Inventory of the Lawrence D. Kessler Collection, 1820-1989

Collection Number 5098

Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

Manuscripts Department

CB#3926, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-1345

Fax: 919/962-3594

Email: mss@email.unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Processed by

Matthew Turi

Date Processed

May 2003

Encoded by

Matthew Turi

Date Encoded

May 2003

Revisions

Updated in July 2007 by Margaret Dickson

Descriptive Summary

Repository

Southern Historical Collection

Creator

Kessler, Lawrence D.

Title

Lawrence D. Kessler Collection, 1820-1989

Call Number

5098

Extent

About 4675 items (19.0 linear feet)

Language

English.

Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access

No restrictions.

Provenance

Received from Lawrence Kessler of Chapel Hill, N.C., in July 2002 (Acc. 99289) and December 2006 (Acc. 100559).

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Lawrence Kessler Collection #5098, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

Asia--Description and travel.

Asia Society.

Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History.

Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Social life and customs.

Chapel Hill Peace Center (N.C.)

China--Photographs.

Christian education--Japan.

Education--Japan--History.

Japan--Photographs.

Kessler, Lawrence D.

Marvell family.

Marvell, George Ralph, 1869-1941.

Methodist Episcopal Church, South--Clergy.

Methodist Episcopal Church, South--Missions--Japan.

Missionaries--Japan--Correspondence.

New University Conference (U.S.). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Newton family.

Newton, John C. Calhoun, 1849-1931.

North Carolina--Relations--China.

North Carolina China Council.

North Carolina Legal Defense Fund.

Political activists--North Carolina--Chapel Hill.

Submarine warfare--History--World War, 1914-1918.

Underwood, Emory Marvin, 1877-1960.

Underwood family.

Underwood, Ruth Elizabeth Newton, fl. 1888-1957.

United States Naval Academy--Students.

United States. Navy--Officers--Correspondence.

United States. Navy--Sea life.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Faculty--History--20th century.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Faculty--Political activity.

World War, 1914-1918--Naval operations, American.

Wynkoop family.

Biographical Note

Lawrence Kessler, professor emeritus of Chinese history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, assembled and donated the various papers that comprise this collection. In keeping with his formal academic interests, he was one of the founders and the long-time director of the North Carolina China Council. Kessler was also actively involved with a number of political organizations, including the North Carolina Legal Defense Fund and the Chapel Hill chapter of the New University Conference.

George Ralph Marvell, an officer in the United States Navy, was born in Fall River, Mass., in 1869. His parents were Edward Tracy and Anna Congdon Wilbur Marvell. In 1889, Marvell graduated from the Naval Academy and three years later, in 1892, he married Anna Nippes Wynkoop. Their only child, George, who also graduated from the Naval Academy and served as an officer until he was forced to retire for medical reasons in 1935, was born in 1899. George Ralph Marvell's career was a successful one, and he was eventually promoted to rear admiral. He retired in 1933 and died in 1941. While in the Navy, Marvell served in the following postings:

1885-1889	Midshipman at the United States Naval Academy
1889-1890	Served aboard the U.S.S. Pensacola during an expedition to Cape Ledo, Angola, and west Africa to view a total eclipse
1894	Patrol duty in the Bering Sea
1898	Served aboard the U.S.S. Vicksburg during the Spanish-American War
1899	Part of a team surveying the bay at Santiago, Cuba
1906-1908	In command of the team conducting a survey of Cuba and Haiti while serving as navigator on the U.S.S. Eagle
1909-1912	Chair of the Department of Navigation at the United States Naval Academy
1912-1913	Commanded the U.S.S. Monterey and then the U.S.S. Helena in China
1915	Assigned to the Navy Department's Bureau of Ordnance
1917-1919	Commanded the U.S.S.Louisiana and engaged in troop transport and convoy duty with the Atlantic Fleet during World War I
1919-1921	Inspector of Ordnance at the Naval Ordnance Plant, South Charleston, W.Va.
1921-1922	Commanded the U.S.S. Arizona
1922-1924	Commandant of the 16th Naval District, the Philippine Islands
1924-1925	Commanded the Fleet Base Force in the Pacific
1926-1927	Naval War College
1927-1930	Commandant of the 14th Naval District, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
1930-1931	Commanded Light Cruiser Division Five
1932-1933	Chair of the United States Navy General Board
1933	Retired from active service as a Rear Admiral

