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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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Collection Overview
| Size | 6.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 4,000 items) |
| Abstract | Publisher of the Raleigh, N.C., News and Observer; civic leader in Raleigh, N.C.; son of Adelaide Worth Bagley and Josephus Daniels, founder of the News and Observer, secretary of the Navy, and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Correspondence, reference material, financial and legal Papers, clippings, pictures, and other material documenting the business, civic, and personal life of Frank Arthur Daniels and the experience of his father, Josephus Daniels, as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Most of the material about Frank Daniels dates from the early 1970s and relates to his business and civic activities. The operation of the News and Observer, the activities of the News and Observer Foundation, and Daniels's service on the Rex Hospital board of trustees are among the most important topics. The material that relates to Josephus Daniels's service as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico consists primarily of letter-diaries that he sent to his family. These missives report on social activities of the diplomatic corps and describe people and places in Mexico, but only occasionally refer to Daniels's official duties as ambassador. |
| Creator | Daniels, Frank Arthur, 1904-1986. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Subject Headings
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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Biographical Information
The fourth son of Adelaide Worth Bagley and Josephus Daniels was born 8 June 1904 and was named for his father's older brother, Frank Arthur Daniels. Josephus Daniels was editor of the Raleigh News and Observer; secretary of the Navy, 1913-1921; and United States Ambassador to Mexico, 1933-1941.
Frank Daniels received an A.B. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1927. He married Ruth Aunspaugh on 20 November 1929. They had two children: Frank Arthur Daniels, Jr., born 7 September 1931, and Patricia (Patsy) Bagley Daniels (Mrs. Robert M. Woronoff), born 21 July 1933.
Frank Daniels made his career with the News and Observer, beginning in the pressroom. According to the News and Observer of 6 May 1986, Daniels was made treasurer in 1937, general manager in 1942, president in 1956, publisher in 1966, and chairman of the board in 1970. (Note: Who's Who in the South and Southwest, 1969-1970, gives a different set of dates: treasurer, 1932-1956; general manager, 1942- ; president, 1956-; publisher, News and Observer and Raleigh Times.) He was active in professional organizations, serving as a member of the board of directors of the Associated Press; president of the North Carolina Publishers Association, 1948-1949; president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, 1951; a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 1955-1964; and treasurer of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 1963-1964.
In addition to his business activities, Daniels was involved in many civic activities. He was a member of the board of trustees of Rex Hospital in Raleigh from 1937 until 1968 and was chairman for the last eighteen of those years. He was president of the Raleigh Community Chest and chairman of the group that organized the United Fund in Raleigh. From 1948 to 1956, Daniels was chairman of the North Carolina Board of Public Welfare. From 1956 to 1957, he was a member of the North Carolina Tax Study Commission. He was also a trustee of the consolidated University of North Carolina and a member of the executive committee of the Research Triangle Institute.
Frank Daniels died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on 5 May 1986.
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Scope and Content
This collection contains correspondence, reference material, financial and legal Papers, clippings, pictures, and other material that document the business, civic, and personal life of Frank Arthur Daniels and the experience of his father, Josephus Daniels, as United States Ambassador to Mexico. Most of the material about Frank Daniels dates from the early 1970s and has to do with his business and civic activities. The operation of the News and Observer, the activities of the News and Observer Foundation, and Daniels's service on the Rex Hospital Board of Trustees are among the most important topics. This material is filed mainly in Series 2.
The material that relates to Josephus Daniels's service as United States Ambassador to Mexico consists primarily of "letter-diaries" that he sent to his family. These missives describe people and places in Mexico, but only occasionally refer to Daniels's work as ambassador. Most of this material is in Series 1. Almost all of the material in Subseries 4.1 concerns Josephus Daniels.
The file titles and order established by Frank Daniels were retained in the subject files in Series 2. The remainder of the material was loose when received at the Southern Historical Collection
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Correspondence, 1894-1985.
Arrangement: chronological.
