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2012 VISITING SCHOLARS GRANT PROGRAM

Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1200 award)
For projects examining African Americans or race relations in the American South

Guion Griffis Johnson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining women in the American South

John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the literary culture or traditions of the American South

J. Carlyle Sitterson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the antebellum period in the American South

Parker-Dooley Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining North Carolina’s history

Please visit our website to learn more about eligibility and application requirements…

The Southern Historical Collection is proud to preserve a large body of material that documents the lives and legacies of these four activists, including:

Charles Miles Jones Papers – The collection includes correspondence, church documents and publications, clippings, and other items reflecting Jones’s ministry and concern for civil rights. Materials generally focus on his public rather than personal life with a special emphasis on the 1952-1953 investigation of his Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church ministry. General correspondence includes letters from supporters (among them Frank Porter Graham) and detractors, commenting on the investigation, Jones’s sermons, and several well-publicized actions in support of social justice causes.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark (1 interview available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project) – In this interview, Rebecca Clark recalls living and working in segregated North Carolina. She finished her schooling in all-black schools, so the bulk of her experience with white people in a segregated context took place in the work world. There she experienced economic discrimination in a variety of forms, and despite her claims that many black people kept quiet in the face of racial discrimination at the time, she often agitated for, and won, better pay. Along with offering some information about school desegregation, this interview provides a look into the constricted economic lives of black Americans living under Jim Crow.

John K. Chapman Papers (available Fall 2011) – This collection documents Yonni Chapman’s social activism and academic achievements, and offers an account of nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in the central North Carolina region. Organizational materials, including correspondence, notes, newsletters and reports, document the activities of the Communist Workers’ Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, in Chapel Hill, N.C., Durham, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Greensboro, N.C. Workers’ rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including those of the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats.

Daniel H. Pollitt Papers (available Fall 2012) – This collection documents Dan Pollitt’s distinguished career as an attorney, professor in the University of North Carolina Law School, and civil rights activist in the American South. The collection documents Pollitt’s activities with a number of organizations, including: the National Labor Relations Board, the National Sharecroppers Fund, the NAACP, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, the Rural Advancement Fund, and other organizations. Material also covers Pollitt’s involvement with the Speaker Ban controversy at the University of North Carolina, his opposition to the death penalty in North Carolina, issues of congressional misconduct, and many other legal and ethical matters.

Oral history interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt (13 interviews, many of which are available online via DocSouth’s Oral Histories of the American South project)

Mary Farrow Credle Papers, #1853

Mary Elizabeth Farrow Credle (1881-1946) was the daughter of Wilson T. Farrow (1837-1916) and Mary Elizabeth (Respess) Farrow (1846-1905). The collection contains chiefly business papers (deeds, accounts, receipts, contracts, letters), but also personal correspondence preserved by Mary Farrow Credle from preceding generations of the Credle family, Farrow family, and Respess family in Beaufort County and Hyde County, N.C. Members of the families were engaged in coastwise shipping, maintaining ships, buying and selling lands and slaves, farming and other businesses. Included are papers of Isaiah Respess, merchant and trader, who was imprisoned alternately by the Confederate and Federal authorities during the Civil War; the Reverend Joseph B. Hinton (1788-1872), antebellum state legislator, of Beaufort County and Raleigh, N.C.; Wilson T. Farrow (1837-1916) of Ocracoke Island and Washington, N.C.; and their kin.

Louis and Mildred Graves Papers, #4010

Louis Graves (1883-1965) was a writer, journalist, and founder of the Chapel Hill (N.C.) Weekly, and married his wife, Mildred Moses Graves (1892-1976), in 1921. The collection comprises personal and professional papers of Louis Graves. Family correspondence includes letters to Louis Graves’s mother, Julia Charlotte Hooper Graves (1856-1944); his sister, Mary Graves Rees (1886-1953); and his brothers, Ralph Graves (1878-1939) and Ernest Graves (1880-1953); as well as letters to and from Mildred Graves’s father, Edward Pearson Moses (1857-1948); her brother, Herbert Moses; her nephew, Edward Kidder Graham Junior (1911-1976); and her niece, Allen Claywell Irvine. Included in the professional correspondence are letters to and from writers; newspaper editors; publishers; academic figures, chiefly at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; North Carolina political figures; and readers of the Chapel Hill Weekly.

Cotten Family Papers, #3589

Cotten family members include Robert Randolph Cotten of Pitt County, N.C., his wife, Sallie (Southall) Cotten, (1846-1929), and their children and grandchildren. The collection includes family correspondence of Robert Randolph Cotten, of his wife, Sallie (Southall) Cotten, and of their children and grandchildren. Sallie (Southall) Cotten’s papers concern women’s rights, state and national women’s organizations, women’s war work, 1916-1918, the Virginia Dare Memorial Association, and her many other interests and activities, as well as family and social matters.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.

