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Collection Number: 04235

Collection Title: John Herbert Roper Papers, 1976-2006

This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

This collection has use restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

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 8.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 3,650 items)
Abstract John Herbert Roper is a white professor of history with interests chiefly related to the history of the American South. The collection includes correspondence, interviews, writings, and other materials relating to historian John Herbert Roper's work as professor of history at Emory and Henry College and on topics in southern history. Among these materials are transcripts of and notes on interviews done in 1978 and 1980 with William T. Couch, Manning J. Dauer, John Hope Franklin, Guy B. Johnson, Guion Johnson, LeRoy E. Loemker, J. Carlyle Sitterson, Carl D. Stewart, and Bennett H. Wall about historian C. Vann Woodward. Also included is a transcript of an interview with Woodward; correspondence with Woodward that includes letters from Woodward about Tom Watson; and a manuscript by Roper of "Progress and History: U. B. Phillips and C. Vann Woodward Create A Southern Dialectic on Race." There is also correspondence about historian U. B. Phillips; materials relating to the Herbert Aptheker/Paul G. Partington controversy about publication of a bibliography of the works of W. E. B. DuBois; correspondence and other papers relating to Roper's editing a collection of essays entitled C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics; an interview with Ellis Merton Coulter about U. B. Phillips; and correspondence and other materials relating to other aspects of Roper's writing and teaching, as well as his affiliation with the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Virginia.
Creator Roper, John Herbert, 1948-
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English.
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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

Access Restrictions
This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. This collection contains unprocessed born digital materials that are currently not available to researchers. For information about access to these materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu. Please be advised that preparing unprocessed materials for access can be a lengthy process.
Restrictions to Use
No publication of extensive portions of this material without permission from donor. Persons citing or quoting from the interviews are requested to cite interview, date, and page number carefully and to cite the materials as per the preferred citation form below.
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 John Herbert Roper Papers #4235, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Alternate Form of Material
Transcriptions of some of the interviews in materials received 1980-1988 available on microfilm.
Provenance
Received from John H. Roper of Laurinburg, N.C., in 1979, 1980, and 1983-1988; 1989-1999 additions from Roper in Emory, Va. September 2003 (Acc. 099633); February 2004 (Acc. 099841); October 2004 (Acc. 099922); May 2005 (Acc. 100051); March 2006 (Acc. 100343); May 2006 (Acc. 100407); November 2006 (Acc. 100546).
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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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: SHC staff, 1980-2004; Meaghan Alston and Nancy Kaiser, September 2021

Encoded by: Roslyn Holdzkom, 2004

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, September 2021

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subject Headings

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

John Herbert Roper is History Department chair and Richardson Professor of American History at Emory and Henry College in Emory, Va. He received his M.A. from North Carolina State University and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. He is the author of many volumes on southern history including C. Vann Woodward, Southerner (1987); U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind (1984), and Paul Green's War Songs (1993).

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection includes correspondence, interviews, writings, and other materials relating to historian John Herbert Roper's work as professor of history at Emory and Henry College and on topics in southern history. Among these materials are transcripts of and notes on interviews done in 1978 and 1980 with William T. Couch, Manning J. Dauer, John Hope Franklin, Guy B. Johnson, Guion Johnson, LeRoy E. Loemker, J. Carlyle Sitterson, Carl D. Stewart, and Bennett H. Wall about historian C. Vann Woodward. Also included is a transcript of an interview with Woodward; correspondence with Woodward that includes letters from Woodward about Tom Watson; and a manuscript by Roper of "Progress and History: U. B. Phillips and C. Vann Woodward Create A Southern Dialectic on Race." There is also correspondence about historian U. B. Phillips; materials relating to the Herbert Aptheker/Paul G. Partington controversy about publication of a bibliography of the works of W. E. B. DuBois; correspondence and other papers relating to Roper's editing a collection of essays entitled C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics; an interview with E. Merton Coulter about U. B. Phillips; and correspondence and other materials relating to other aspects of Roper's writing and teaching, as well as his affiliation with the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Virginia.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Materials Received 1980-1988.

