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Born in Union, Maine, John Emory Bryant (1836-1900) was an abolitionist, teacher, Union officer with the 8th Maine Volunteers, agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, newspaper editor and publisher, lawyer, and Republican politician in Georgia. The collection includes letters, journals, scrapbooks, writings, speeches, and printed materials related to the lives of John Emory Bryant (JEB), his wife Emma Spaulding Bryant, their daughter Emma Alice Zeller and her husband Julius Zeller and their descendants, and William Anderson Pledger who was a Republican contemporary of JEB. The bulk of the collection falls into four main divisions: the early years in Maine (1851-1860), during the American-Civil War (1861-1865), during Reconstruction in Georgia, and the later years in New York (1888-1900). Some of the materials are not original and are copies or typescripts. Of note are materials regarding Georgian Republican politics; conditions for Radical Republicans and African-Americans during Reconstruction, including correspondence with Henry McNeal Turner; historical views about the differences between the North and the South; Ku Klux Klan activity in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama; and a particularly passionate exchange between Emma Spaulding Bryant and her husband regarding her visits to a doctor about "uterine difficulties" (these 10 letters from Emma Bryant have been digitized and are available online).

The Ground Observer Corps (GOC) was a civil defense organization run by the U.S. Air Force that enlisted volunteers to watch for and report aircraft movements. The Ground Observer Corps records include materials related to the operation of the Ground Observer Corps in the Durham area from 1952-1959. The collection includes assorted memoranda, correspondence, newsletters, forms, and recruiting materials, as well as manuals, logbooks, maps, posters, brochures, and promotional materials.

Duncan McLaurin was a farmer, teacher, lawyer, and state legislator of Richmond County, North Carolina. Correspondence, bills, receipts, legal and other papers, and printed matter (1822-1872), of McLaurin and members of his family. McLaurin's papers (mainly 1822-1850) relate to economic conditions in North Carolina, South Carolina, and the U.S. in general; the development of infrastructure and education in North and South Carolina; the Civil War; politics in North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia; and national politics, including presidential elections from 1832 to 1848. Civil War topics include camp life, economic conditions, food supplies, the hope for foreign intervention, morale, conscription and desertion, the blockade of Southern ports, the battles of Murfreesboro (Tennessee), Jackson (Mississippi), Port Royal Harbor (South Carolina), Hanover Court House (Virginia), and the siege of Vicksburg (Mississippi). A large amount of correspondence from relatives in Mississippi (circa 1830-1867) concerns frontier conditions, slavery, politics, agricultural and labor problems, sectionalism and nationalism in Mississippi, Reconstruction conditions, and family affairs. There are many references to slavery, particularly in Mississippi: the sale of slaves, runaway slaves, a lynching of an African American in 1839, the fear of slave insurrections in 1856 and 1860; and the abolition movement. Includes an atlas with a list of slaves circa 1864 written on the flyleaf.

Family originally from Connecticut; later settled in Petersburg, Virginia. Correspondence, journals, memorandum books, sermons, an autograph album (1822), and other papers of Abner Johnson Leavenworth and of his son, Frederick P. Leavenworth. Sermons comprise about half of the manuscript collection. Includes pre-Civil War letters from theological students in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York; a tuition ledger for the Van Buren, Arkansas Female Seminary (1860-1862); and genealogical information on the Leavenworth family. Correspondents include Calvin Colton, Harrison Gray, Otis Dwight, Jeremiah Evarts, Samuel Lee, Benjamin Palmer, and Noah Porter.

Jones was a lawyer, collector, Confederate soldier and historian from Savannah, GA. Collection includes correspondence, journals, commonplace books, lecture notes, scrapbooks, autograph albums and other papers. The material ranges in date from 1757-1926.

Correspondence, reports, speeches, drafts of bills, notes, newsletters, printed material, clippings, and other papers, relating to Henderson's service as representative from the 3rd Congressional district of North Carolina, including material relating to his work on the Post Office, Civil Service, and Public Works committees, and to civil rights, minimum wage, federal aid to education, the Vietnam Conflict, anti-poverty programs, foreign aid, tobacco, Watergate, the energy crisis of the early 1970s, and local affairs and projects in eastern North Carolina.

Planter and merchant families of New Bern (Craven County), North Carolina. Business and personal correspondence of four generations of the Biddle and Simpson families of New Bern, N.C. Most notable are the papers of John Simpson (1728-1788), locally a prominent Revolutionary figure; his son, Samuel; and his great-grandson, Samuel Simpson Biddle (1811-1872). Topics include financial affairs, including deeds, property in Boston, and the shipment of goods; activities of the Baptist Church in the New Bern area; agricultural and business interests; education at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and children's education in the 19th century. Many letters were written during the Civil War and revolve around the activities of S.S. Biddle, Jr. and James W. Biddle, containing brief descriptions of campaigns, troop movements, traitors, fortifications in South Carolina, camp life, and epidemics. The collection also has 12 volumes of plantation and personal accounts, bills, and receipts, loose deeds and notes, as well as information from the estates of Samuel Simpson and William Biddle.

This collection contains materials of the Alpha Phi chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity at Duke University from 1976 to 1985. The Alpha Phi chapter was established at Duke University in 1901 and remained active until 1970. In 1978, it was reactivated. Types of materials include correspondence, chapter evaluations, pledge rosters, scrapbooks, and printed materials pertaining to the Alpha Phi chapter from 1976 to 1985. Major subjects include student life at Duke University, re-establishment of a fraternity, accounting, initiation, community service activities, social activities, general governance, leadership, and public relations.

Correspondence of Peter Eltinge, an officer in the 156th New York Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, relating to his service in the Dept. of the Gulf (1863-1864), Maryland and Virginia (1864), and Georgia and the Carolinas (1865), participation in the occupation of Georgia; and operation of a grocery store in Memphis, Tenn., and speculation in cotton after the war. Topics include politics, temperance, economic conditions, Black soldiers in the Union Army, and Black agricultural laborers during Reconstruction. Also, naval records and other papers of George P. Lord of Camden, Del., brother-in-law of Peter Eltinge, chiefly relating to his duty as a navel officer on ironclads of the Mississippi Squadron (1861-1865), including the U.S.S. Chillicothe, U.S.S. Ozark, and U.S.S. Osage. Topics include the Red River Expedition of 1864 and the regulation of commerce on the Mississippi River.

The Evaporated Milk Association, organized by manufacturers in 1923, issued free publications promoting the use of evaporated milk throughout the United States. This collection consists of publications with recipes, scientific studies, and stories encouraging the consumption of canned evaporated milk. These pamphlets and booklets were donated to Duke University Libraries in the 1930s by the Evaporated Milk Association. Collection also includes engineering documents about the design of evaporated milk facilities.