The Archaeology series contains pamphlets, offprints, extracts, and many illustrated pieces. It is a small group of 233 pamphlets.

Of importance are the pamphlets concerning numismatics, particular excavations during the nineteenth century, papyrus studies, ancient art, and Italian ceramics. There is even an unusual and probably rare guide to the pornographic artifacts in the Museum of Archeology in Naples.

Authors of interest include Medea Norsa, a well-known papyrologist of the nineteenth century, Luigi Pernier, Corrado Ricci, Giuseppe Gerola, Guido Ferrari, Santi Muratori, Astorre Pellegrini, E. Teza, Luigi Milani, Luigi Rizzoli, Settimio Severo, and Luigi Chiappelli.

Related subjects and areas of overlap are found in the Italian Art series and perhaps in the history-related subject areas.

Please note that all folder and item titles in this collection guide have been taken from card catalogs and other inventories created in the early 20th Century.

The papers begin in 1736, when John Hall (ca. 1717-1790) and his brothers Henry and William become actively engaged in tobacco planting. The letters open with a land indenture of 1745 and continue as business correspondence with London, Annapolis, Baltimore, and local merchants and factories. Comment is made on salt as a necessity for plantation life in 1778 and 1782. An overseer's contract in 1764 gives details of plantation management and enslavement.

A letter is signed by John Hall of "Vineyard" on June 11, 1778. As a member of the Maryland Assembly, he discusses the check and balance theory as it was working out in the "young government" of Maryland, he mentions violent contests, the quit rents and state revenue, militia service, and the role of the governor. In 1787 "Publicanus" addresses the people of Anne Arundel Co. on the topic of paper money.

The will of John Hall (made in 1787) gives his estate as "Bachelor's Choice," on West River, and names his children and their families. Enslaved people are listed as part of the estate. Many of the later letters are from the families of Hall sibilings to William Henry Hall, son of John Hall. A series of law suits occurs in the 1790s as William Henry Hall settles his father's estate.

A letter dated Oct. 3, 1796, to William Henry Hall describes the life of an American seaman impressed into the British navy. Samuel Hopkins, a young Maryland plantation overseer, and John Wilson of Cheraw, S. C., comment in letters to Hall from 1810-1813 on cotton planting in S. C. Hopkins describes on July 1, 1810, a plot by enslaved people to rise against enslavers in the Marlboro District of S. C. In 1813 he writes of hiring a substitute for himself if drafted in the War of 1812. Among W. H. Hall's correspondents were William, John, David, and John G. Weems of Anne Arundel Co., relatives of Mason Locke ("Parson") Weems.

The incoming and outgoing correspondence in this large series was created or collected chiefly by male members of the Hemphill family over many generations; there are also letters from and to women in the family. Topics discussed by correspondents cover almost all aspects of social, economic, religious, educational, and political conditions in South Carolina and other Southern states during the last half of the 19th century and into the early 20th. Many of the letters, especially in the earlier decades, discuss the Presbyterian church, for which several Hemphills were ministers. There are also many comments on national-level politics and presidencies, as well as events during those particular periods. Additional correspondence covering many of these same topics is found in the letterbooks found in the Volumes series.

Enslavement and states' rights, abolition, secession, and the movements of free people of color or formerly enslaved people are discussed in many letters before, during, and after the Civil War. There are repeated letters throughout the correspondence commenting on the repatriation of Africans and African Americans to Africa, and refer to the activities of the American Colonization Society and the American Commission on Liberia (1909). There are also references in early 20th century papers to race relations in the South and related politics; a speech by Oswald Garrison Villard, newspaper editor, co-founder of the NAACP, and early civil rights activist, sometime in the early 1910s, talks about segregation in Baltimore and Washington.

There are Associate Reformed Presbyterian sermons in the Sermons series that also speak to enslavement and the Southern States.

There are many letters that speak to specific significant political events and presidencies, including Jefferson Davis's Confederate administration, and discuss life for men and women of some wealth in cities and rural locations in the Confederate states. The letters in this series also cover military events and related issues in South Carolina as well as in Texas, where John Harrison Hemphill was located, such as the conflict with Mexico, and violent offensives against Native Americans in western states.