Ella Noland MacKenzie Papers, #3667

Ella Noland MacKenzie of Glen Ora, near Leesburg, Loudon County, Virginia was the daughter of Lloyd and Elizabeth Noland. She married physician John Carrerre MacKenzie (died 1866) of Baltimore, Md. The collection contains the family and personal correspondence of Ella Noland MacKenzie. Included are letters from Ella while in school in Virginia and Baltimore, Md., 1844-1850; visiting her aunt, Sara (Hollingsworth) Gibson, wife of Dr. William Gibson (1877-1868), in Philadelphia, Pa., 1850-1851; the Nolands and other relatives in Virginia and from members of the MacKenzie family and friends in Baltimore, pertaining chiefly to plantation life, social conditions, and women’s activities, 1852-1860; scattered letters regarding difficulties experienced by the Nolands and MacKenzies in Virginia and Maryland during the Civil War, 1861-1865; letters written during Reconstruction including correspondence with relatives in Europe, 1865-1870; and scattered letters, 1870-1886. Incidents mentioned include the sale of slaves and property from an estate, 1849; a slave uprising near Glen Ora, 1856; descriptions of public sentiments toward the South in Philadelphia, 1861; the departure of one branch of the family for Europe in voluntary or involuntary exile, and the arrest of John Carrerre MacKenzie as a Confederate sympathizer, 1864.

Harriet Hardison Robson Papers, #4203

Harriett Hardison Robson (b. 1899) of Wadesboro, N.C., was married to C. J. Canaga, a United States Army officer, and from 1927-1931 they lived in Peking, China where he was assigned as a language officer and military attache. The collection consists primarily of letters from Robson to her mother written while she was living in Peking. The letters describe Peking, the military and political struggle between Nationalist and Communist forces for control of the Chinese government, Chinese customs, trips to historic sites around Peking and to northern provinces, and social activities among the foreign legations in Peking. Also included are a drawing of William Henry Donald, a few clippings, and a Christmas card. Additionally, there are 51 photographs taken in the northern provinces of China and the Hawaiian Islands.

D. H. Duryea Letters, #3595-z

D. H. Duryea was a solider in the 1st Minnesota Regiment and served with General William T. Sherman’s army during the march through Georgia and the Carolinas. The collection contains letters from D. H. Duryea to his wife at home while he was serving in the Civil War. The letters discuss troop movements, rations shortages, conditions in Decatur, Ala., and Savannah, Ga., cotton, and prisoners captured.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.

Charles Lyon Chandler Papers, #3614

Charles Lyon Chandler (b. 1883) was a United States foreign service officer, Philadelphia banker, history professor, and author. The collection contains the papers of Chandler, consisting mainly of material related to his unpublished biography of Joel Robert Poinsett (1779-1851) of South Carolina, diplomat, United States representative, United States Secretary of War, and anti-nullificationist. Also included are letters and correspondence of Chandler while he worked abroad for the United States State Department in Europe, Asia, and South America, 1906-1913, and in Latin American again in the 1940s; speeches and articles; diaries, 1904-1911; thirty-nine pocket memorandum books; and three scrapbooks on Latin American topics, 1909-1919 and 1943-1944, especially concerned with commerce between the United States and Brazil during the 19th century.

Stephen Berry Culver Diary, #3992

Stephen Berry Culver (1841-1902) of Sandy Hill, N.Y., was a graduate of Union College, carpenter, teacher, bookkeeper, active member of the Methodist Church, mining and chemical engineer, and clerk in the Naval Office, New York, N.Y., 1884-1902. The collection contains the diaries of Culver, along with the related enclosures which include clippings, genealogical notes, writings and letters. The diaries, begun when Culver was a teenager, relate chiefly to his involvement with the Methodist Church; family illnesses and deaths; national news; and local social, cultural, and political affairs, primarily related to the Sandy Hill, Schenectady, Mt. Vernon, and New York City areas of New York.

J. Bryan Grimes Papers, #1765

J. Bryan (John Bryan) Grimes (1868-1923) of Pitt County, N.C., was a conservative leader of the Farmers’ Alliance, the Grange, and other agricultural organizations; managed the family farms in Pitt County and Beaufort County; and was North Carolina secretary of state, 1900-1923. The collection includes 20th century business, personal, and official correspondence of Grimes, with the bulk of the papers concerning his service as North Carolina secretary of state and various Democratic political campaigns.

William Oscar Spears Papers, #3964

William Oscar Spears (1885-1966) of Chattanooga, Tenn., was a United States naval officer who retired as a rear admiral. The collection contains the personal and family papers of Spears, the bulk consisting of detailed letters to his wife, Blanche Snodgrass Spears, concerning his missions to Brazil, 1919-1927, and Peru, 1930-1933; and his service visits to Panama, Cuba, and other South American countries. There are many references to social activities and local political events, including references to riots and political strife in Lima, Peru, 1930-1932; and descriptions of conflict in Havana, Cuba in 1933-1934.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.

