The Southern Historical Collection is a repository of distinct archival collections at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

which document the culture and history of the American South. These collections are made up of unique primary materials, such as

manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

, letters, photographs, diaries, drawings, scrapbooks, journals,

oral histories Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

, maps, ledgers, moving images, literary manuscripts, albums, and other materials.

History

The North Carolina Historical Society began collecting manuscripts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1844. The collecting stopped in the early twentieth century when the Society ceased operation. The holdings were then transferred to the University Library. By the 1920s, Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, a professor of history was corresponding about the idea of creating "a great library of Southern human records." Hamilton began traveling the South, in his "faithful Fords," seeking out and gathering materials. On January 14, 1930, the Southern Historical Collection was officially established. Dr. Hamilton served as director, and the initial endowment was offered by

Sarah Graham Kenan Sarah Graham Kenan (February 17, 1876 – March 16, 1968) was an American heiress and philanthropist. She inherited a third of her sister's share of the Standard Oil fortune in 1917 and established the Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation. Through her f ...

. Upon Hamilton's 1951 retirement, the Southern Historical Collection held roughly 2,140,000 manuscript items.

The collection today

The Southern Historical Collection now holds more than 15 million items, which are organized into over 4,600 discrete collections. The collection can be found in

Wilson Library The Louis Round Wilson Library is a library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Completed in 1929, it served as the university's main library until 1984. Today, it houses several special collections. The dome rises 85 feet over the ...

on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Materials are available for on-site research, but are non-circulating due to rarity and fragility. The collections held in the Southern Historical Collection are described in online and print

finding aids A finding aid, in the context of archival science, is an organization tool, a document containing detailed, indexed, and processed metadata and other information about a specific collection of records within an archive. Finding aids often consist o ...

, which contain information on the history or background of the entity (person, family, or organization) that created the collection, as well as a description or list of most of the materials in the collection itself.Southern Historical Collectio
website
/ref> Some of the subject strengths of the collection include: * Social activism * Communities * Labor * Civil rights * Slavery * Journalism * Family Time periods chiefly represented in the SHC include: * Antebellum

plantation era In the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit= before the war) spanned the end of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The Antebellum South was characterized by the ...

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

* The

New South New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the ...

* The

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

South * The South since 1954

References

External links

The Southern Historical Collection

SHC on public radio station WUNC

The Southern Historical Collection (UNC-Chapel Hill) at Google Cultural Institute
{{authority control Archives in the United States University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill