Search

Basil Lee Whitener (1915-1989) was a U.S. Representative from Gastonia, N.C. Collection includes correspondence between Whitener and his constituents, other congressmen, and government officials, legislative materials, drafts of bills, financial papers, speeches, invitations, printed material, clippings, photographs, and other papers, chiefly from congressional files (1957-1968), relating to issues of national importance during the 1960s, including the Vietnam War, crime legislation, gun control, riots, civil rights legislation, foreign aid, social security, and the Taft-Hartley Act. Correspondents include Sam Ervin, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, and Strom Thurmond.

Textile manufacturer, politician, and United States Senator from North Caroina (1958-1972). Collection includes Senate office files from Jordan's Washington office consisting mainly of correspondence, committee and legislative files, speeches, memoranda, clippings, photographic negatives, and background materials. Topics include public works projects in North Carolina, especially those related to water resources such as rivers, harbors, beaches, inland navigation, flood control, the B. Everett Jordan Lake, and the New Hope Dam. Other subjects represented in the files are U.S. foreign relations, in particular with the Middle East as well as the Vietnam War; agricultural laws; civil rights; school desegregation and busing; pollution; the National Park Service; transportation and highways; social security; public health; the United Nations; the Senate Rules Committee investigation of Bobby Baker, 1963-1966; labor laws; economic policy; library legislation; and economic conditions in North Carolina.