About 550 items.
Folder 1

Writings: "Progress and History: U. B. Phillips and C. Vann Woodward Create a Southern Dialectic on Race." Undated version of a paper read by Roper at a program session of the Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, 15 November 1979

Folder 2

Interview: Couch, William T., 10-11 January 1980

Folder 3

Interview: Dauer, Manning J., 21 July 1979

Folder 4

Interview: Franklin, John Hope, 10 November 1978

Folder 5

Interview: Johnson, Guy; Johnson, Guion, 11 January 1980

Folder 6

Interview: Loemker, LeRoy E., 11 August 1979

Folder 7

Interview: Sitterson, J. Carlyle, 10 November 1979

Folder 8

Interview: Stewart, Carl D., 26 June 1979

Folder 9

Interview: Wall, Bennett H., 12 April 1979 (and letter, 3 May 1979); Graf, LeRoy P., 12 April 1979

Folder 10

Interview: Woodward, C. Vann, 18 July 1978, 13 April 1979, 12 October 1980 (see also folder 14)

Folder 11

Interview: Rainey, Glenn W., 25 March 1980, 27 March 1980

Folder 12

Interview: Carleton, William G., 21 July 1979

Folder 13

Interview: Copeland, J. Isaac, 19-20 November 1979, 11 October 1980

Folder 14

Interview: Woodward, C. Vann, 4-5 November 1980, 20 June 1983, 9-10 November 1983, 14 December 1984 (see also folder 10)

Folder 15

Interview: Folbright, James William, 21 March 1983

Folder 16

Interview: Congressional legal staffers, 22 March 1983

Folder 17

Interview: Edwards, Don, 22 March 1983

Folder 18

Interview: Yoder, Edwin M., Jr., 22 March 1983

Folder 19

Interview: Pole, J. R., 11 November 1983

Folder 20

Interview: Boulware, Ellen; Ohls, Martin; Hall, John Gladdin; Hall, Julia, 18 March 1984

Folder 21

Interview: McFeely, William Samuel, 4 December 1984

Folder 22

Interview: Blum, John Morton, 13 December 1984; Aptheker, Herbert, 20 April 1985

Folder 23

Interview: Meier, August, 17 June 1985 (with letter and draft with Meier's corrections)

Folder 24

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: A-B: Includes letters from Herbert Aptheker

Folder 25

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: C: Includes letters from William G. Carleton, J. Isaac Copeland, Georgia Watson Craven

Folder 26

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: D-J: Includes letters from Manning J. Dauer, John Hope Franklin (with edited interview draft), J. William Fulbright, LeRoy P. Graf, Julia Hall

Folder 27

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: L-R: Includes letters from LeRoy E. Loemker, August Meier, Glenn W. Rainey

Folder 28

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: S: Includes letters from J. Carlyle Sitterson (with edited interivew draft), Carl D. Stewart

Folder 29

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: W: Includes letters from Bennett H. Wall

Folder 30

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: Woodward, C. Vann: Includes letters from Woodward about Tom Watson to Georgia Watson, 1933-1938, and to Walter Brown, 1934

Folder 31

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Correspondence: Y-Z

Folder 31a

C. Vann Woodward, Southerner: Reviews and correspondence

Folder 32

Aptheker, Herbert: Correspondence and notes about controversy at Yale University, 1978

Folder 33

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: A-B

Folder 34

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: C

Folder 35

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: D

Folder 36

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: E-G

Folder 37

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: H-L

Folder 38

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: M: Includes letters from August Meier

Folder 39

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: N-R (except Parker)

Folder 40

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: Parker, Welton

Folder 41

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: S

Folder 42

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: T-V

Folder 43

U. B. Phillips: A Southern Mind: Correspondence: W-Z

Image Folder PF-4235/1

Photographs of C. Vann Woodward, John Hope Franklin, and others at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Historical Association

Reel M-4235/1

Microfilm

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Additions after 1988.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Addition of October 1989: 1976-1989.

About 100 items.

Acquisitions Information: Accession 89111, 89112, 89120

Folder 44-45

Folder 44

Folder 45

Letters from C. Van Woodward, Paul G. Partington, Bennett H. Wall, and others

Acquisitions Information: Accession 89112

Folder 46

U. B. Phillips materials

Acquisitions Information: Accession 89112

Folder 47

Letters from C. Van Woodward, Paul G. Partington, and August Meier

Acquisitions Information: Accession 89111

Folder 48

Materials relating to the Herbert Aptheker/Paul G. Partington controversy

Acquisitions Information: Accession 89120

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Additions 1990-1999: 1981-1997.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Addition of February 2000: 1990.

1 item.

