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John Hope Franklin was an African American historian specializing in Southern and African American history. The papers document his entire career as well as his personal life and political interests: his prolific writings on African American and Southern history; his role as a mentor and colleague, including his time as professor at Duke University; his role in associations such as Phi Beta Kappa, the American Historical Association, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and others; his participation in the civil rights movement, including his work with the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Justice Thurgood Marshall; and his engagement with numerous civic, community, and educational organizations such as the Board of Foreign Scholarships and Fisk University's Board of Trustees. There is also a significant amount of material from Franklin's work on President Clinton's Advisory Board for the President's Initiative on Race in 1997 and 1998. Items in the collection include files of correspondence in original order; research sources and notes; writings by and about Franklin; materials relating to family history; papers and diaries of other family members, including his father, and wife, Aurelia; printed material; event folders; many informal and publicity photographs; video and sound recordings; and awards and other memorabilia.

This collection consists of original and copy negatives taken by various sources over several decades. Most of the negatives were produced by the Office of News and Communication's News Bureau in the early years of Duke University and later by University Photography (upon its establishment).

The collection documents short-term, time-sensitive and event-specific aspects of marketing and sales promotion. Advertising campaigns ordinarily seek to promote sales, increase market share, and strive to maintain the enduring integrity of a brand name. Ephemeral marketing products work within a more limited frame that terminates at the end of an event or with the issue of a superseding edition: a dated catalog of products; new book announcements; festival programs; an advertisement for an auction or sales event; limited-time premiums such as silverware or collector cards included with a purchase. The collection includes articles; broadsides; brochures; business and trade cards; catalogs; circulars; clippings; direct-to-consumer mailings; event programs; manuals; maps; memoranda to sales agents; premium offers; price lists; religious literature; sales bulletins and announcements; souvenirs; travel and tourism literature; and other materials. Topical areas include: Agricultural and industrial machinery; banking and finance; building materials; business, correspondence, and other schools; clothing and footwear; death care (cemeteries, funeral supplies, gravestones, etc.); fairs and festivals; food; furniture; hair care; hardware; household appliances and furnishings; insurance; livestock; musical instruments; real estate; sewing goods; sporting goods; textiles; toiletries; transportation (airlines, automobiles, buggies and carriages, railroads, steam and cruise ships). Throughout the collection, images and artwork depict caricatures of Asians, Black and Indigenous people, women, occupations, and social classes that reflect racist, sexist, and classist attitudes and prejudices of the periods represented in the collection. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

Established under a large Ford Foundation grant in 1964, the Committee on International Studies oversaw the distribution of the grant money and other sources of income to various departmental and area programs having to do with international scholarship. Spanning from 1962 to 1978, the records contain details of the committee and various subcommittee's activities during that time.

Duke University Retirees Outreach was founded in 1997 to provide volunteer opportunities to Duke retirees and their partners and operated until 2021. DURO members developed volunteer programs like the Backpack Program and the Lakewood Garden project at Lakewood Elementary School. The collection, spanning 1997 to 2021, consists of administrative and financial records, correspondence, and materials related to projects and events.

Merchant and manufacturer of Falmouth, Virginia. Correspondence, ledgers, daybooks, account books, and other business records (chiefly 1822-1875) of Green and his various associates, illustrating activities such as retailing, grain milling and merchandising, and cotton cloth manufacturing. The bulk of the collection is in the form of bound manuscript volumes. Firms represented include the Bellmont and Eagle flour mills, the Falmouth Manufacturing Company, and the Elm Cotton Factory. The papers also reflect the emergence of Fredericksburg, Va., as a business center, and the decline of Falmouth.

Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick was a white professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina, 1854-1856, and U.S. Patent Office official, 1861-1886. Collection consists chiefly of letters to Hedrick. The early correspondence is between Hedrick and Mary Ellen Thompson, his future wife. Other correspondence concerns life at the University of North Carolina, Hedrick's dismissal from the University in 1856 for his Republican and anti-slavery opinions, and his life in the North during the Civil War period. Many of the post-1861 papers relate to Hedrick's position as chemical examiner at the Patent Office. Other topics include Reconstruction, the economic plight of the South, and politics, including Hedrick's attempt to win political office in North Carolina (1868). Correspondents include Kemp P. Battle, Daniel R. Goodloe, Horace Greeley, Hinton Rowan Helper, David L. Swain, John Torrey, and Jonathan Worth.

Douglas M. Knight, born in 1921, served as president of Duke University from 1963 to 1969. Knight was educated at Yale and served as president of Lawrence University prior to becoming president of Duke. After leaving Duke in 1969, he worked as an industry executive at several firms. Records include correspondence, memoranda, proposals, surveys, reports, writings and speeches, minutes, audio-visual media, honorary citations, clippings, and printed matter. Major subjects include the administration of Duke University, the planning of a new art museum, university development, Duke's Fifth Decade Campaign and fundraising, the Duke Board of Trustees, Knight's inauguration, the School of Engineering, the School of Law, the School of Forestry, the Graduate School of Business, student protest, African-American students at Duke, the takeover of the Allen Building by members of the Afro-American Society, and student rights. Major correspondents include R. Taylor Cole, E.R. Latty, Lath Meriam, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, R. Philip Hanes, Nancy Hanks, R. Patrick Ransom, George V. Allen, Charles B. Wade, Henry Rauch, Edwin L. Jones, Wright Tisdale, Les Brown, Ellen Huckabee Gobbel, Mark Pinsky, Graddon Rowlands, and Floyd B. McKissick.

ALS. Writes of his part in the effort to impeach Governor Thomas McKean and asks Clay to obtain seeds of curious plants from a Captain Lewis for a visiting friend, Henry Muhlenberg.

This collection includes 39 photographic prints comprising the series Aunties, by Nadia Sablin, the 2014 CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography Award Winner. Aunties is a series of photographs detailing the lives of two unmarried sisters living in a Russian village.