Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION
#4840
ALBERT EARLE GARRETT, JR., PAPERS
Inventory
Abstract: Albert Earle Garrett, Jr. (1909-1998), a
graduate of the University of North Carolina Law
School, practiced law in Danville, Va. In his student
days, he met Swain Wu, a Chinese citizen (then called
Swain Wool) pursuing an education at the College of
William and Mary and at Columbia University. After his
return to China, Wu became an educator, businessman,
and government official. In 1957, Wu left mainland
China and moved to Hong Kong; in 1963, he immigrated
to the United States.
Correspondence between Swain Wu and Albert
Earle Garrett, Jr., 1926-and 1973; photographs of Wu
and his family; and a North Carolina Public School
Register, ca. 1900s. Most of the letters are from Wu
to Garrett. Letters, 1926-1931, concern Wu’s studies
and his social life as a student in the United States.
Letters, 1931-1941, written after Wu’s return to
China, discuss both personal matters, such as Wu’s
search for a wife, and events of international
concern, most notably Japan’s invasion of China.
Letters written while Wu was teaching at Ginling
College in Nanking focus on Japan’s attacks on
Manchuria and Shanghai, as well as Wu’s students and
other faculty. Some of these letters discuss Charles
Lindbergh's visit to the campus. After he moved to
Shanghai, where he taught part-time at the Shanghai
University Business School and worked successively for
Realty Investment Co. and the National City Bank of
New York, Wu wrote about details of his work, the
situation with Japan, economic conditions, and his
romantic life. Letters from Peking in 1940 and 1941,
after Wu had married and was working for the
government and teaching at Yenching University, focus
on the situation with Japan and the need for aid from
the United States. Letters, 1959-1963, focus on Wu’s
desire to immigrate to the United States and Garrett’s
assistance in this effort. Letters after 1963 are
mainly short social letters. The North Carolina Public
School Register belonged to Garrett’s father, Albert
Earle Garrett, Sr. (b. 1882), who taught in 1902 and
in 1908.
Online Catalog Terms:
Banks and banking--China--Shanghai.
China--History--1928-1937.
China--History--1937-1945.
China--History--1949- .
Chinese--United States--History--20th century.
Chinese Americans--New York (N.Y.)--Social life and customs--20th century.
College teachers--China--History--20th century.
Courtship--China.
Garrett, Albert Earle, 1909-1998.
Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974.
Refugees, Chinese--Personal narratives.
Schools--North Carolina--Records and correspondence.
Shanghai (China)--History--Japanese Invasion, 1932.
United States--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.
Wool, Swain.
World War, 1939-1945--China.
Wu, Swain.
Size: About 100 items (0.5 linear feet).
Date Span: 1926-1973, 1998.
Processing Note: Items separated: P-4840.
Provenance: Received from Clara Garrett Fountain of Danville,
Va., in October 1996 (Acc. 96143), July 1998 (Acc.
98161), and August 1998 (Acc. 98180).
Access: No restrictions.
Copyright: Retained by the authors of items in these papers,
or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Table of Contents:
Biographical Note
Series Descriptions
Series 1. Correspondence
Series 2. School Register
Series 3. Photographs
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Albert Earle Garrett, Jr., son of Mattie Sue Webb Blackwell
and Albert Earle Garrett, Sr., was born in 1909. Albert Earle
Garrett, Sr., was born in Rockingham County, N.C., and attended
the University of North Carolina in 1905. He operated tobacco
warehouses in North Carolina and Virginia. Albert Earle Garrett,
Jr., was graduated from the College of William and Mary and then
earned his J.D. degree from the University of North Carolina in
Chapel Hill in 1933. After graduation, Garrett returned to his
hometown of Danville, Va., and opened his own law office. His
firm, Garrett, Garrett & Smith, eventually included his son
Albert III, who received his A.B. from the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1956.
Albert Earle Garrett, Jr., died in 1998.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1. Correspondence
1926-1973, 1998. About 100 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Chiefly letters from Swain Wu to Alfred Earle Garrett, Jr.,
with one letter to Garrett from Koo Lih Teh, and one from Lucy Wu
to Evelyn Garrett. Some photographs are attached to letters with
which they were enclosed. Swain Wu used the name Swain Wool when
he was a student at William and Mary and at Columbia. Sometime
after his return to China, he began writing Woo and then Wu. He
returned to the United States in 1963 as Swain Wu.
The earliest letter in the collection is from Wu at the
College of William and Mary during the Christmas holiday to
Garrett at home in Danville, Va. The next letters are from Wu
when he was working in Suffolk, Va., in the summer of 1929 to
Garrett at school in Williamsburg, Va. Letters from the fall of
1929 describe Wu’s work in New York City and study at Columbia
University. Letters from the spring of 1930 discuss Wu’s studies
and social life at William and Mary.
