The collection comprises the papers of Francis Warrington (Frank) Dawson (1840-1889), whose original name was Austin John Reeks; his wife, Sarah Ida Fowler (Morgan) Dawson; and of their son, Francis Warrington Dawson II, known as Warrington Dawson (1878-1962). The papers are primarily literary in character, with many editorials, newspaper writings, short stories, novels, articles, scrapbooks, diaries, reminiscences, and letters.
There are several series in the collection: Correspondence, Photographs, Scrapbooks, Writings, and Printed Materials document the family's activities in the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. Warrington Dawson's research interests in French manuscripts, early American history, and family genealogy are also documented in the French Manuscripts and Research Files series.
Francis Warrington (Frank or F.W.) Dawson was born as Austin John Reeks in London in 1841. He changed his name when he left England for the Confederacy in 1862. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate navy and the cavalry, fighting at Gettysburg and eventually earning a promotion to captain under General James Longstreet. Following the end of the Civil War, Frank Dawson settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and became the editor of the News and Courier.
Frank married Sarah Fowler Morgan in 1874. Sarah Morgan was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and moved with her family to Baton Rouge as a child. She kept a diary of her Civil War experiences from 1862 through April 1865, which was later edited into A Confederate Girl's Diary and published by her children in 1913. Following her marriage to Frank Dawson, the couple had three children, including Francis Warrington Dawson II, known as Warrington, born in 1878. Warrington Dawson was a newsman, novelist, editor, special assistant to the American Embassy in Paris, and director of French research for Colonial Williamsburg. Warrington befriended several notable persons, including Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Conrad. He accompanied Roosevelt on his African safari in 1909.
Frank Dawson the elder was murdered by Charleston doctor Thomas McDow in 1889 while the two argued over a French-Swiss maid employed by the Dawsons. Once widowed, Sarah Dawson moved to live with her son, Warrington, in France. She died in 1909.
Warrington Dawson's letters with Joseph Conrad became the focus of a book by Duke University professor Dale B.J. Randall, which led Dawson to give the family's papers to the university's special collections in the 1950s.
