Correspondence (1894-1966, bulk 1931-1946) between Irving Sherwood Preston and his fiancée (later his wife) Alice Ann Moore of Concord, North Carolina. Preston and Moore married on June 9, 1933. During the bulk of this correspondence, Preston was attending Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia (1931-1933) and serving (1943-1945) in the military during World War II. Also included are letters from family, friends, and associates, especially the earlier letters. Letters written by Preston to his family prior to 1933 document his life at Mount Pleasant Military Collegiate Institute at Mount Pleasant, North Carolina. Other early letters are between Preston's parents (Sherwood Craig Preston and Ida Lillian MacKelvie) prior to their marriage. There are a few photographs and negatives and some ephemera such as a theater broadsheet for "The College Flapper" being produced at the Kannapolis HIgh School Building in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and sponsored by the Kannapolis Woman's Club.
This collection contains over 100 letters (1885, 1892-1897) written to Sallie Dromgoole Cotten (1876-1972), daughter of Sallie Swepson Southall Cotten and Robert Randolph Cotten, either while she was at home at Cottendale in Falkland, Pitt County, North Carolina, or at Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School and Collegiate Institute in Baltimore. The letters are written mainly by Sallie's female friends, but also some male friends in the 1890s (1892-1897) The correspondents are family, associates, and friends, especially schoolmates. Topics are mainly related to interests of college women and men. Also included are ephemera such as dance cards and dance invitations especially to "German" dances which were large popular events among wealthy white families in Eastern North Carolina tobacco towns in the 1890s.
Personal Correspondence (December 30, 1861-September 16, 1862; April 1863) written by William Wilberforce Douglas to his family members during his service in the Fifth Rhode Island Volunteers and in General Ambrose Burnside's Expeditionary Corps in North Carolina. Letters, copied by his mother, Sarah Sawyer Douglas, from originals into a single bound journal, include references to his time at the battles of Roanoke Island, New Bern, and Fort Macon. Additionally, the journal includes newspaper clippings accounting his exploits in the war.