Search Collection Guides

The majority of the collection relates to Captain Leslie Avery Shaw's military service in the U.S. Army, especially during World War II when he served in the 11th AAA, 49th AAA Brigade, VII Corps, U.S. First Army in Europe. Included are maps and overlays concerning operations at Utah Beach at Normandy, orders, citations, reports, photographs, letters, postcards, military ribbons and insignia, and items from his personal military file. Additional items including many photographs document his personal life after the war. Photographs, printed material and memorabilia from the 1950s and early 1960s relate to the early years of his son Robert Avery Shaw's life in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

Correspondence, photographs, postcards and printed material documenting North Carolina history. Locations include Fayetteville, Elizabeth City, High Point, Wilmington, Atlantic Beach, Morehead City, Belhaven, Edenton, Pitt County, Camp Lejeune, Reidsville, Rocky Mount, St. Pauls Washington and New Bern. Subjects include the Askew Family of Hertford County, Greensboro College, Fayetteville flood of 1908, the Confederate Ram Albemarle and the tobacco industry.

Collection (1862-1994) containing correspondence, service records, photographic prints, newspapers, newsletters and clippings, scrapbook, publications, pamphlets and other miscellaneous papers relating to the American Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II; also relating to the U.S. Navy, its ships, stations, and personnel; donated by various individuals to the U. S. Naval Memorial Foundation and transferred to its collection at various times; arranged in original order.

Papers (ca. 1867-2007, undated) including photographic negatives, prints, slides and manuscript materials; also video cassettes and moving picture film reels produced during his career as a professional photographer for the Greenville Daily Reflector newspaper, 1952-1972; as bureau chief for the Raleigh News and Observer in Eastern North Carolina; and as news director for television stations WITN-TV, WNCT-TV, 1972-1997; also including personal materials relating to his family and to William W. Speight.

This collection contains the congressional files for U.S. House of Representatives member Walter B. Jones, Jr., who represented the 3rd Congressional District of North Carolina from 1995 until his death in 2019. Included are files, scrapbooks, media, and electronic files. The electronic files were created by his staff and included speeches, correspondence, articles, promotional material, notes and videos for the years 2005-2018.

Papers (1882-1954, undated [bulk 1882-1920]) of U. S. Navy surgeon, including correspondence, reports, and miscellany.

The Gerda Nischan Papers contains letters (1930, 1946-1947), handwritten in German between Otto Baumann and his wife, Barbara Hock, all but one written during the time Baumann was a German soldier in a French prisoner of war camp, 1946-1947, and typescripts in English by Baumann's daughter, Gerda Nischa, including an explanation of the letters, and 7 poems inspired by the letters. In 2010 Gerda Nischan wrote a book based on the letters titled Briefe an einen Kriegsgefangenen, an English translation written in 2014 (Letters to a Prisoner of War), and a novel in German (2013) called Dieses neue Leben which are included in these papers.

Papers (1777-2022) relating to John Baxton Flowers III academic career, family history and Scottish genealogy (Flowers, Kennedy, and Thompson families of Wayne County, NC), historic preservation, horticulture and garden history. Included are correspondence, financial and legal papers, academic records, newspaper clippings, photographs, typescripts, genealogical material, publications, certificates, house plans, watercolor drawings, and newsletters.

Papers (1830 – 2010, undated) [Bulk: 1940-1970] documenting the life of Robert Lee Humber, Jr., who was born 30 May 1898 – and died 10 November 1970, in Greenville, North Carolina; after attending local schools he earned a BA from Wake Forest College, 1921; he then attended Oxford University in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar, 1921-1923; he then earned a MA from Harvard University in 1936; he moved to Paris, France, in 1926, where he married and served as an American Field Service fellow, 1926-1928, and subsequently earned a fortune as an international lawyer, art dealer, and businessman, 1930-1940, until the Fall of France, in 1940, when he, his wife, and their two sons, John and Marcel, fled the German invasion - his infant daughter Eileen died during their escape - and he returned to North Carolina, where he purchased a farm on Davis Island, established a legal career, and devoted himself to public service and to a wide range of philanthropic causes, as an educator, civic, cultural, political and religious leader; beginning in 1940, he became well-known nationally and internationally for establishing and leading the World Federation movement as a way to promote lasting world peace through international law; statewide for persuading the General Assembly and the Kress Foundation of New York to fund and establish the North Carolina Museum which opened in 1956; also as an art collector and patron of local and regional volunteer organizations; as a Democratic state senator from Pitt County, 1958-1964; as an educator who led the effort to create Pitt Technical Institute (later Pitt Community College); as a leader in the Southern Baptist denomination becoming a member of the Board of Trustees of Wake Forest College and other Baptist institutions; and as an attorney and business leader and developer; additionally, the collection includes historical files documenting the history of the World Federation in the United States, compiled by his son, John Leslie Humber.

Collection (1763-2013) including correspondence, financial records, legal records, clippings, land records, photographs, clippings, poetry, genealogy and miscellaneous files compiled by William L. Murphy related to genealogy research in Eastern North Carolina.

Records (1955, 1960-2016) of the Pitt County Historical Society (of North Carolina), including minutes, bylaws, correspondence, and clippings, photographs, financial records, programs and photographs. Also included are the records (1949-1950) of the Greenville Music Club, the Red Banks Home Demonstration Club (1946-1950), old Greenville advertising fans, and a scrapbook for the Town and Country Senior Citizens Club (1978-1999).

Papers of Peter Hillsman Taylor (1908-1995, undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted American short story writer, novelist, biographer, and playwright, who specialized in subjects related to the Upper South, including manuscript materials and correspondence, especially his World War II letters to his wife, Eleanor Ross Taylor; proofs of published materials; loose manuscripts from the Stuart Wright Book Collection; and oversized materials, by or about Peter Hillsman Taylor, Madison Smartt Bell, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, and others, in English and French language.

Papers (1782-2001) including grants, deeds, promissory notes, plats, records of enslaved persons, estate inventory, receipts, newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs and genealogical research relating to various members of the William Moore family.

Papers of Stuart Wright (1783-2020, [Bulk: 1945-2014], undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted Roxboro, North Carolina-born American educator, chiropodist, author, translator, bibliographer, editor, historian, publisher, musician and collector, vendor and donor of literary and musical manuscripts and published materials; consisting of correspondence, holograph and typescript manuscripts of published materials, clippings, loose manuscript items transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection; also original art, audio recordings, proofs and advance review copies of published works, photographic materials and oversized materials; including materials in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.