Chiefly letters of Josephus Daniels and Adelaide Worth (Bagley) Daniels to their son Frank and to Frank's wife and children. There is also some other Daniels family correspondence. Most of the correspondence dates from the years 1933-1941 when Josephus Daniels was United States Ambassador to Mexico. These letters were in envelopes when received at the Southern Historical Collection and were arranged in chronological order during processing. There is also correspondence in Series 2; that correspondence remains in the files in which Frank Daniels placed it.
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Subseries 1894-1932.
A few letters from the years before Josephus Daniels went to Mexico City as ambassador. The earliest is a copy of a letter Josephus sent in 1894 to 100 Democrats asking each to invest $100 in the News and Observer. Letters in 1916 and 1917 from Josephus and Addie to their 12- and 13-year-old son, Frank, give advice on behavior, family news, and family plans. Three letters from 1919 describe Josephus and Addie's trip to Paris and Rome. There is a 1931 letter from A. Mitchell Palmer to Josephus asking for an autographed letter to put in his copy of Daniels's Life of Wilson. Also in that year, there are letters about an eastern park-to-park highway. In 1932, letters from Addie to her sons in Raleigh describe their father's condition after an accident in Atlanta.
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Subseries 1933-1941.
Mostly letters from Josephus Daniels to his son Frank, with some letters from Josephus to Frank's wife, Ruth Aunspaugh Daniels, and to Frank's children, Frank, Jr., and Patricia, and letters from Addie Worth Daniels to Frank's family. Some letters are addressed to "Dear Boys" or "Dear Children" and were apparently intended for all three of the Daniels's sons who lived in Raleigh--Josephus, Jr., Jonathan, and Frank--and sometimes for their families as well.
Much of the correspondence consists of carbon copies of typed "diary-letters" that Josephus Daniels wrote while in Mexico and sent to his family about once a week. (Note: the originals of these diary-letters may be in the Josephus Daniels Papers in the Library of Congress.) The diary described for his family the people and places Josephus encountered in Mexico. Only occasionally did it tell anything about his work as ambassador. The diary did reflect Josephus's interest in understanding the Mexican Revolution, in Mexican feeling toward the United States, in the church-state controversy in Mexico, in education, and in agrarian reform.
In the diary entries he sent to his children, Josephus always described the Daniels's social engagements in Mexico City--luncheons, dinners, and teas given and attended. He mentioned many of their better known guests, but seldom told anything of substance about them. He also described the Daniels's visits to other parts of Mexico--to Cuernavaca, Oaxaca, Nogales, Mazatlan, Veracruz, Cozumel, and other places.
Josephus referred to his duties as ambassador only on rare occasions. In August 1933, he reported that he had succeeded in reorganizing the American Embassy, Consulate, and Commercial Attache into one agency. In October 1933 and April 1934, he remarked that negotiating a settlement of American claims arising from the Mexican Revolution took a great deal of his time. On 17 August 1934, he sent a letter describing President Rodriguez of Mexico to President Roosevelt. On 26 October 1934, he sent Roosevelt another letter explaining the church-state controversy in Mexico. He sent copies of these letters to his children with his diaries. Throughout 1938, 1939, and 1940, Josephus wrote in his diary about the difficulty of settling the oil problem and the Mexican expropriation of land owned by American oil companies.
Throughout his tenure in Mexico, but especially in the early years, Josephus pursued an understanding of the Mexican Revolution and the reforms that flowed from it. He reported many conversations in which he questioned people who had been involved in the Revolution about their motives and about what had really happened in the Revolution. He was also interested in learning how Mexicans felt about Woodrow Wilson's policy toward Mexico. As he travelled in Mexico, he reported on the social and economic changes that had come to Mexico since the Revolution. He was especially interested in relations between church and state, in education, and in agrarian reform.
Most of the letters that Josephus wrote in addition to the diary were short and concerned personal matters or the business of the News and Observer. In these letters, Josephus sometimes commented on North Carolina politics and, in 1936, speculated on the possibility that he might run for the United States Senate that year. Occasionally he sent news items about himself or Mrs. Daniels or copies of his correspondence with Franklin Roosevelt. There are also letters from Addie Daniels to Frank and his family.