Acquisitions Information: Accession 98566

Folder 68

Interview: Avery, Lawrence

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Additions of June 2000-August 2001: 1970s-2001.

About 400 items.

Acquisitions Information: Accession 98640, 99057

Correspondence and other items roughly sorted by year.

Folder 69

Correspondence and other items, 1970s

Folder 70-72

Folder 70

Folder 71

Folder 72

Correspondence and other items, 1984-1985

Folder 73-79

Folder 73

Folder 74

Folder 75

Folder 76

Folder 77

Folder 78

Folder 79

Correspondence and other items, 1986-1987

Folder 80

Correspondence and other items, 1988-1989

Folder 81

Correspondence and other items, 1991-1998

Folder 82-83

Folder 82

Folder 83

Correspondence and other items, 1999

Folder 84-85

Folder 84

Folder 85

Correspondence and other items, 2000

Folder 86

Correspondence and other items, 2001

Folder 87

Correspondence and other items, undated

Folder 88

History Society, 1998-1999

Folder 89

Mayer, Henry/Charter Day, 1996

Folder 90

National Endowment for the Humanities, 1989-1994

Folder 91

Coulter, E. Merton: Interview about U. B. Phillips, 1976

Folder 92

Miscellaneous

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Addition of June 2002: 1970-2002.

About 50 items.

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99267

Correspondence and other items, including an essay by Roper, "Marxing through Georgia: Eugene Genovese and Radical Historiography for the Region," ( Georgia Historical Quarterly, spring 1996) and See Yankeetown by Tom Knotts (1970).

Folder 93-94

Folder 93

Folder 94

Correspondence and other items, 1970-2002

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Addition of October 2003: 2002-2003.

About 30 items.

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99636

Correspondence and other items including notes and letters relating to a speech Roper gave at Virginia Intermont college in 2002 about Benjamin Elijah Mays.

Folder 95-96

Folder 95

Folder 96

Correspondence and other items, 2002-2003

Folder 97

Benjamin Elijah Mays speech, 2002

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Additions of 2004-2006: 1976-2006.

About 2000 items.

Acquisitions Information: Accessions 99633, 99841, 99922, 100051, 100343, 100407, 100546

The creator's original arrangement has been retained. Folder titles were derived from original folder names and from descriptive metadata found within the files by the processing archivist. Original folder titles are indicated with "".

Box 7

Papers, 1976, 2000s

Acquisitions Information: Accession 100051, 100546

Includes copies of Anvil, 1976; correspondence records relating to the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Virginia; correspondence relating to Roper's book on C. Vann Woodward and his knowledge of Ullrich B. Phillips, an historian of the American South whose racial biases informed his study and analysis of slavery as an economic and social system; correspondence relating to African American historical markers in Virginia. Correspondence is chiefly print outs of email.

Includes 2 floppy disks.

Box 8

Correspondence and other items, 2004

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99922

Correspondence and other items, 2002-2006

Acquisitions Information: Accession 100343

Correspondence and other items from the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia and the Diocesan Standing Committee.

Includes a floppy disk.

Correspondence and other items, 2006

Acquisitions Information: Accession 100407

Correspondence and other items, 2003-2004

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Box 9

Notebook, 1991

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Paul Green material

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Endnotes Chapter Four the Great War"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"The Group Theatre XIV"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Wrap-Up"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Stage"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Plays Summaries"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Walter Jackson, Frazier, and Paul E. Green"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Little Bethel map"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"A Story of Black White Danger"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"Lonesome Road support materials"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Manuscript draft

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

"End notes"

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Box 10

Correspondence, Roper-McGuigan

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence, Roper-McGuigan, 1989

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence, Roper-McGuigan, 1990

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence, Roper-McGuigan, 1991

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Emory and Henry College-McGuigan

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence and other items, 2006

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence and other items, 2005-2006

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence and other items, 2005

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence and other items, 2006

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence and other items

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Box 11

Paul Green material

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Manuscript chapters

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Notes

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Box 12

Correspondence, 1988-2000

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Correspondence, 1994-2003

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Papers, 1988-2002

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Papers, 1990-2002

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Papers, 1987-1988

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

Card File CF-4235/1-4

CF-4235/1

CF-4235/2

CF-4235/3

CF-4235/4

Research notes

Acquisitions Information: Accession 99633, 99841

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Items Separated

Items separated include audiocassettes (C-4235/1-2).

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