The collection contains personal and professional papers related to the life and work of John Spencer Bassett. Materials range in date from 1802 to 1998 (bulk 1893-1911) and include biographical information, correspondence, printed material, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and souvenirs. The correspondence (1893-1917) includes a copy of a 1911 letter to Charles Frances Adams in which Bassett gives his account of the Bassett Affair. Other correspondents include Oswald G. Villard, William Kenneth Boyd, Edwin Mims, and William E. Dodd. Much of the original correspondence concerns affairs of the Roanoke Colony Memorial Association. Clippings ([1802]-1896) include articles about North Carolina politics, Civil War history, the Bassett Affair, Trinity College matters, race relations, the media, and education. The manuscripts include the autobiography of Jessie Lewellin Bassett, wife of John Spencer Bassett, in which she describes her life from 1866 until her marriage to Bassett in 1892; a copy of the paper, "How to Collect and Preserve Historical Material," that Bassett presented to the State Historical Association on Oct. 23, 1900; and John L. Woodward's Ph.B. thesis, "Causes and Progress of the Revolutionary Movement in North Carolina," (1894).
The bulk of John Spencer Bassett's personal papers can be found in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
John Spencer Bassett, a professor in the History Department of Trinity College from 1893-1906, was a renowned educator and advocate of freedom of expression. A native of North Carolina, Bassett received his A.B. from Trinity College in 1888 and his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 1894. He returned to Trinity College to teach and was active in teaching, writing and collecting southern Americana. Bassett began publication of an annual series of Historical Papers of the Trinity College Historical Society; founded the honorary society 9019, a precursor to Phi Beta Kappa; founded and edited the scholarly journal, the South Atlantic Quarterly; and encouraged his students to publish and fostered their interests in Southern history.
In 1903, Bassett published an article, "Stirring Up the Fires of Race Antipathy" in the South Atlantic Quarterly, that praised the accomplishments of African Americans and offered views on how to improve race relations. Bassett's views brought on a controversy that became known as the "Bassett Affair" that helped to establish the concept of academic freedom in higher education in the United States.
Bassett was named Professor of History at Smith College in 1906. Bassett continued his career as a noted historiographer and became the acknowledged authority on Andrew Jackson. He also served as secretary of the American Historical Association from 1919 to 1928. John Spencer Bassett died in Washington, DC, in 1928.
