Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the H. M. Berry Papers #2259, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Margaret Berry Street and Robert B. Street. The papers were deposited under seal from July 1940 until April 1952, when Margaret Berry Street withdrew them in order to work on a biography of H. M. Berry. After Street's death, Robert Berry returned the papers to the Southern Historical Collection in August 1968 for unrestricted use.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Berry, H. M. (Harriet Morehead), 1877-1940.
• Credit unions--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Democratic Party (N.C.)
• Democratic Party (U.S.)
• North Carolina Credit Union Association.
• North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey--Officials and employees.
• North Carolina Good Roads Association.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1865-1950.
• Roads--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• United States--Politics and government--1919-1933.
• Women in politics--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• World War, 1914-1918--Women.

• Joseph Hyde Pratt Papers (#2169)

H. M. (Harriet Morehead) Berry (22 July 1877-24 March 1940), leader in the good roads movement in North Carolina and a civic and political activist was born in Hillsborough, N.C., the daughter of Dr. John and Mary Strayhorn Berry. Harriet M. Berry was educated at home and at the Nash-Kollock school in Hillsborough. In 1892, she entered the State Normal School (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and graduated with honors in 1897.

Berry began her long association with North Carolina's road system in February 1901. She was hired as a stenographer to Dr. Joseph Hyde Pratt, mineralogist on the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey. Berry quickly became involved with many phases of the survey's work. Under state geologist Joseph Austin Holmes, the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey had taken the lead in movements to encourage conservation and, particularly to promote the building of better roads. Working with both Pratt and Holmes, Harriet Berry assumed much of the responsibility for providing the staff work on which the survey's technical investigations and its reform activities rested. In 1904, she became secretary to the survey.

In 1906, Joseph Hyde Pratt succeeded Joseph Holmes as both state geologist and as secretary of the North Carolina Good Roads Association. Working with Pratt, Berry became increasingly involved with the good roads movement. During World War I, while Pratt was in the army, she became acting head of the survey. In 1919, she led the North Carolina Good Roads Association in an attempt to create a state highway commission with authority and to fund a state system of paved roads. Despite her efforts, the General Assembly did not enact what she considered an effective law.

From 1919 to 1921, Berry canvassed the state. She spoke in 89 of the state's 100 counties and flooded the state with news releases, letters, petitions, and circulars. Her initiative increased the membership of the North Carolina Good Roads Association from 272 to 5,500 members and built its treasury from less than $2,000 to more than $12,000. Her efforts were rewarded in 1921, when the General Assembly passed a road law that created a powerful state highway commission and committed the state to the construction of a modern highway system.

Berry left the Geological and Economic survey in 1921. A change of administration and bitter feelings from the legislative fight prompted her resignation. In 1922, she joined the staff of the Greensboro Daily News as editor of the Department of Industries and Resources. While working at the newspaper, she campaigned for better schools and for the creation of an organization to advertise North Carolina's advantages for industry, tourism, and resource development. In 1924, she became the secretary of the North Carolina Credit Union Association, which encouraged farmers to form local cooperatives, pooling their financial assets to create a fund from which members could borrow at a cost substantially below bank interest rates.

In 1925, Berry joined the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, editing the department's Market News. She then served as director of publicity for credit unions. In 1927, she became the state superintendent for credit unions, continuing in that position until poor health forced her to retire in 1937.

Berry was a lifelong Democrat, serving her party on local, state, and national levels. She was a member of the state Democratic executive committee and a delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention in 1924. She was a member of the Legislative Council of Women in World War I and was a supporter of woman suffrage. She served as head of the Chapel Hill Equal Suffrage League and at one time as vice-president of the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League.

Remembered as a delicate woman of refined tastes, she was also a person of inflexible will and a skilled political infighter. She was guided by an intellectual and moral conviction prefigured in her honors address as a college senior, "The Jingle of the Guinea." In this essay, she argued that the health of a society lay in the well-being of all its members, not in the wealth of a minority. Berry died in Chapel Hill in 1940 of heart trouble. An Episcopalian, she was buried after a graveside service in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.

(Adapted from Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume 1, pages 144-145.)

The collection includes correspondence, circulars, press releases, articles, speeches, and clippings concerning H. M. Berry's activities in the Good Roads movement in North Carolina and the promotion of state roads legislation of 1921; her work with the North Carolina Credit Union Association, 1923-1931; the Democratic Party national convention of 1924; and state and national party campaigns, 1920-1932. Also included are minutes of the North Carolina Good Roads Association, 1916-1923, and Berry's unfinished compilations of materials for a history of the movement.

• Oversize volumes (V-2259/S-2)
• Autograph (A-2259/1)
• Photographs (P-2259/1-17)