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Collection Number: 03568

Collection Title: Kermit Hunter Papers (#3568) 1956-1966

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 Duplication Policy section for more information.


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Size 37 items (1.0 linear ft.)
Abstract Kermit Houston Hunter (1910-2001) was the author of 42 outdoor historical dramas. The collection includes typescripts, handwritten versions, and mimeograph copies of scripts with Hunter's handwritten annotations of Thy Kingdom Come, The Golden Land, and other plays.
Creator Hunter, Kermit.
Curatorial Unit Southern Historical Collection
Language English.
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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.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Kermit Hunter Papers #3568, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Provenance
Received from Kermit Hunter through the North Carolina Collection, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 1962 and 1964, and from R. Lee Hadden of Sterling, Va., in February 2001 (Acc. 98879).
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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This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

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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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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Kermit Houston Hunter was born on 3 October 1910 in McDowell County, W.Va. He graduated from Ohio State University in 1931. He later studied at the Juilliard School of Music. In the 1930s, Hunter worked on two newspapers, was secretary of two chambers of commerce, business manager of a professional baseball team, and organist and choir director of a Methodist church.

During five years in the United States army, beginning in 1940, Hunter rose to lieutenant colonel, became assistant chief of staff of the Caribbean Defense Command, and was awarded the Legion of Merit. After World War II he was for two years (1945-1947) the first business manager of the North Carolina Symphony Society.

Hunter began to study playwriting seriously when he enrolled in 1947 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill for graduate work under Samuel Selden, chair of the Department of Dramatic Art and director of the Carolina Playmakers. Three one-act plays by Hunter were produced by the Carolina Playmakers, and, in 1948, when the Cherokee Historical Association was seeking an author to write a play about the history of the Cherokee Indians for presentation at the Mountainside Theatre then under construction at Cherokee, N.C., Selden recommended Hunter for the commission.

Completing the play, Unto These Hills, early in 1949, Hunter offered it as his M.A. thesis and won the Joseph Feldman Playwriting Award for the same year. Also in 1949, the North Carolina Legislature appropriated $35,000 for the production of Unto These Hills, which opened the Mountainside Theatre on 1 July 1950.

Remaining at the University of North Carolina as an instructor in English while studying for a Ph.D. degree, Hunter wrote traditional drama, poetry, and fiction, as well as outdoor plays. Hunter completed the Ph.D. in 1955.

Kermit Hunter died on 11 April 2001 in Dallas, Tex.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection includes typescripts, handwritten versions, and mimeograph copies of scripts of dramatist Kermit Hunter's handwritten annotations of Thy Kingdom Come, The Golden Land, and other plays, some of them outdoor dramas.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Papers, 1956-1966.

37 items (1.0 linear ft.).

Arrangement: chronological.

The collection includes typescripts, handwritten versions, and mimeograph copies of scripts of dramatist Kermit Hunter's handwritten annotations of Thy Kingdom Come, The Golden Land, and other plays, some of them outdoor dramas.

Folder 1

Thy Kingdom Come, 1956. Story of Paul the Apostle.

Folder 2-4

Folder 2

Folder 3

Folder 4

The Golden Crucible, 1957. Pittsburgh, Pa.

Folder 5

Honey in the Rock, 1958. West Virginia.

Folder 6

The Golden Land, 1960. Dillon, S.C.

Play is written on reverse of class syllabus.

Folder 7

The Golden Prairie, 1960. Macon County, Ill.

Folder 8

The Third Frontier, 1960. New Bern, N.C.

Folder 9

Bound for Kentucky, 1961. Louisville, Ky.

Folder 10-11

Folder 10

Folder 11

Next Day in the Morning , 1961. Jacksonville, Fla.

Folder 12

Thunder on the River, 1961. Peoria, Ill.

Folder 13

Wings of the Morning, 1961. Louisville, Ky.

Folder 14

Years of Glory, 1961. Peoria, Ill.

Folder 15-16

Folder 15

Folder 16

Stars in My Crown, 1962. West Kentucky.

Folder 17-18

Folder 17

Folder 18

That Untravelled World, 1965.

Folder 19

Trail of Tears, 1966.

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