In the early 1930s, Wu’s letters focus on his personal life.
The 1931 letters were written when Wu was on his way to China and
after he arrived there. One was written soon after his arrival
and another later in the year when he was teaching economics at
Ginling College in Nanking. He described his students, other
teachers, Charles Lindbergh’s visit to the school, and the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The 1932 letters give an account
of Japan’s attack on Shanghai, where Wu was vacationing in
January. Later in the year, Wu described his starting to work in
the accounting department of Realty Investment Co. in Shanghai.
He also discussed the currency exchange rate. In 1933, Wu’s
letters mention his part-time teaching at the Shanghai University
Business School and his move from Realty Investment to the
Shanghai office of National City Bank of New York. There is
discussion of the exchange rate and of Wu’s belief in women’s
profligacy. He congratulated Garrett on receiving his law degree
and consoled him on the death of his brother Tom. Wu discussed
some of the demands of his job in his 1934 letter and his breakup
with a potential fiancee. In 1935, Wu congratulated Garrett on
his wife’s pregnancy and intimated that he planned to leave his
job because it did not pay enough to support a wife.
There are fewer letters from the latter half of the decade.
These letters are more focused on the political situation in
China. In the first letter of 1936, Wu ruminated on the
likelihood of war with Japan. He described conflict as
increasingly likely due to a report of the assassination of
conservative Japanese leaders, leaving young radical army
elements in control of the Japanese government. Chinese national
unity in the face of the war is the theme of 1937’s
correspondence. Wu also alluded to China’s need for airplanes and
supplies from the United States and Great Britain. In 1938, Wu
discussed the spirit of the Chinese people and his hope that the
United States would keep gasoline, scrap iron, and bombs from
reaching Japan. Chinese morale was again a theme in 1939, along
with the currency exchange rate, the cost of living, and Wu’s
approval of the abrogation by the United States of a 1911 trade
agreement with Japan.
Letters of 1940 and 1941 are mostly about Wu’s engagement and
marriage. In 1940, Wu announced his engagement and his plans to
move to Peking. He also described China’s need for money,
ammunition, and medical supplies. In 1941, Wu announced his
marriage and move to Peking, where he worked for the government
and taught at Yenching University. He also discussed the high
cost of living.
Letters from Wu to Garrett in 1946 report family news, news of
Wu’s activities during the war, and his plans for the future. In
these and in a letter written in 1948, Wu expressed his wish to
leave China and live in the United States.
A 1948 letter from Koo Lih Teh, who described himself as
Garrett’s adopted son, wishes him a merry Christmas.
When Wu re-established contact with Garrett in 1959, he
described traveling from Peking to Macao as a refugee in 1957,
leaving behind all his household goods and money. Wu described
the impossibility of living on the salary he earned teaching at
the Y.M.C.A. College of Hong Kong and asked for Garrett’s help in
finding a job in the United States so that he could move his
family from Macao to the United States. Correspondence, 1959-
1962, focuses on Wu’s efforts to move to the United States and
Garrett’s assistance in that endeavor. Nearly all of the letters
after 1962 are from Wu to Garrett, describing his family’s new
life and work in New York City.
The last letter in the collection is a condolence letter,
1998, from Lucy Wu, widow of Swain Wu, to Evelyn Garrett on the
death of Albert Earle Garrett.
A few undated Christmas cards from Wu to Garrett are also
included in the the correspondence.
Folder 1 1926, 1928
2 1929
3 1930
4 1931
5 1932-1935
6 1936-1939
7 1940-1941
8 1946, 1948
9 1959-1962
10 1963-1965
11 1966-1973, 1998
12 Undated
Series 2. School Register
Undated. 1 item.
A North Carolina Public School Register filled with song
lyrics, written in the hand of Albert Earle Garrett, Sr. (b.
1882). There is no date or school name associated with the
notebook, but Clara Garrett Fountain, granddaughter of Albert
Earle Garrett, Sr., believes that the register lists children at
the school at Sylvania, N.C., 10 miles west of Sharp’s Institute,
where Garrett, Sr., was the only teacher in 1902, or at New
Bethel Academy in 1908 where he taught for one school session.
Folder 13 North Carolina Public School Register
Series 3. Photographs
1946, 1959, and undated. 5 items.
A signed photograph of Swain Wu as a young man, undated; a
photograph of Wu taken in Macao in 1958; a photograph of Wu with
his wife and daughter, 20 December 1946; a photograph of Wu with
his wife, daughter, and son, taken in Macao, 1 August 1959; and a
photograph of Wu’s son Jimmy at age 6, taken in Peking.
Folder P-4840