Robert Briggs Watson Diary, #3844

Robert Briggs Watson (1903-1978), native of Clemson, S.C., was a physician who specialized in malaria research, parasitology, epidemiology, and public health administration. He served as a field staff member of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1942-1966. The collection consists of typed diaries Watson kept during his service with the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. The diaries concern his activities related to malaria studies in Memphis, Tenn., 1942-1945. From 1946-1954 his work centered on East Asia, traveling to China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan (formally Formosa), the Philippines, Thailand (formally Siam), India, Sri Lanka (formally Ceylon), Macau, and Pakistan. From 1955-1962 Watson’s work shifted to Brazil and other areas in that part of the world, traveling to Chile, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Panama, and numerous other locations around the world. Entries dated 1963-1966 cover his work in St. Lucia, and he traveled to other areas as well. These entries also document Watson’s time in Chapel Hill, N.C. where he began teaching in 1966. The diaries are a record of his daily work, together with information related to traveling and living conditions, personal and family affairs, cultural and social occasions, and current events in the countries to which he was assigned.

Lafayette McLaws Papers, #472

Lafayette McLaws was a United States and Confederate Army officer, and a postmaster and collector of internal revenue in Savannah, Ga., 1885-1886. The collection includes letters and military papers of Lafayette McLaws including items related to the United States Army campaigns against the Navajos, 1858-1860, and the Civil War campaigns in which McLaws participated. Civil War actions discussed include the Peninsula Campaign and Maryland Campaign in 1862; the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863; action in Tennessee in late 1863, especially in the vicinity of Knoxville; McLaws’s court-martial in 1864 for failure to cooperate with General James Longstreet, and his exoneration; his command in Georgia and South Carolina in 1864; and actions in North Carolina in 1865.

Arthur Palmer Hudson Papers, #4026

Arthur Palmer Hudson (1892-1978) was a professor of English, 1930-1953, and executive secretary of the Curriculum in Folklore, 1950-1963, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The collection includes correspondence, editorial papers from “The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore,” and other material of Arthur Palmer Hudson. Correspondence and other papers relating to Hudson’s editorship of the “Brown Collection” form the bulk of this collection. There is also significant correspondence relating to folklife in North Carolina and to many aspects of the discipline of folklore. Among the letters are one, 1933, from Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938); one, 1933, from Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941); and one, 1945, from William Faulkner (1897-1962).

John M. Bright Papers, #1840

John Morgan Bright (1817-1911) was a lawyer, Confederate officer, and Democratic United States representative from Tennessee, of Fayetteville, Tenn. This collection contains letters, legal documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, pictures, and account books. The correspondence chiefly consists of letters received by Bright while he was in Congress (1871-1881). The letters concern politics, interests of constituents, and the business of the Committee on Claims of which he was chairman. Most letters relate to pensions and Civil War damages.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.

Edward Asbury O’Neal Papers, #2631-z

Edward Asbury O’Neal (1818-1890) was a lawyer, local secession leader, Confederate Army officer, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1875, and governor of Alabama from 1882 to 1886. The collection chiefly consists of Civil War letters among O’Neal and his two sons in the Confederate Army, and his wife at home in Florence, Ala.; postwar letters and papers relating to his law practice in Florence, Ala., and Huntsville, Ala.; and correspondence concerning his two gubernatorial campaigns and Alabama politics, with very little concerning the United States presidential election of 1876. Volumes are chiefly scrapbooks of clippings and manuscripts pertaining to O’Neal’s political career, as well as other members of the O’Neal family.

William Picard Jacocks Papers, #3130

William Picard Jacocks (1877-1965), native of Bertie County, N.C., was a physician. The collection contains correspondence, reports, articles, and other papers of Jacocks. Included are correspondence and other materials relating to his work as a public health specialist in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1914-1942, where a lot of his work focused on hookworm infections. Also included is correspondence from the years following his retirement in Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1942, dealing with family matters, genealogy, and University of North Carolina alumni affairs; his diaries, 1939-1965; papers he wrote on public health issues; clippings; photographs and drawings; and museum items.

James Morris Morgan Papers, #524

James Morris Morgan (1845-1928) was a Confederate naval officer; a soldier in Egypt, 1870-1871; a businessman in Washington, D.C.; and an author. The collection includes letters, chiefly 1900-1925, from Morgan to his daughter, niece, and nephew, containing personal news, reflections, and advice. Also included are later letters between family members in Shreveport, La., and Washington, D.C.; scattered letters received by Morgan; and a few items relating to his Confederate and Egyptian service. An 1884 letter was written while Morgan was employed in helping put up the Statue of Liberty.

