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Collection Number: 03610

Collection Title: James Boyd Papers, 1903-1953, 1964-1969

This collection has use restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the FAQ section for more information.

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Size About 1,020 items (4.0 linear feet)
Abstract James Boyd (1888-1944) was an American author and journalist. Papers include more than 400 letters written by James Boyd to his parents in Harrisburg, Pa., and other places, beginning in 1903 and continuing through his years at Princeton University, 1907-1910, and Cambridge University, 1910-1912, and while he worked as a journalist and for the Red Cross in New York City. Also included are letters to his wife while he was overseas, 1917-1919, serving as an ambulance driver with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, and correspondence with friends, readers, other writers, and publishers about his work, especially about the novels Drums and Bitter Creek and about The Free Company, a group of American writers, producers, and broadcasters who presented radio programs on the ideas of the free world, 1940-1941. Correspondents include Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Robert Bridges, Louis Bromfield, Bernard De Voto, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Galsworthy, Frank Porter Graham, Paul Green, Sinclair Lewis, Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Maxwell Perkins, William Saroyan, Laurence Stallings, John Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe. Also included are drafts and copies of manuscripts of stories, articles, radio scripts, and poems; and clippings and pictures.
Creator Boyd, James, 1888-1944.
Language English.
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Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Restrictions to Use
Photocopying is restricted.
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 James Boyd Papers #3610, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Provenance
Received from Mrs. James Boyd in 1963-1966 and 1970, and from Nancy Boyd Sokoloff in 1977.
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.
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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.

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1888 James Boyd born in Harrisburg, Pa., on 2 July.
1910 Received undergraduate degree from Princeton.
1910-1912 At Trinity College in Cambridge.
1912 Became an English/French teacher at Harrisburg Academy.
1914-1916 Convalesced in Southern Pines, N.C., from a recurrent illness.
Fall 1916 Served on the editorial staff of Country Life in America.
1917 Married to Katharine Lamont of Millbrook, N.Y.
1917-1918 Served on the volunteer staff of the Red Cross.
June 1918-June 1919 Served as Second Lieutenant in the United States Army Ambulance Service.
1919 Settled in Southern Pines, N.C. to begin career as a writer.
1925 Drums, historical novel about the American Revolution, published.
1927 Marching On, about the Civil War, published.
1927-1928 Served as president of North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
1930 Long Hunt, about the long hunters on the trans-Appalachian frontier, published.
1935 Roll River, about a Pennsylvania farm family, published.
1939 Boyd's last novel, Bitter Creek, set in the Wyoming cattle country, published.
1938 Awarded honorary degree by the University of North Carolina.
1940 Organized and served as national chairman of the Free Company Players, a group American writers, producers, and broadcasters who presented radio programs on the ideas of the free world.
1941 Purchased and became editor of The Pilot, a nearly defunct conservative weekly newspaper, which under Boyd's leadership became a progressive regional newspaper repeatedly honored for its excellence in the North Carolina Press Association.
1944 Suffered a fatal cerebral attack while attending a seminar at Princeton University on 25 February.
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The papers include more than 400 letters written by James Boyd to his parents in Harrisburg, Pa., and other places, beginning in 1903 and continuing through his years at Princeton University, 1907-1910, and Cambridge University, 1910-1912, and while he worked as a journalist and for the Red Cross in New York, N.Y. Also included are letters to his wife while he was overseas, 1917-1919, serving as an ambulance driver with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, and correspondence with friends, readers, other writers, and publishers about his work, especially about the novels  Drums and Bitter Creek and about the Free Company, a group of American writers, producers, and broadcasters who presented radio programs on the ideas of the free world, 1940-1941. Correspondents include Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Robert Bridges, Louis Bromfield, Bernard De Voto, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Galsworthy, Frank Porter Graham, Paul Green, Sinclair Lewis, Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Maxwell Perkins, William Saroyan, Laurence Stallings, John Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe. Also included are drafts and copies of manuscripts of stories, articles, radio scripts, and poems; and clippings and pictures.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse James Boyd Papers, 1903-1952, 1964-1969.

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