The North Carolina China Council, a regional affiliate of the Asia Society, was established in 1977 and remained active until at least 1989. Locally sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Duke University, the Council was a non-partisan and non-profit educational entity designed to promote a broader awareness among North Carolinians of Chinese culture, history, and recent events as well as to foster better Chinese-American relations. As a part of its public education efforts, the Council sponsored a number of local conferences devoted to topics such as China's One-Child policy, United States-China trade, and the process of scholarly exchange. The Council also carried out an extensive investigation of North Carolina's ties with China that culminated in the creation of an exhibit called North Carolina's China Connections. This multi-media presentation was exhibited at numerous venues throughout the state.

Ruth Elizabeth Newton (fl. 1888-1957), the sole surviving daughter of John C. Calhoun Newton (1849-1931) and Letty Lay Newton (1848-1924?) spent her early childhood in Kobe, Japan, where her father, a minister, taught theology and ethics at the Kwansei Gakuin, a secondary school run by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In the mid-1890s, Ruth Newton and her mother returned to the United States so that she could complete her education. In 1898, she graduated from the Nashville College for Young Ladies and shortly thereafter assumed a teaching post at the Littleton Female College, Littleton, N.C. In 1905, she married Emory Marvin Underwood (1877-1960), a graduate of Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1900, LL.B., 1902), an attorney in Atlanta, Ga. In addition to having a private law practice, Underwood served in the following positions:

1914-1917	Assistant Attorney General of the United States
1917-1919	General Counsel of the Seaboard Air Line Company
1919-1920	General Solicitor of the United States Railroad Administration
1931-1948	United States District Court Judge, Northern District of Georgia

Both Ruth Newton and Marvin Underwood were involved in social reform and relief efforts. She chaired the Southern Conference on Women and Children in Industry, and he was a board member of Herbert Hoover's European Relief Drive and the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. They had two children.

Collection Overview

The Lawrence D. Kessler Collection contains four discrete collections: the George Ralph Marvell papers, the North Carolina China Council papers, the Lawrence D. Kessler papers, and the Newton and Underwood family papers.

George Ralph Marvell papers contain personal correspondence, financial and legal papers, photographs, and other materials, including school papers, newspaper clippings, a passport, and Masonic documents of George Ralph Marvell (1869-1941), a United States Navy officer; his wife, Anna Nippes Wynkoop Marvell; and their son, George Marvell, who served as an officer in the Navy. Correspondence begins with Marvell's entrance into the United States Naval Academy in 1885 and continues until his death in 1941. Major correspondents were his parents, Edward Tracy Marvell and Anna Congdon Marvell; siblings, Mary Marvell, M. D. Marvell, and Edward I. Marvell; his wife, Anna Nippes Wynkoop Marvell; and eventually his son, George Marvell. In addition to addressing family matters, Marvell's letters contain descriptions of his travels and duty postings with the United States Navy. Similarly, after his graduation from the Naval Academy in 1917, George Marvell, the son, often wrote to his father about his career in the submarine service and as a staff officer. Correspondence prior to 1885 falls into three categories. In the 1850s, Anna Congdon Wilbur received a number of business letters concerning agricultural properties that she owned in Ralls County, Mo. In the 1860s, Mary Marvel Sullings received letters concerning a law suit that she was pursuing in an attempt to gain control of her deceased-husband's estate. Also in the 1860s, Edward Tracy Marvel, who was serving as a private in the 7th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War in defense of Washington, D.C., wrote home about military life. Financial materials primarily concern the affairs of George and Anna Marvell. There is a complete set of federal income tax filings, 1913-1939, and extensive property files that include surveys as well as an inventory and history of the Marvell's most significant belongings. Finally, there are various materials relating to the settlement of the estate of Anna Marvell's father, Henry Wynkoop. There are also three 18th-century financial letters; a number of late 19th-century receipts; land grants issued in 1837 for property in Palmyra County, Mo.; and a variety of legal pleadings and documents, some of which relate to Mary Marvel Sullings's legal case to gain control of her deceased husband's estate. Other materials include clippings, school papers and report cards, Masonic documents, a United States passport, miscellaneous writings, pencil sketches, blank 19th-century European postcards, a genealogical research notebook, and family and travel photographs taken by the Marvell and Wynkoop families. Photographs of George Ralph Marvell and his son, George Marvell, include pictures taken aboard United States Navy vessels, including surface ships and submarines. There are extensive photographs of various Asian locales that were taken during Admiral Marvell's assignments to China, 1912-1913, and the Philippine Islands, 1922-1924.

