and clippings relating to the University of North Carolina football seasons, 1934-1936; photographs and other materials from Hutchins’s time in the United States Navy; and other items, some of which relate to pre-flight schools established in the 1940s, including the one at the University of North Carolina.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: In the scrapbook (Oversize Volume SV-5439/1), there are several clippings about a game during the 1936 season between the University of North Carolina and New York University that created controversy because New York University had an African American student in its starting line-up.

Abstract: The DeRosset family descended from French Huguenot Armand John DeRosset, who immigrated to the American colonies in the 1730s and settled in Wilmington, N.C., where four generations of DeRossets worked as physicians and

merchants. Family members included Armand John DeRosset (1767-1859) and his wife Catherine Fullerton DeRosset (1773-1837) and children Moses John (1796-1826), Catherine Fullerton Kennedy (1800-1889), Eliza Ann (1802-1888), Magdalen Mary (1806-1850), and Mary Jane Curtis (1813-1903). Also included were Armand John DeRosset (1807-1897), his wife Eliza Jane Lord DeRosset (1812-1876), and their children, Katherine Douglas Meares (1830-1914) and Louis Henry (1840-1875) and Louis’s wife Marie Trapier Finley DeRosset (1844-1870) and daughter Gabrielle de Gondin Waddell (b. 1863). DeRosset family papers, chiefly 1821-1877, relating to family life and social, religious, political, and military activities of DeRossets in Wilmington and Hillsborough, N.C.; Columbia, S.C.; New York, N.Y.; and other locations. Included is correspondence of several generations of DeRosset women, documenting the education of children, family health, fashion, social events, religious opinions, and household problems. Other correspondence relates to mercantile partnerships in Wilmington and New York City; family members’ relocation to England because of interests in the Wilmington and Weldon Rail Road after the American Civil War; the family rice plantation in Brunswick County, N.C.; and slaves in North Carolina and South Carolina. Civil War era letters describe hardships on the homefront and shipping goods from Bermuda through the Union blockade of Wilmington. Included are some letters written by slaves. Some Reconstruction era letters discuss activities of former DeRosset slaves. Also included is correspondence with British author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was a family friend. Financial and legal materials include papers documenting land transactions; papers relating to slave sales and a volume listing births and deaths of DeRosset slaves, 1770-1854; wills and estate papers; and military commissions. Of special interest are a group of French documents, including a 1671 marriage contract and an 1817 deed of emancipation for a Charleston, S.C., slave. Other materials include records, 1801-1806, of the Nine-Penny Whist Club of Wilmington; a Civil War narrative describing running the Wilmington blockade; scattered diaries of DeRosset women; and materials relating to the history of Saint James Episcopal Church, Wilmington. The Addition of 2007 consists of Moses John DeRosset’s travel diary documenting a trip to western Europe in 1854; Moses John DeRosset’s autograph album containing autographs and quotes from schoolmates, 1855-1863; Adelaide S. Meares’s autograph album containing autographs and quotes from schoolmates at the Patapsco Female Institute in Maryland; diplomas and certificates, 1850s-1870s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence includes letters, discussing the hiring out of slaves written to the De Rossets by their slaves in Wilmington, North Carolina (1861-1864) and activities of freed slaves (1865-1871). Financial materials include slave bills of sale; a deed of emancipation for a Charleston, South Carolina slave (1817); and a slave record listing births and deaths of De Rosset family slaves (1790-1854). The collection also includes four prints of charcoal drawings of African Americans by H. P. Kimball.

Abstract: Notes regarding legal cases involving slaves in New York City, 1799-1818; bills of sale for slaves, Stokes County, N.C., 1801, and Wake County, N.C., 1818; a list of slaves and values, no place indicated, undated; and a slave pass (typed transcription), Darlington, S.C., undated.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Miscellaneous papers relating to slavery, including an undated slave list (no place indicated); a copy of a slave pass written by Major Hugh Lide, formerly a senator from Darlington, South Carolina (n.d.); a copy of New York City court records of cases relating to slavery, including the physical assault of Isabel Foster, enslaved woman, and her infant child  (1799-1818); a bill of sale for a slave in Stokes County, North Carolina (1801); and a bill of sale for a slave referred to as “Negro Boy Peter,” conveyed by Kendrick Myatt to the Misses Pulliam, Raleigh, North Carolina.

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 content.

Abstract: Mark F. Ethridge was a journalist of Louisville, Ky. Professional correspondence and speeches of Ethridge relating to his career in journalism, principally as editor and publisher of the Louisville, Ky., “Courier-Journal” and “Times,” 1936-1963; editor of “New York Newsday,” 1963-1965; and instructor in journalism at the University of North Carolina. In addition to newspaper affairs, these papers reflect many social and political issues of the times, including race relations, southern economic development, national elections and Democratic Party affairs, freedom and responsibility of the press, World War II, the Cold War, the creation of Israel, the spread of Communism in postwar Europe, and international peace. A separate series, chiefly 1945-1947, relates to Ethridge’s fact-finding missions on behalf of the United States State Department and the United Nations to several Balkan countries, especially Bulgaria, Rumania, and Greece.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters concern American race problems in general (1933); civil liberties in regard to African Americans, Jews, and the Ku Klux Klan (1939); the education of African Americans in Mississippi (1940); segregation in the South (1956, 1964); and the Ku Klux Klan (1964). The collection also contains Ethridge’s personal notes on civil rights (Folder 166) and copies of his speeches, such as “America’s Obligation to Its Negro Citizens” (1937), a lynching speech (1940), “The Race Problem in the War” (1942), and “The South’s Worst Qualities Have Come Out,” which dealt with integration (1956).