Edward Brett Randolph Diary, #619-z

Edward Brett Randolph (1792-1848) was a United States Army officer in the Apalachicola River region of Florida during the 1st Seminole War. The collection is a diary, 11 January-8 May 1818, of Randolph. Entries are brief, containing little detail. Topics mentioned include Generals Edmund Pendleton Gaines and Andrew Jackson; visits to Fort Scott, Fort Gadsden, and Fort St. Marks; foraging for food; hostile and peaceful interactions with Native Americans; the capture and execution of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Armbrister, British subjects suspected of inciting Native Americans; and the massacre of Native Americans by a Georgia militia unit.

Clara Compton Raymond Reminiscences, #624-z

Clara Compton Raymond (born 1857) was a resident of the Evergreen and Flowerton plantations in Rapides Parish, La., and was educated in Stuttgart, Germany, and Geneva, Switzerland, 1865-1868. The collection is her recollections, written in the 1930s, of her life as a girl on the Evergreen and Flowerton plantations in Rapides Parish, La., and of her education in Stuttgart, Germany, and Geneva, Switzerland, 1865-1868.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.

Robert Bingham Papers, #3731-z

Robert Bingham (1838-1927) of Hillsborough, N.C., was a captain in the 44th North Carolina Regiment, Confederate States of America. The collection includes two volumes of a diary Bingham kept, 1863-1864, while he was a prisoner at Norfolk, Va., Fort Delaware, Johnson’s Island, Ohio, and Point Lookout, Md.; and a letter, 14 March 1923, from him to his granddaughter, Henrietta Bingham, describing his Civil War experiences in Virginia, his capture, and his imprisonment. The diary, marked “intended only for my wife,” records thoughts Bingham hesitated to put into letters to his wife. The diary describes prison life, including quarters, gambling, work, escape plots, sermons, food, illness, and hospitals at various prison camps. Included are descriptions of the trip from Johnson’s Island to Point Lookout; of Bingham’s work making chairs and gold and silver rings, needles, and buttons; of his exchange of books with other inmates and guards; and of rumors, including rumors of cessation of prison exchanges, return of North Carolina to the Union, and Confederate privates signing oaths of allegiance.

Sarah G. Beck Papers, #3076-z

Sarah G. Beck (fl. 1863-1865) worked with the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. The collection includes passes and letters to Beck relating to her work with the sick and wounded in the United States Army under the auspices of the United States Sanitary Commission in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. One letter is from Edwin McMasters Stanton, Secretary of War.

Berry Benson Papers, #2636

Berry Benson (1843-1923) of Hamburg, S.C., was a Confederate army soldier in the 1st South Carolina Regiment. After the war he lived at Augusta, Ga., where he was a teacher, cotton trader, author, and inventor of a remunerative bookkeeping technique. The collection contains correspondence, writings, notes, Civil War diary and reminiscences, and other papers of Benson relating to his early life, family history, and Civil War career. Writings include fiction; poetry; plays; humor; and commentary related to the Civil War, including Benson’s experiences at the battles of Fredericksburg, Mechanicsville, Cold Harbor, Bull Run, Winchester, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness; his escape from Elmira Prison; manners and mores; and other subjects. Other papers relate to Benson’s expertise in handwriting, codes, ciphers, mycology, and other matters. Also included are full diaries from 1880 and 1884 regarding his his travels in Mexico, Cuba, and Texas.

James Washington Matthews Diary, #3757-z

James Washington Matthews (1798-1880) was a farmer of Maury County, Tenn. The collection includes a copy of the diary, 1 January 1858-6 January 1869, of Matthews with entries of two to three lines per day mentioning weather, relatives, friends, farm work, attendance at church, expenditures, and other matters.

Panknin Drugstore Records, #3084

The Panknin Drugstore in Charleston, S.C., was owned and operated by Charles F. Panknin, a chemist and pharmacist. The collection includes business correspondence, prescription books, and other records of the Panknin Drugstore. Twenty volumes, 1852-1872, record prescriptions, ingredients, and purchasers. Correspondence is chiefly with suppliers and customers, although personal matters are represented. Also included are three account books of scattered dates.

John Peter Geortuer Diary, #3487-z

John Peter Geortuer (1797-1829) was an Evangelical Lutheran minister from Johnstown, N.Y. The collection includes Geortuer’s diary, 17 May-16 June 1828, containing a detailed and literary account of a sojourn in Paris, France, including descriptions of sight-seeing, visits with General Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier Lafayette and other prominent figures, French reactions to political events in America, the Lutheran Church in Paris, accommodations, and general activities; and a photograph of a painted portrait of Geortuer.

A complete list of all updated and encoded legacy finding aids can be found here.