Thurmond Chatham (1896-1957) Papers, PC.1139
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Thurmond Chatham (1896-1957) Papers
- Call Number
- PC.1139
- Creator
- Unknown
- Date
- 1776-1956
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Collection Overview
Papers of Richard Thurmond Chatham of Elkin and Winston-Salem, president of Chatham
Manufacturing Company (textiles), and congressman (1949-1957). His general correspondence
files and subject files contain letters and papers about his campaigns for Congress
and his work in Washington. Correspondence with constituents, colleagues, and others
concerns federal aid to education; an Indian school for Person Co.; socialized medicine;
the Taft-Hartley Act and the minimum wage, including petition signed by hundreds of
Rockingham Co. textile workers (1956); tariff protection for textiles; wool production;
cotton from India; tax on cigarettes; the federal tobacco program; crop insurance;
agricultural surpluses; disaster loans for drought (1953); flood control, including
correspondence of predecessor Rep. John H. Folger about the Yadkin River (1944-1948);
compensation for farmers around Buggs Island (Kerr) Reservoir (1949); High Point Hydro-Electric
Project (1954); highways; housing; veterans; universal military training; the steel
strike (1952); federal salaries; and the U.S. Supreme Court's desegregation decision,
Chatham's refusal to sign the "Southern Manifesto" opposing it, and his resulting
loss of the 1956 election. There are also bills introduced by Chatham, speeches, campaign
material and letters, and material on reunion (1950) of the crew of USS Phoenix. Papers
of the House Foreign Affairs Committee of which Chatham was member include letters,
testimony, and printed material on subjects such as Israel (1951), emergency aid to
India (1951), and trips made by Chatham to Europe and Nicaragua.
Among his personal papers are a few letters (1924-1945) about textiles, polo, and
WWII; some papers from his service as Naval Reserve officer (1940-1954); messages
on death of wife Lucy Hanes Chatham (1949); blueprints for property in Winston-Salem
(1925-1927); and miscellaneous papers about Chatham Manufacturing Co. and Klondike
Farms, with records of dairy herd. Also printed material of great variety, much relating
to Winston-Salem and North Carolina; and newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, speeches,
and photographs. Recordings and a brief film are in the Audiovisual Collection, N.C.
State Archives. (See: MPF.5 Thurmond Chatham Receives Naval Commission, 1954, black
and white, silent, 2 minute motin picture film; and DR.385 Presentation of Reserve
Commission as Captain to Rep. Thurmond Chatam by Admiral Robert B. Carney and Secretary
of Navy Robert B. Anderson, January 19, 1954, audio recording on instantaneous disc.)
Papers on Chatham, Gwyn, and Thurmond family history include letters from Alex Chatham
of Elkin (1894, 1909-1912); and typed copies of account book, yearly inventories,
and diary (1852-1877) of James Gwyn, Wilkes Co. planter, merchant, and clerk of court,
commenting on preachers, county courts, politics, Union meetings in Wilkes Co. (Sept.,
1863), Reconstruction, freedmen, schools, and emigration (originals in Southern Historical
Collection, UNC). There are also minutes and other papers of the Wilkesborough Debating
Society (1819-1825), whose members included Samuel F. Patterson, and a few papers
of the Wilkesboro Thespian Society (1825).
Papers (1831-1845) of Dr. Charles Harris, an agent for Siamese twins Chang and Eng
Bunker and eventually a resident of Wilkes Co., consist mainly of letters (1832-1834,
1843) to Harris and twins from James W. Hale of Boston about business arrangements,
tours, Capt. Abel Coffin, lawsuit, Dr. Samuel G. Howe of Boston, news from Siam about
the twins' mother, and their marriage and children. Other papers collected by Chatham
include letters (1875-1883) from New York painter Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait to art dealer
Peter Brett; correspondence of Dr. Robert K. Smith of Chatham and Moore counties and
daughter Sarah, student at Greensboro Female College (1847-1848); letter to Maj. Gen.
Benjamin Lincoln from Maj. Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, writing from Purysburg,
Ga., about exchange of prisoners, deserters, and other problems (Apr. 17, 1779); and
pages from Pennsylvania Magazine (June, 1776) containing "An Account of the Colonies
of North and South Carolina, with Georgia" and map. Also Rutherford Co. parole of
a tory (Oct. 9, 1780); instructions from Gov. Thomas Burke on collecting taxes (1782);
militia commission for Lt. Col. Commandant Joseph Winston, Stokes Co. (1792); copy
of letter from Thomas L. Norwood about his capture at Gettysburg and escape (1863);
and letter about Warrenton College (1882).