Creator: Connor, R. D. W. (Robert Digges Wimberly), 1878-1950.
Collection number: 2427
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Abstract: Educator, historian, secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission, University of North Carolina professor, first archivist of the United States, and author of numerous books and articles on North Carolina history. The R. D. W. Connor papers document most aspects of Connor’s career. The papers include correspondence and reminiscences relating to his involvement with the National Archives, the North Carolina Historical Commission, and the North Carolina Department of Archives and History; speeches and writings; materials from various organizations with which he was connected, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; papers gathered for a documentary history of the University of North Carolina on the occasion of the 1945 sesquicentennial celebration; and clippings, invitations, programs, and other personal items. There is also information concerning the Connor family, especially in correspondence between Connor and his father, Henry Groves Connor, and two brothers, George Whitfield and Henry Groves Connor, Jr.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Correspondence discusses race relations, including Connor’s letter of 23 March 1927 suggesting that people at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were not ready to accept a black guest professor. In a letter of 10 March 1924, Connor explained the extent of the “Lily White” movement in the North Carolina Republican party to a fellow professor in California. Letters of July and September 1944, discussed the controversy of Charles Jones, a Presbyterian minister, inviting black band members to a campus youth picnic. Another controversy arose in the history department over conflicts in personality and revisionist teaching of Reconstruction(see letters of August, September, 1946; April 1947).