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 James Francis Mays Letters #4870-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from Carmen D. Valentino, dealer in Rare Books and Manuscripts, of Philadelphia, Pa., in March 1997 (Acc. 97033).

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.

• Lexington (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• May family.
• Mays, James F. (James Francis), 1860-1938.
• Mays, James Francis.
• Soldiers--United States--Correspondence.
• United States. Army--Military life.
• United States. Army. American Expeditionary Forces.
• World War, 1914-1918--France.
• World War, 1914-1918--Hospitals.

• James F. Mays Papers (#4827).

James Francis Mays, Jr., of Lexington, N.C., son of Maud Walton Mays and James Francis Mays (1860-1938).

Thirty letters mainly from Mays to his parents and his sister, Kate Mays, from the army during and after World War I. Mays wrote from signal training camp and from his tour of duty in France in 1918 and 1919. He was injured by a passing train in 1919 and spent time recuperating in several Red Cross hospitals in the United States. The collection includes a few letters between Mays's father and mother, one from his father to Mays, and a few pages of notes on the possible reasons for the train accident.