Abstract: Lawyer in Ligonier, Ind., and Marshall, Iowa, who moved to Athens, Tenn. in 1865, and to Chattanooga in 1870. Letters, 1861-1863, between Richmond and Harriet Burgert of Navarre, Ohio, whom he married in 1862, and correspondence with members of her family; slight family and social correspondence after the Richmonds moved to Tennessee; frequent letters from Richmond’s daughter Grace, while she was a student at Vassar College, 1880-1884, as well as letters to Grace from her family describing social life and schools in Chattanooga, Tenn.; and a brief diary, 1926, by Richmond’s daughter Bessie, of a West Indian cruise. Early papers pertain to Richmond’s father, Judah L. Richmond (1807-1868), Baptist preacher, and include a diary, 1844, written while he was living in Forestville, N.Y., and preaching in Chatauqua County, N.Y., and scattered family letters.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters from 6 July 1856 and 23 Nov 1856 from Henry Maloy (father of Theodore Richmond’s mother) express disdain for the spread of slavery into the West.

Abstract: Folklorist and performer Joan Fenton earned a Masters degree in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981. She is the owner of several stores in Charlottesville, Va., that feature traditional and contemporary handicrafts. Sound recordings and related documentation. Sound recordings include interviews, songs, and tall tales by artists in the southern roots traditions from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Louisiana. Fenton’s folklore thesis fieldwork about Howard Cotten, an African American tall tale teller in North Carolina, is represented by his songs, anecdotes, and tales about fishing and hunting that were recorded between 1976 and 1978. Also included are recordings from the 1978 John Henry Folk Festival where Hazel Dickens, Viola Clark, the Badgett Sisters, Walter Phelps, Ethel Phelps, Sparky Rucker, Pigmeat Jarrett, and Sweet Honey in the Rock performed. Interviews and sound recordings relating to Jamie Alston, Wilber Atwater, Willie Brooks, Dona Gum, Maggie Hammons, Sherman Hammons, Guy B. Johnson, Everett Lilly, Mitchell “Bea” Lilly, Varise Conner, Phillippe Bruneau, Carl Rutherford, and the Balfa Brothers are included. Also included are interviews with and songs of Charles Williams, a washboard player from White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., and Nat Reese, a guitarist and blues singer from Princeton, W. Va. Fenton is the primary interviewer on these recordings, some of which were made in performers’ homes where she accompanied them on guitar, but there are also a few field tapes done by others, including some with the Reverend Gary Davis in Jamaica, N.Y., 1971-1972 and others done by John Cohen in New York in the 1950s. Documentation of field recordings includes transcription notes from interviews conducted by Fenton and notes compiled from the audio material. Note that artists important in the collection appear as access points in this record.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Anecdotes and tales about fishing and hunting, animals (Rooster and Buzzard, etc.) as told by African-American storyteller Howard Cotten, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978; n.p. [3 reels, FT1159]. Henry Johnson, an African-American musician, performs five unidentified country blues songs with guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, and Steve Wolf in Union County, South Carolina, 1973 [1 reel, FT1282]. Country blues, gospel, fiddle tunes, and ballads performed by Jamie Alston and Wilbur Atwater, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, Steve Wolf, and Bruce Bastin in Orange County, North Carolina in 1973 [2 reels, FT1298-FT1299]. Dubs of field recordings of Reverend Gary Davis [“Blind Gary Davis”] originally recorded by John Cohen at Davis’ apartment in New York City in 1952. Includes songs with guitar accompaniment and also features Reverend Peoples and Annie Davis [4 reels, FT1339-FT1342]. Interviews with and songs by Charles Williams, a washboard player from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and Nat Reese, a guitarist and blues singer from Princeton, West Virginia, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978 [FT1493]. Recordings of an African-American church service with electric gospel music, biblical readings, chanted sermon, and congregational testimonies, recorded by Joan Fenton near Princeton, West Virginia, ca. 1975 [5 reels, FT1508-FT1512]. Interview with Elvie Johnson on topics including railroading, blues, and dancing. Johnson also plays songs with Travis style guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton in Meadow Creek, West Virginia, 1975 [FT1514].