North Carolina China Council papers consist of administrative, published, and research materials of the North Carolina China Council, 1977-1989. Administrative materials include newsletters, annual reports, minutes from meetings, memoranda, funding and grant proposals, and a correspondence file. The bulk of the research materials relates to the Council's traveling exhibit and presentation, North Carolina's China Connections, 1840-1949. Research materials include an extensive collection of photographs, including prints; slides and some negatives; audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with various North Carolinians who worked or lived in China; video tape recordings of exhibit presentations and interviews; and film footage taken by various interviewees in China during the first half of the 20th century. Exhibit publications include pamphlets, flyers, posters, and a bound print version of the text and photographs that made up the exhibit. There are also research materials, audio recordings, and publications of other Council conferences and events on topics such as the One-Child Policy and United States-China trade.

Lawrence D. Kessler papers include organizational materials and public documents of the North Carolina Legal Defense Fund and the Chapel Hill chapter of the New University Conference. The organizational papers include minutes from meetings, annual reports, press releases, project proposals, correspondence, fund raising letters, and posters. Public documents include pamphlets, position papers, and serial publications of the New University Conference.

Newton and Underwood family papers contain personal letters received or written by Ruth Elizabeth Newton Underwood, the unpublished writings of John C. Calhoun Newton, United States and Japanese publications of the Episcopal Methodist Church, South, and photographs of the Newton family and their friends from Kobe, Japan. The bulk of the letters are between Ruth Newton Underwood and her parents, who resided at the Kwansei Gakuin, a Methodist Episcopal secondary school in Kobe, Japan. Although predominately concerned with daily life and family news, the letters contain references to current events. Those written by John C. Calhoun Newton, who served in various administrative and teaching positions at the Kwansei Gakuin, often make reference to the school's affairs and its relationships with the Japanese world. Ruth Newton's correspondence with Emory Marvin Underwood, who became a lawyer and federal judge, begins during her college years. After their marriage in the summer of 1905, there are fewer letters, but during Underwood's service, 1919-1920, as the general solicitor for the United States Railroad Administration in Washington, D.C., their correspondence resumes. These are personal letters devoted to family matters and concerns, but there is also mention of Underwood's legal career and the couple's broader activities in civic organizations such as Herbert Hoover's European Relief Drive and the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Writings of John C. Calhoun Newton consist of sermons, prayer meeting talks, lecture notes on ethics delivered to the students of the Kwansei Gakuin, and drafts of a larger work devoted to the subject of christian ethics. There are a number of publications commemorating communal events or the achievements of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in both the United States and Japan. The Japanese publications include The Yearbook and Minutes of the Japanese Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1907-1908; the 1909 20th Anniversary Catalogue of the Kwansei Gakuin; The Japanese Student Bulletin, 1931; and a small pamphlet about the first Methodist church built in Kobe, Japan. There are also inscribed photographic portraits of friends and their families in Japan and less formal photographs of various members of the Newton and Underwood family.

The Addition of December 2006 consists of materials relating to activism and activist groups on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and in the Chapel Hill community at large, including publications relating to activist groups, such as newsletters of the Chapel Hill Peace Center, Bread and Roses socialist community newsletters, issues of The Southern Patriot, and other printed materials.

Organization of Collection

1. George Ralph Marvell Papers
1.1. Correspondence
1.2. Financial and Legal Papers
1.3. Other Papers
1.4. Photographs
2. North Carolina China Council Papers
2.1. Organizational Materials
2.2. North Carolina's China Connections Exhibit
2.3. Other Public Outreach Programs and Research Projects
3. Lawrence D. Kessler Papers
3.1. North Carolina Legal Defense Fund
3.2. New University Conference
4. Newton and Underwood Family Papers
4.1. Correspondence
4.2. Writings and Other Papers
4.3. Pamphlets and Printed Materials
4.4. Photographs
Addition of December 2006

Items Separated

Items separated include photographs (P-5098), a photograph album (PA-5098), audiotapes (C-5098), film (F-5098), and videotapes (VT-5098).

Detailed Description of the Collection