Correspondence, 1878-1953

Please Note:

This collection is currently being reprocessed to incorporate additional material before it becomes fully open to researchers in January 2027. This work is being funded by a grant from The Duke Endowment. For more information, please contact the Rubenstein Library.

Scope and content:

Primarily James H. Semans' personal and professional correspondence, including with family and key figures in his medical training and career.

James carried on considerable correspondence with his parents during the 1930s-1940s and with his only sister Virginia and her husband Wendell A. Stone in the 1940s (who provided care for his aging parents). The letters describe family matters and James' academic, professional, and personal life, with many items having been written during his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD), which also took him to St. Mary's Hospital (Pierre, SD) and Ancker Hospital (St. Paul, MN), and his 31-months in the US Army Medical Corps during World War II at McGuire General Hospital (Richmond, VA) and Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio, TX). Of note is his correspondence with Hugh H. Young, whom he spent seven years under while at Hopkins. In a 1975 obituary for Young, James states that Young might have had the "greatest lasting influence" on his life of any one person.

In a series of letters to his parents from 1938-1939 while he was in Pierre, James describes his work and relationships with staff members at St. Mary's Hospital, his impressions of the community and residents (including American Indians), and the surrounding countryside. Of note are his descriptions of his supervisor Theodore E. Riggs, who's father and grandfather had been missionaries to the Dakota. Riggs is also mentioned in letters dated 31 March and 15 April 1944.

Beginning in 1946, the correspondence becomes majority professional and is between James and his medical colleagues. Much of it concerns the establishment of his private medical practice in Atlanta, GA, arrangements for professional meetings and organizations, and personnel references (there is also some correspondence with patients). Correspondence from the latter part of 1953 includes information on him becoming an Associate Professor of Urology at Duke University School of Medicine and his marriage to Mary Duke Biddle Trent.

Most of the earliest items (from the 1880s and early 1900s) are addressed to James' father Thomas B. Semans, a successful banker and businessman in Uniontown, PA. They relate to family matters and business investments, including a coal enterprise in New Zealand.

Arrangement:

Arranged chronologically.

Contents

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