Reconstruction Era Resources at Wilson Special Collections Library: North Carolina

10 Volumes

Julian Shakespeare Carr (1845-1924) of Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C., was a manufacturer of tobacco products with interests in a wide range of other businesses, including banking and textiles. Carr was also active in the Methodist Church, the Democratic Party, and several Confederate veterans' organizations, including the North Carolina branch of the United Confederate Veterans, which he served as commander. He was also a strong supporter of various institutions of higher education in the state.

The collection includes letters, telegrams, printed announcements, programs, and pamphlets, business and legal documents, maps, and newspaper clippings pertaining to Carr's business and personal affairs. The letters chiefly concern banking, farming, and family matters, but also reflect Carr's interests in the Civil War and the United Confederate Veterans and in the Methodist Church. Also included are printed and manuscript addresses and Sunday School lessons given by Carr. Of special note is a series of speeches discussing the race problem in North Carolina and throughout the South. One address, 2 June 1913, given at the dedication of the monument later known as "Silent Sam" on the University of North Carolina campus. Business topics are also represented. Included are seven volumes of Carr's diary containing brief entries, 1907-1917, and letter books, 1919-1922. These volumes chiefly document Carr's personal life, particularly his travels and family associations. Also included are a wedding album, 1895, of Carr's daughter Eliza, and a family history, 1991, by Joseph Julian Carr. Photographs are chiefly of Julian S. Carr.

One of the reports from a series of testimonies from a Congressional committee that investigated the Ku Klux Klan and other insurrectionary movements in the former Confederacy. William Laurence Saunders providing testimony.

Kenan family, chiefly of Duplin County, N.C., and Dallas County, Ala., and the related Graham family of Duplin County. The Kenan Family was directly involved in perpetuating the violence in the Wilmington Race War.

The collection includes correspondence among various members of the Kenan and Graham families, relating to activities of relatives in North Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, and other southern states. Letters document the political, domestic, and economic interests of well-to-do Southerners between 1810 and 1900. In their letters, the Kenans and Grahams discussed contemporary concerns, such as slavery and plantation life; the activities of Confederate congressman Owen Rand Kenan (1804-1887); educational opportunities for young men and women; religion; agricultural problems in the old and new South; turn-of-the-century experiences of young scholars and other members of the Kenan family; and the role of William R. Kenan, Jr. (1872-1965), in publicizing the discovery of calcium carbide. In addition to the letters, there are financial and legal papers that pertain to the political, business, and military activities of various Kenans and Grahams. Also included are account books, bills and receipts, printed material, and miscellaneous papers illustrating the wide-ranging interests of members of these two families: Thomas S. Kenan's Civil War service in the 43rd N.C. Regiment; medicine; the University of North Carolina, especially in the 1890s; women's work; the Democratic Party; and the restoration of Liberty Hall, the Kenan homestead in Kenansville, Duplin County, N.C. Also included are a few recipe books; a brief travel diary from trips to Canada in 1895 and 1897; and photographs of various family members and their acquaintances, including Graham Kenan (1883-1920) and friends during their undergraduate days at the University of North Carolina, ca. 1904. Union Carbide materials include two letterpress books documenting the early history of the Union Carbide Company and its predecessor companies and "Union Carbide Corporation: A Brief Look at Historical Highlights" (1991) by M. A. Hill, which traces the formation of the company and the growth of chemicals and plastics production and technical facilities in the United States. The Addition of 2007 contains correspondence, notes, and clippings, 1806-1947, pertaining to the Kenan family, chiefly to Chauncey Graham and Stephen Graham, and to Mary Lilly Kenan Flagler Bingham. The Addition of February 2008 includes a likeness of James Kenan (1740-1810).

In this thoroughly researched, definitive study, LeRae Umfleet examines the actions that precipitated the riot; the details of what happened in Wilmington on November 10, 1898; and the long-term impact of that day in both North Carolina and across the nation.

Alfred M. Waddell was an author, historian, lawyer, Confederate Army officer, United States Representative, 1871-1879, and mayor of Wilmington, N.C., 1898-1905. The collection includes correspondence, writings, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous papers of Alfred M. Waddell. The bulk of the collection, 1875-1900, consists of correspondence with national and state Democratic Party leaders and members of the Cameron family and other prominent North Carolina families, legal correspondence, manuscripts and clippings of writings and speeches of a religious, literary, political, or historical nature, genealogical research into the DeRosset, Waddell, Moore, and Myers families, and correspondence with other writers and historians. There are some papers related to Waddell's service in the Confederate Army during the Civil War with the 41st North Carolina Infantry Regiment, as well as his activities as mayor of Wilmington, N.C., especially his involvement in the white supremacy campaign and Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. Also included are a few colonial and early nineteenth-century papers of the related DeRosset, Moore, Nash, and Waddell families of Hillsborough, N.C., and Wilmington, N.C. Volumes in the collection include a letterpress copybook, 1886-1894, of Waddell's law office; a recipe book, 1890, and scrapbooks belonging to Gabrielle (DeRosset) Waddell related to her involvement in the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Colonial Dames; and two notebooks belonging to Hugh Waddell, one containing notes on legal subjects, 1820s, and another containing notes on art, architecture, and classical literature.