Also included are letters written by Frank Daniels in the summer of 1935 to his wife Ruth while she and their children were at St. Simon's Island, Georgia, during a polio epidemic in Raleigh. Frank also wrote to Ruth in the summer of 1937 when she and the children were at Lake Junaluska with his mother, Addie Daniels.
| Folder 6-15 |
1933 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 6-15Folder 6Folder 7Folder 8Folder 9Folder 10Folder 11Folder 12Folder 13Folder 14Folder 15 |
| Folder 16-28 |
1934 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 16-28Folder 16Folder 17Folder 18Folder 19Folder 20Folder 21Folder 22Folder 23Folder 24Folder 25Folder 26Folder 27Folder 28 |
| Folder 29-38 |
1935 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 29-38Folder 29Folder 30Folder 31Folder 32Folder 33Folder 34Folder 35Folder 36Folder 37Folder 38 |
| Folder 39-52 |
1936 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 39-52Folder 39Folder 40Folder 41Folder 42Folder 43Folder 44Folder 45Folder 46Folder 47Folder 48Folder 49Folder 50Folder 51Folder 52 |
| Folder 53-62 |
1937 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 53-62Folder 53Folder 54Folder 55Folder 56Folder 57Folder 58Folder 59Folder 60Folder 61Folder 62 |
| Folder 63-72 |
1938 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 63-72Folder 63Folder 64Folder 65Folder 66Folder 67Folder 68Folder 69Folder 70Folder 71Folder 72 |
| Folder 73-80 |
1939 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 73-80Folder 73Folder 74Folder 75Folder 76Folder 77Folder 78Folder 79Folder 80 |
| Folder 81-89 |
1940 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 81-89Folder 81Folder 82Folder 83Folder 84Folder 85Folder 86Folder 87Folder 88Folder 89 |
| Folder 90-98 |
1941 #04481, Subseries: "1933-1941." Folder 90-98Folder 90Folder 91Folder 92Folder 93Folder 94Folder 95Folder 96Folder 97Folder 98 |
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Subseries 1942-1985 and undated.
Scattered family letters after Josephus and Addie Daniels returned to Raleigh from Mexico. There are letters of sympathy on Addie's death in December 1943 and a letter from Josephus to Frank in 1944 about the christening of the ship Addie Bagley Daniels.
The letters in the 1950s, in 1970, and in 1985 are letters of the Frank Daniels family, including a group of letters to Ruth and Frank Daniels when they were on a trip to Europe and a group of letters of sympathy to Frank after Ruth's death in 1985.
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Series 2. Subject Files, 1958-1976.
Arrangement: alphabetical by file title, then roughly chronological.
Correspondence and reference materials concerning Frank Daniels's business and civic activities. The majority of this material dates from the early 1970s. Some of it pertains to the operation of the News and Observer; more relates to Daniels' contributions to charities and civic organizations, his service on the boards of directors of local businesses and organizations, and the operation of the Josephus Daniels Charitable Foundation (later the News and Observer Foundation). Family and business correspondence with his brothers, Jonathan and Worth Daniels, is filed under "Daniels, Frank." Within each subject, material is arranged roughly in chronological order. These files were established and titled by Frank Daniels.
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Series 3. Financial and Legal Papers, 1926-1946 and undated.
Arrangement: chronological.
Financial and legal papers of Frank Arthur Daniels and the Daniels family. Items include tax bills and receipts, cancelled checks for taxes and charitable contributions, and other bills and papers. Of particular interest are the Articles of Incorporation of the News and Observer Publishing Company (1926) and a copy of Josephus Daniels's will (1946).
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Series 4. Other Papers.
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Subseries 4.1. Clippings, 1926-1979 and undated.
Arrangement: chronological.
News clippings about members of the Daniels family and their activities. Most of the clippings concern Josephus Daniels, especially his appointment as United States Ambassador to Mexico in March 1933 and his arrival in Mexico in April 1933.
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Subseries 4.2. Miscellaneous Papers, 1929-1965 and undated.
Arrangement: alphabetical by file title.
Invitations, programs, speeches, mementoes and other miscellaneous papers.
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Series 5. Pictures, 1880s-1960s.
Mostly black and white pictures of members of the Josephus Daniels family.
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Items Separated
Processed by: Linda Sellars, August 1987; Revised by: Suzanne Ruffing, March 1996
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
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