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The Center for Documentary Studies is a center at Duke University established for the study of the documentary process. The color photographs and oral histories in the Five Farms: Stories From American Farm Families collection form part of a multimedia project carried out under the auspices of the Center for Documentary Studies. Beginning in March 2008, photographers Alix Lowrey Blair, Andrew Lewis, Tom Rankin, Elena Rue, and Steve Schapiro, along with audio specialists Ben Adler, Rob Dillard, Camille Lacapa, Susannah Lee, and John Biewen, each visited an American farm and documented the farm families' experiences over the course of a year. The locations for the Five Farms series are: a family farm on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; an organic farm in California's Capay Valley; a dairy farm in western Massachusetts; a diversified farm in central Iowa; and an African American-owned hog farm in eastern North Carolina. Details on each farm are found in the series descriptions in this collection guide. Acquired by the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.

Fred Chappell (1936-2024) was an author and poet. He was an English professor at UNC Greensboro for 40 years, and he was the Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 1997 to 2002. Collection consists largely of correspondence and writings by Chappell and others, documenting Chappell's literary career, output, and network.

Arthur Barden Graham was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, of New Bern, N.C. The collection consists of correspondence, reports, speeches, notes, drafts of bills, printed material, and clippings, mostly relating to Barden's work on various House committees, including Education, Labor, Library, and Rivers and Harbors. Major topics include the draft, military installations including Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Camp Lejeune Marine Base, veterans' affairs, and local affairs and projects of Barden's largely rural district, such as lumbering, tobacco processing, and furniture manufacturing.

The Duke Forest is more than 7,000 acres of forested land in Durham, Orange, and Alamance counties, managed by Duke University for teaching and research. The Duke Forest records contain a wide variety of materials documenting research projects and forest management.

Dr. Charles Rudolph "Chuck" Davis or Baba Chuck (1937-2017) was an African American dancer, choreographer, and founder of the African American Dance Ensemble, the Chuck Davis Dance Company, and the annual DanceAfrica Festival. Collection includes correspondence, paper based records, printed materials, teaching materials, programs, posters, publications, newspaper clippings, conference materials, notebooks, photographs, negatives, slides, super 8 film, videotapes, artwork, and various other types of memorabilia.

J. B. Matthews (1894-1966) was a Methodist missionary, college professor, author, lecturer, and prominent conservative spokesman. Collection consists of correspondence, memoranda, statements, speeches, reprints, clippings, broadsides, newsletters, press releases, petitions, and other printed material, chiefly 1930-1969. The principal focus of the collection relates to the work and research of Matthews and his associates in the area of anti-communism, particularly in connection with Matthews' role as Director of Research for the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the U.S. House of Representatives (1938-1945), Executive Director of the Permanent Subcommittee on Government Operations of the U.S. Senate (1953), and a consultant for John A. Clements Associates. Many of the organizations, newspapers, periodicals, and persons represented in the collection have various leftist, socialist, communist, radical, or pacifist (especially anti-Vietnam War) connections. Individuals represented in the files include Ralph Abernathy, Bella Abzug, Roy Cohn, John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael Harrington, Alger Hiss, J. Edgar Hoover, Jesse Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Joseph Lash, Joseph McCarthy, Carl McIntire, Benjamin Mandel, Richard Nixon, Aristotle Onassis, Lee Harvey Oswald, Linus Pauling, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Louis Untermeyer.

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.

Frank Baker (1910-1999) was a faculty member at Duke University in history, an expert on Wesleyan Methodism, and a rare book and manuscripts collector. The Frank Baker Collection of Wesleyana and British Methodism, 1536-1996 and undated, comprises correspondence, writings, local histories, printed items, engravings, and many other manuscript materials that date from the earliest years of Methodism to its worldwide expansion up to the 20th century. The collection includes the correspondence of two of the most important founders of Methodism, John and Charles Wesley, as well as correspondence from members of the Wesley family. Collection also includes correspondence from many of the key figures in 18th and 19th century history of British Methodism: Joseph Benson, Jabez Bunting, Adam Clarke, Thomas Coke, James Everett, John Fletcher, Mary (Bosanquet) Fletcher, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, Elizabeth (Ritchie) Mortimer, George Osborn, Hester Ann Rogers, Richard Tabraham, and Thomas Wride. Other materials include church records and registers, account books, autograph albums, broadsides (notices), circular letters, engravings, maps, sermons, scrapbooks, photographs, and memorabilia. Topics covered by the materials include the life and training of Methodist clergy; the religious life of women; biography and portraiture of Methodists; spirituality; Protestantism in art; and the debate between Arminianism and Calvinism in the early church. Organizational history in the collection covers several branches of the 18th and 19th century church, including Wesleyan Methodism, Primitive Methodism, missions, and missionary societies.

In response to Robin Morgan's book, Sisterhood is Global, the Sisterhood is Global Institute was founded in 1984 with Karen Berry as its first director. Its purpose was to mobilize international support on women's rights issues and educate various communities around the world on women's rights and human rights issues. The records of the Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI) span the years from 1965 to 2005, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1980 to 2002. Materials such as correspondence, administrative files, publications drafts, manuals, newsletters, flyers, photographs, videos, and sound recordings provide a record of the work and the organizational structure of SIGI from its inception to its present activities at the beginning of the 21st century. The documents in the collection illustrate SIGI's efforts to discuss, debate, and act on a variety of women's issues around the world, including voting rights and political representation; reproductive rights; violence against women; education for women; and the socio-economic status of women.