Correspondence (and other papers in the collection) following the 1870s chiefly document James Calvin (J.C.) Hemphill's career as a newspaper editor, but also speak to politics, "yellow journalism," Southern race relations, economic conditions, and society in the Southern States in the early 20th century. Some letters refer to events in World War I.

The latter portion of the collection includes a number of letters from William Howard Taft and Daniel H. Chamberlain, both of whom were friends of J.C. Hemphill; from Mrs. Francis W. Dawson I; and from various members of the Hemphill family. Correspondents who write on press affairs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries include C. A. Boynton, W. R. Cathcart, and S. J. Barrows. Other writers are Sarah (Morgan) Dawson, J. H. Averell, and J. S. Cothran.

In the last half of the series there is also a considerable quantity of correspondence of Robert Reid Hemphill until his death in 1908.

The family's correspondence includes letters across several generations of Slades and their business associates, friends, and relatives, centering around the family's plantations, farming, and fisheries in and around Williamston, Martin County, N.C.; Tennessee; and Georgia. Early letters document on the activities of Jeremiah Slade, a general during the War of 1812. His letters tend to relate to the fisheries, legal cases, and business issues. Slade served as a North Carolina State Senator from 1809 to 1815, so some correspondence relates to court cases and other activities of the Senate. All materials relating to his role as Commissioner for the Tuscarora Indians has been removed to the Tuscarora Nation Series.

The Correspondence Series contains many letters between Jeremiah and Janet Slade and their children, with the majority being from Alfred, Thomas, Mary Ann, James Bog (J.B.), Elizabeth, and William. After the death of Jeremiah Slade in 1824, the family's correspondence tends to center around the activities of his sons, Thomas and William Slade, and their families (they had 12 and 11 children, respectively). Their letters include descriptions of college life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Trinity College, Wake Forest College, Greensboro Female College/State Normal and Industrial School (now UNCG), and several secondary boarding schools. A few letters early in 1861 are from Henry Slade, a student at Trinity College, Randolph County, North Carolina, until he joined the army in the same year. Henry Slade mentions Braxton Craven, in whose home he boarded.

There is a significant amount of letters documenting the Civil War period, particularly comments on the organization of military companies; campaigns around Yorktown, Virginia, during 1861; fighting, refugees, and the Union occupation in eastern North Carolina; living conditions and high prices; Longstreet's Corps in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1863; and the military situation around Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1863. There are also war letters between Eli Peal and his wife in eastern North Carolina, containing advice on farming operations; payment of taxes; accounts of skirmishes at Camp Burgwyn near Wilmington, North Carolina; enslaved people running away; difficulty of obtaining clothes; and references to guard duty.

There is a significant amount of correspondence to and from the Slade women (including Elizabeth, Mary, Ann, and Helen) during the Civil War. Letters of "Bog" or J. B. Slade early in 1861 from Harris County, Georgia, reflect enthusiasm for the newly formed Confederacy.

Post-war letters include general family correspondence, with frequent letters between the Slade women, including Janet, Mary, Emma, Martha, and Helen (on the Thomas Bog Slade side) and Annie, Mary, Elizabeth, Helen, and Frances (on the William Slade side). Correspondence also relates to the family's business ventures, including land rentals and other engagements with freedmen, news from the fishery, and reports from various horse breeding ventures. This series contains a letter from Fanny, dated 1867 August 5, writing to her "Sister" from Texas asking for any information on the whereabouts of her children. Fanny was formerly enslaved and apparently sold away from her children by the Slades. Another letter from Mount Airy in 1874 tells of the death of the Siamese twins, Eng and Chang.

The latest letters in the Correspondence series document the activities of James Bog Slade, Thomas B. Slade, and their descendents in Columbus, Georgia, and Martin County, North Carolina. Topics include the Clinton Female Seminary (Clinton, Georgia), the State Normal and Industrial School (Greensboro, N.C.), women's suffrage, Trinity Baptist Church (Caswell Co., N.C.), tobacco farming, hog butchering, and other business interests of the family.

Correspondence consists chiefly of business letters by John Knight and his partners and friends. However, there are also many letters by Knight family members and their relatives and friends. The correspondence begins in 1817 with letters from Mary (McCleery) Knight in Indiana to her sister Frances (McCleery) Beall, William M. Beall's wife. There is also correspondence between Fanny Knight, John and Frances Knight's daughter, and Thomas McDannold during their courtship. Correspondence also includes letters from friends and relatives while the Knights were traveling abroad. Many letters also mention John Knight's attempts at various cures for ill health, including water cures, hot springs, and baths.

