Hobbs and Mendenhall family papers, 1787-1949.

Creator: Hobbs and Mendenhall family.
Collection number: 2493
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Abstract: Members of the Mendenhall and Hobbs families of Guilford County, N.C., included Lewis Lyndon Hobbs (1849-1932), educator and writer, active Quaker, and president of Guilford College; his wife, Mary (Mendenhall) Hobbs (1852-1930), active in promoting women’s education, pacifism, and Quaker philosophy; and Mary’s father, Nereus Mendenhall (1819-1893), devout Quaker, physician, teacher at New Garden School (Greensboro, N.C.), and legislator active in the construction of the state asylum at Morganton in the 1870s and other reforms. Family and personal letters, chiefly from 1870, concerning the political and religious activities, travels, and careers of members of the Mendenhall and Hobbs families of Guilford County, N.C. The papers reflect the Quaker view of life and relate to several reform movements. Included are Nereus Mendenhall’s treatise on pregnancy and childbirth and letters, 1914-1919, from Richard Hobbs, son of Lewis and Mary, written while he was in France serving with a Quaker relief organization. Volumes, 1797-1923, include students’ notebooks, particularly of Lewis L. Hobbs at Haverford College, 1870s; accounts; scrapbooks; diaries of Nereus Mendenhall, 1851, and L. L. Hobbs during a tour of England, 1890-1891; religious notebooks; and notes by Hobbs of his activities and his college experience, both as a student and as college president.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Included are letters regarding the Mendenhall’s aid to North Carolina slaves attempting to escape to a free state in 1864 (Folder 3) and North Carolina state appropriations for schools for free people of colorĀ  in 1891 (Folder 6).