Abstract: Jefferson Eugene Grigsby Jr., African American artist and art educator, was born in Greensboro, N.C., on 17 October 1918. Grigsby attended Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., then Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., graduating with a degree in art in 1938. During this time, he studied under the painter Hale Woodruff. From 1938 to 1939, he studied at the American Artists School in New York, where he met prominent African American artists including Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden. In 1940, Grigsby received a master’s degree from Ohio State University, and in 1963, he received a doctorate in art education from New York University. From 1946 to 1966, Grigsby served as head of the art department at Phoenix Union High School in Phoenix, Ariz., and from 1966 to 1988, he was professor of art at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. In 1943, Grigsby married Rosalyn Thomasena Marshall, with whom he had two sons. In 1958, he was one of six artists selected to represent the United States at the Brussels Universal and International Exposition, and in 1988, he was designated National Art Educator of the Year by the National Art Education Association. The collection contains papers, chiefly correspondence and related materials, pertaining to the life and work of J. Eugene Grigsby. Correspondence (which includes copies of some letters written by Grigsby) is generally of a professional nature, with some personal correspondence interspersed. It largely documents Grigsby’s career from when he lived in New York City to when he worked at Arizona State University. Letters are from artists, art professionals, and others; they discuss Grigsby’s work as an arts educator and artist; art shows he curated; his involvement with art activism groups such as COBA (Consortium of Black Organizations and Others for the Arts), which he founded in 1983; and other topics. There are also materials relating to Grigsby’s masters and doctoral work, finances, and high school art shows, as well as playbills, scripts, invitations, and other items.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Katherine Du Pre Lumpkin (1897-1988) was YWCA national student secretary, southern region, 1920-1925; research director at the Council of Industrial Studies, Smith College, 1932-1939, and at the Institute of Labor Studies, Northampton, Mass., 1940-1953; professor of sociology at Wells College, Aurora, N.Y., 1957-1967; and an author. Correspondence, writings (mainly unpublished), research materials, lecture notes and drafts, photographs, and other papers of Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin. Most of the material relates to Lumpkin’s primary research interests–race relations, criminology, labor, and southern history. Also included is material concerning Lumpkin’s work as YWCA national student secretary and her extensive involvement in community activities in Charlottesville, Va., 1967-1978, some family letters, and some genealogical material.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence, writings, research materials, lecture notes and drafts, and other papers of Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, YWCA national student secretary; research director at the Council of Industrial Studies, Smith College, and at the Institute of Labor Studies, Northampton, Massachusetts; professor of Sociology at Wells College, Aurora, New York; and author. The majority of the material relates to research interests, including race relations and southern history. Correspondence chiefly pertains to Lumpkin’s writing projects, but also includes letters relating to her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Writings include articles on the Civil Rights Movement and the Underground Railroad. A number of the lectures in Series 3 discuss race relations and segregation, including black student protest in 1963 . Microfilm available.

Abstract: William Royal, originally from New York State, was captain of Company F, 9th Colored Infantry Regiment, during the Civil War, and, after the war, a Freedmen’s Bureau (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands) agent in Georgia. Letters and other papers, 18 November 1863-6 March 1869, relating to William Royal. The letters were sent to Royal from various correspondents and mainly relate to events in the daily lives of their writers, but there is some discussion of Royal’s service in the Freedmen’s Bureau, the rising presence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the presidential election of 1868. Papers relating to Royal’s service in the United States Army consist chiefly of invoices for military supplies (shoes, uniforms, rifles, etc.) either received by the regiment or sent back to the Quartermaster.Freedmen’s Bureau papers consist mostly of circulars issued by the Bureau about providing jobs for unemployed freedmen; preserving civil order; forming a temperance society for freedmen; responding to intimidation by a “secret organization,” presumably the Ku Klux Klan; and other issues.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: This collection has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the online finding aid and to access the digital material.

Abstract: Civil War letters written home by Jonathan L. Whitaker, an Orange County, N.Y., physician serving as a United States Army surgeon at a hospital at Chester, Pa., and with the 26th U.S. Colored Troops near Beaufort, S.C.; and some family photographs. Most of the letters are addressed to Whitaker’s wife, Julia A. Wells Whitaker. They describe living conditions and physicians’ activities.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Whitaker writes to his wife on 9 Feb 1864 about hearing an African American minister preach in New York and conduct among African American soldiers. Other letters (31 March 1864, 2 May 1864) mention other African American troops and a black female cook in the camp.

On 11 April 1864, Whitaker writes a very detailed letter that spans several days, as they travel from the coast of North Carolina down to Beaufort, S.C. On 13 April (page 6), he notes that though several Union soldiers have taken over houses and other buildings abandoned by plantation owners, most of the dwellings in that area are occupied by the formerly enslaved community.

On 6 June 1864, Whitaker writes about a Dr. Uglow who struck the husband of “his woman” (presumably one of the African American women in the camp), imprisoned the man in the Guard House, and sent the woman away. Whitaker notes that the Dr. will be going to trial regarding the affair.

On 30 December 1864, Whitaker notes the arrival of several African American men and women arriving into the U.S.C.T.’s camp as “contraband”. Many, he cites, were formerly enslaved by the man on whose property the camp is currently residing on.