Between 1830 and 1864, Knight's business correspondence with Enoch Pratt, a Baltimore banker in charge of Knight's finances, William Beall, and others, predominates. Topics include: the U.S. political and economic climate: the conflict between Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson; the cotton market; banking and bank failures; investment in cotton land in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas; the purchase and sale of slaves, with some bought by William Beall and sent to Knight in Mississippi; the treatment and medical care of slaves; the operation of Knight's plantations; piracy on the Mississippi River, 1841; cholera and yellow fever epidemics in New York and New Orleans in 1832, 1833, 1837, and 1841; the economic panic of 1857; education at the Frederick Female Academy, Frederick, Maryland; financial conditions in the United States during the Civil War; the relations between the United States and England during the war; and the course of the Civil War, especially the Union invasion of Maryland. One early letter from Roger Brooke Taney to William Murdock Beall explains his refusal of the vice-presidency and discussing his interest in the U.S. presidency.

Other smaller groups of correspondence were written by Frances "Fanny" Knight McDannold, the daughter of John and Frances Knight, her children Knight and Alexandra, and husband Thomas McDannold, and that family's acquaintances.

The correspondence ends with a much smaller series of letters, which include items to Frances S.Z. Knight from her grandchildren, and other correspondence reflecting her financial and legal activities as she managed her husband's large estate and the guardianship of her grandchildren even as she approached old age.

Some additional correspondence can be found in the Legal and Financial Papers series.

About one third of the correspondence dates from the 1820s to 1865, and two-thirds dates from after the Civil War to the early 20th century. Included are 46 letters from the Civil War period to and from members of John and Susan Bullock's family, chiefly concerning their son Walter Bullock's service in the Confederate Army.

Topics in the correspondence typically include family matters such as schooling, illnesses, courtship and marriage, deaths in the family and in the community, farming, sales of agricultural crops, religious life, visitors and local events, and some business matters. There is also some mention of the Spanish-American War in later letters.

There are many letters from the daughters and sons of John and Susan Cobb, especially from William, James, Richard, Walter, Alfred, George, Sally, Lucy, and Beck. Grandchildren's letters and many letters from Beck to her mother Sally (Tarry) Hamilton make up the bulk of the late 19th and early 20th century letters.

Family names also appearing in the papers include: Boyd, Goode, Eaton, Farrar, Hamilton, Harrison, Tarry, Taylor, and Watkins. There are also frequent mention of Andersons, Grahams and Hendersons.

Place names associated with the Bullocks and their relatives are: Williamsborough (or -boro), Granville County, NC (now Vance County), the principal home place for the Bullocks; Wheatland, Tarboro, Warrenton and Rocky Mount, NC; Petersburg, Soudan, Boydton, and Skipwith, VA. There are some letters from Tennessee and Mississippi, where the Bullocks owned land. Other place names appearing include Grassy Creek and Oak Hill, Granville County.

The Civil War letters mostly were sent to and from Walter Bullock and his parents, but there are a few from his brothers, several of whom apparently also served for a time, and other people. They give details about camp life, food and diet, health issues, weather, furloughs, troop movements, and rumors about events. There are frequent requests for supplies from home. One letter bears a long description of the battle of Kinston, NC, 1862; another from an encampment "near Norfolk" dated March 1862 mentions a major naval engagement at the mouth of the James River. A letter from June 1862 brings the news that a Bullock son was taken prisoner. Another letter from John Bullock to a friend announces that Walter was taken prisoner in June 1864, probably when Captain George W. Kirk and Union cavalry overran Camp Vance (Burke Cty.). There is one letter from Walter writing from Johnson's Island, Ohio, September 1864; he then writes several letters from Kenansville, NC in early 1865, and describes the last months of the war. Camp Vance (Burke County), figures most prominently in Walter's letters, who seems to have been by then in the 68th Regiment, and Camp Holmes, near Raleigh. Other place names include Camp Mangum, NC; Camp Arrington, VA, 1862; "in the trenches," Petersburg, VA, November 29, 1864; and Kenansville, NC, December 1864. There are a few letters relating to Captain William Wallace White, who also appears at the head of a militia roll in the Other Papers series.