Search Collection Guides

Video interview with Admiral William M. A. Greene (1920-2007) on his time as a student at East Carolina Teachers College and his involvement with East Carolina University as an alumnus. Greene discusses student life, his experience as a member of the football team, teachers he had, friends he made, and values instilled by East Carolina.

In this oral history interview Max Ray Joyner, Sr. discusses his involvment with East Carolina including his time as a student and his later work with The ECU Foundation, Alumni Association, Pirate Club, and Board of Trustees, serving on search committees, and endowing scholarships. He also mentions his wife's involvment with East Carolina.

The Max Ray Joyner, Sr. papers include awards, speeches, financial records, general correspondences, photographs, newspaper clippings, ephemera, and post cards from 1940-2018.

This collection contains financial records (including also bills of sale for enslaved persons) and deeds (1743-1872), and correspondence (1821-1891) related especially to Elias Fort and Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker of Halifax County, N.C. The correspondence also concerns other members of the Whitaker family and related families.

Collection (1942-2005) of materials belonging to Wray Raphael Herring, a member of the U.S. Navy B-1 Band which was the first all-African American Navy Band during World War II. Included are programs, clippings, sound recordings, yearbooks, concert programs, poems, and sheet music.

This collection includes a ledger book containing records (August 1882-December 1996) of the Red Banks Primitive Baptist Church located at the intersection of Fourteenth Street and Fire Tower Road in Greenville, North Carolina. The church was founded in 1758, but the present building was built in 1893. Included are minutes of the Conference meetings (1882-1996) which also mention when members join or leave or die, lists of some of the members with identifying information related to membership status, and loose papers. Also included are a treasurer's book (1964-2000) and a minutes book (1990-2000).

Application forms (1917-1918) submitted by US Navy during World War I, for $10,000 US Treasury Department, Bureau of War Risk Insurance, Division of Military and Naval Insurance policies, including service number, name, address, date of birth, age, date of last enlistment, amount of insurance, beneficiaries name and address, certification as a true copy, where applied for, date of application, witnesses name and rank, applicants signature and rank.

This collection contains papers belonging to Robert L. Ramey who served in World War II, had a career as a tobacconist, and was active in local government and community activities in Greenville, North Carolina. Papers include correspondence (1938, 1960s, 1990s, 2013), deeds (1950s), photographs, certificates, an oral history on CD done in 2015, clippings, paper items related to World War II, and 2 panoramic photographs of Scottish Rite members in New Bern (1958, 1965).

Account book (29 December 1863 – 6 July 1866) kept by Captain Paul Stevens of the Bark Catalpa recording the state of his financial dealings with the owners of the ship, including accounts for his salary, crews' wages and expenses; spending for provisions, ship chandlers, ship carpenters, charterers, pilotage, etc., during the ship's voyages back and forth between Shanghai, China and Nagasaki, Japan; probably originating in New York, NY.

This collection includes a scrapbook of clippings (1906-1954) kept by Charlotte Pearl Murphy Wright, the wife of Robert Herring Wright who was the first president of East Carolina University (known then as East Carolina Teachers Training School and later East Carolina Teachers College) in Greenville, North Carolina. Also included are correspondence, announcements related to family affairs, photographs, and genealogy notes (also a few deeds, and bills of sale for enslaved persons) related to the Murphy, and Wright families of Sampson County, N.C., and the Cromartie and Alderman families.

Papers (1942-1987, 1995) including correspondence, school board minutes, proceedings, reports, guidelines, court decrees, clippings, publications.

Records (1950-2007) of Greenville Industries, including by-laws, certificate of incorporation, board minutes, correspondence, contracts, deeds, and blueprints, and of longtime board member and president Charles O'Hagan Horne, Jr. (1970-2000), including correspondence, financial records, blueprints, maps, and reports. Greenville Industries was a for-profit corporation founded to sell land at reduced rates to industries to encourage them to set up businesses in Pitt County, North Carolina.

This collection includes Hyde County, North Carolina, land records (1797-1825) for Benson, English, Bell, Carrowon, and Selby families; a will (1791) for Samuel Selby; and an 1824 letter.

Collection includes papers related to the personal life and non-university activities of East Carolina University History Professor Lawrence Fay Brewster (ECU professor from 1945 to 1969) for whom the Lawrence F. Brewster Classroom Building on campus was named in 1974. Included are materials (1857-1945) related to his parents and ancestors, Brewster's early life and education through earning his Ph.D., his teaching job at Cranleigh School for Boys in St. Petersburg, Florida, and his work with the Works Progress Administration as Research Editor for the Historical Records Survey of North Carolina. The vast majority (1960-1991) of the collection concerns his work as historiographer for the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina and writing his "History of the Protestant Episcopal, The Diocese of East Carolina."

127 World War II era photographs depicting members of the United States Marine Corps. African American servicemembers in photographs are assumed to be members of the 51st Defense Battalion, commonly refered to as the Montford Point Marines, the first African American unit in the Marine Corp. Also included in the collection are photographs of white Marine Corps members as well as a number of unidentified personal photographs, many of which depict African American women and children.