Abstract:
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Southern Historical Collection, the world's largest collection of manuscript material documenting the American South, is celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary. Although manuscript collecting at the university had started in 1844, it was not until 1915, when Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton proposed the collection, that work began in earnest. The collection was officially established in 1930 with Dr. Hamilton as its first director.