Restrictions to Access

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.

Acquisitions Information

Received from J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton in July 1950 with additions from Hamilton in November 1955, March 1956, September 1956, March 1960, and August 1961; from the Southern Historical Collection in 1998 (Acc. 98012); and from University Archives in September 1999 (Acc. 98441).

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.

• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• College teachers--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Connor, R. D. W. (Robert Digges Wimberly), 1878-1950.
• Coulter, E. Merton (Ellis Merton), 1890-1981.
• Dabney, Charles William, 1855-1945.
• Diaries (Blankbooks)
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Generals--Confederate States of America.
• Hamilton, Joseph Gregoire de Roulhac, 1878-1961.
• Historians--North Carolina--History.
• Newsome, Albert Ray, 1894-1951.
• North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Scrapbooks--North Carolina.
• Shepherd, David A. (David Alexander)
• Sprunt, James, 1846-1924.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Faculty--History--20th century.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Dept. of History.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
• Wilson, Louis Round, 1876-1979.

Joesph Gregoire de Roulhac Hamilton, son of Daniel Heyward and Frances Gray Roulhac Hamilton, was born in Hillsborough, N.C., on 6 August 1878 and died in Chapel Hill, N.C., on 10 November 1961. He attended the Sewanee Academy in Tennessee and received his Masters degree from the University of South in 1900. He next attended Columbia University where he studied under William Archibald Dunning and received his Ph.D. in 1906.

Hamilton began his teaching career as an instructor at the Horner Military School in Oxford, N.C., in 1901. He served as principal of the Wilmington, N.C., High School from 1904 to 1906. In 1906, he was appointed associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In 1908, Hamilton became Alumni Professor and Chair of the History Department, and later Kenan Professor of History and Government in 1920. He resigned as chair of History Department in 1930, but continued to teach until 1936, after which he devoted full time to the Southern Historical Collection (SHC).

During World War I, Hamilton was Director for the War Issues Course, Fourth District, S.A.T.C., 1918; Lecturer, Citizenship Unit, Army Educational Corps, A.E.F., 1919; and Consultant in General Education to the War Plans Division, U.S. General Staff, 1920-1922.

Hamilton wrote more than a hundred articles and sketches for leading historical journals and reviews. He authored Reconstruction in North Carolina (1914), Party Politics in North Carolina,1835-1860 (1916), and North Carolina Since 1860 (1919), among other book-length publications. He was active in and held office for a number professional associations, including the American Historical Association, the Historical Manuscripts Commission, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, and the Historical Society of North Carolina.

Hamilton is probably best known as the founder of the Southern Historical Collection, which opened for research in January 1930. Hamilton's vision, as outlined in a 1928 meeting of the North Carolina Historical Society, was to create a repository for the preservation and study of the history of the American South. Partially relieved of his teaching duties to pursue this goal, Hamilton searched the South for documentation to bring back to Chapel Hill. His efforts to build the collection earned him the nickname "Ransack," but also helped make the University of North Carolina the pre-eminent center for Southern studies. By Hamilton's retirement in 1948, the SHC contained more than two million manuscripts documenting the history of the American South.

The collection consists of of J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton's personal, family, and professional correspondence (except for his correspondence as chair of the History Department at the University of North Carolina and director of the Southern Historical Collection, which are held by the University Archives), 1885-1961; Hamilton's diaries, 1919, from when he served in the Army Educational Corps in France, and 1935-1949, which chiefly recount his extensive collecting trips around the South and his working and social life in Chapel Hill; nine scrapbooks, 1900-1961, on Hamilton, his academic and professional career, with some material relating to his military service during and after World War I and to the Southern Historical Collection; miscellaneous writings by Hamilton, many unpublished; and notes on Confederate generals. Frequent correspondents include James Sprunt; R.D.W. Connor, historian and from 1934 the first Archivist of the United States; Louis Round Wilson; historian E. Merton Coulter; David A. Shepherd, a fellow alumnus of the University of the South; A.R. Newsome; and Charles W. Dabney.