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 Southeastern Cooperative League Records #3597, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Morris R. Mitchell, executive secretary of the League from 1946 to 1952, in October 1962.

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.

Processed by: Jill Snider, February 1990

Encoded by: Tim Pyatt, July 1998

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.

• African Americans--Education--Southern States--History--20th century.
• African Americans--Southern States--History--20th century.
• African Americans--Southern States--Social conditions--20th century.
• Agriculture, Cooperative--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Brooks, Lee M.
• Consumer cooperatives--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Cooperation--Southern States--Societies, etc.--History--20th century.
• Cooperation--Study and teaching--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Cooperative societies--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Education, Cooperative--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Housing, Cooperative--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Lynch, Elizabeth.
• Mitchell, Morris R. (Morris Randolph), 1895-1976.
• Producer cooperatives--Southern States--History--20th century.
• Smith, Charles MacGill.
• Southeastern Cooperative Education Association.
• Southeastern Cooperative League.
• Southern States--Race relations--20th century.
• Yeomans, Edward, 1911- .

The Southeastern Cooperative League grew out of the earlier Southeastern Cooperative Education Association (SCEA), established in 1940 by an interracial group of university professors and religious and labor leaders. The SCEA, which had resulted from interest aroused in cooperative education by two conferences on this topic in 1939 and 1940, sought to promote cooperatives in the southeastern states through public education. These states were Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. In 1941 the SCEA became a federation of cooperatives, renaming itself the Southeastern Cooperative League and affiliating itself with the Cooperative League of the U.S.A. In this new capacity it worked mainly to coordinate the efforts of member cooperatives, to provide them with guidance and information, and to sponsor educational conferences and workshops. The League hoped to establish a wholesale house for cooperative stores, but these plans never materialized. The League patterned its organization on the philosophy of the nineteenth-century Rochdale cooperative movement in England.

In its early years the League supported its efforts primarily through grants from the General Education Board and the Julius Rosenwald Fund. It also raised revenue through membership fees and the sale of literature. Later financial aid came from the Rochdale Institute and the National Cooperative League and from individual contributions. An executive committee, made up of the organization's officers and two representatives of cooperatives from each state, governed the League. The Executive Committee served primarily in an advisory capacity, while a handful of officers carried out the bulk of the organization's work.

Lee M. Brooks, University of North Carolina professor of sociology, served as the first president of the League, resigning in 1949. Edward Yeomans, a professor at West Georgia College, served as the organization's secretary-treasurer from 1940 to 1944, and operated the League's office in Carollton, Georgia. He acted as the primary organizer for the League. From 1941 to 1943 Elizabeth Lynch, assistant secretary, and Charles MacGill Smith, field representative, supported Yeoman's efforts. Because of wartime difficulties, the League found itself unable to respond adequately to its members' needs and existed mostly in name from 1942 to mid-1946. During this period it ceased to operate except as an information clearinghouse, with even this function dropping off dramatically. The League stayed alive primarily through the efforts of Morris R. Mitchell, founder of the Macedonia Cooperative Community in Clarkesville, Georgia. Mitchell became executive secretary in July 1946, and reopened a League office in Clarkesville. Under his direction, the League underwent a reorganization, with several new Executive Committee members added and D.R. Graham succeeding Lee M. Brooks as president. The League restored some of its educational and promotional functions, but it never again flourished, and finally folded in the early 1950s.

The office correspondence of Lee M. Brooks, Edward Yeomans, Elizabeth Lynch, Charles MacGill Smith, and Morris R. Mitchell makes up over half of this collection. This correspondence, arranged chronologically, appears in Series 1. Series 2 contains the organizational records of the Southeastern Cooperative League, including financial information, by-laws, minutes and reports, membership records, and publicity materials. Information on workshops and conferences sponsored by the League, cooperative schools recommended by the League, and study tours it sponsored appears in Series 3. Series 4 contains materials related to individual cooperatives that were members of the League.

The collection offers special opportunities for researchers interested in the southern cooperative movement, race relations, and African American history. A federation of cooperatives, the League maintained records rich in information on the difficulties of organizing in the South. The interracial aspects of the organization emerge both from the correspondence and from materials on interracial conferences and schools sponsored by or recommended by the League. Students of African American history will be particularly interested in the correspondence from African American Executive Committee members and League supporters and members (Series 1) and in the sources available on several individual African American cooperatives, including several well-organized efforts in Virginia and North Carolina (Series 4).