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 L. L. Polk Papers, #3708, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchases 1965, 1970

Additional Descriptive Resources

A more complete finding aid for this collection is available at the Southern Historical Collection.

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.

• Agricultural laborers--Labor unions--United States--History--19th century.
• Agriculture and politics--United States--History--19th century.
• Agriculture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Anson County (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Boston (Mass.)--Economic conditions.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Correspondence.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Diaries.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 26th.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 43rd.
• Courts-martial and courts of inquiry--Confederate States of America.
• Denmark family.
• Denmark, James William, fl. 1879-1910.
• Diphtheria--United States--History--19th century.
• Merchants--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union.
• New York (N.Y.)--Economic conditions--19th century.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1861-1865.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1865-1950.
• Poe, Clarence Hamilton, 1881-
• Polk family.
• Polk, L. L. (Leonidas La Fayette), 1837-1892.
• Progressive farmer.

• Stuart Noblin Papers (#3738), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Anson County, N.C., planter, editor, merchant, Confederate officer in the 26th and 43rd North Carolina regiments, Democrat and Populist, first North Carolina commissioner of agriculture, 1877-1880, founder of the Progressive Farmer, and vice president and president of the National Farmers' Alliance, 1887-1892.

The collection can be divided into the following time periods: correspondence and other items, 1862-1864, relating to events leading up to Polk's two courts-martial during the Civil War, plus his small diary; letters, 1865, from Raleigh, N.C., where he was serving in the North Carolina legislature; papers documenting the years Polk and his family lived in Anson County, N.C., 1870-1877, where he operated a general merchandise store; papers concerning Polk's term as North Carolina's first commissioner of agriculture, 1877-1880; papers concerning various business ventures, 1880-1885, including efforts to sell a diphtheria cure in Boston and New York; papers, 1886-1892, dealing with the founding of the Progressive Farmer, Polk's work with the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, his election to national offices of the Union, and his death; and papers, 1892-1919, of Polk's son-in-law, James W. Denmark, and of Clarence Poe relating to the "Progressive Farmer" and Poe's ultimate purchase of the paper in 1903, and a few Denmark family items.