Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Peter Spence Gilchrist Papers, #3393, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from C. W. Gilchrist of Charlotte, N.C., November 1958.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A copy of the original finding aid for this collection is filed in folder 1a.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, April 2009

This collection was rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Chemical engineers--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Fertilizer industry--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Gilchrist, Peter Spence, 1861-1947.
• Industries--North Carolina--Charlotte--History--19th century.
• Phosphatic fertilizer industry--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Southern Card, Clothing, and Reed Company.

Peter Spence Gilchrist (1861-1947) was an English immigrant and pioneer in chemical engineering of Charlotte, N.C. Gilchrist was born in Manchester, England and emigrated to the United States in 1889. He was for a time manager of a fertilizer plant on Long Island, N.Y.; a chemical engineer at Charlotte and at Baltimore, Md.; and operator of gold mines in Blacksburg, S.C. He settled in Charlotte in 1898.

Gilchrist designed sulphuric acid plants and fertilizer plants and was a pioneer in the development of the phosphate industry and in chemical engineering in the southeast. His company, Southern Card, Clothing, and Reed, built fertilizer plants and installed works for phosphate processes. He was vice president of the Charlotte Chemical Laboratories, established in 1911; and was president of the Chemical Construction Company of Charlotte, which was established in 1914 and sold to American Cyanamid in 1929.

Gilchrist married Ethel Gertrude Porter of Goole in Yorkshire, England. Their children were Stuart, Cecil W., Edith, and Peter S. Junior.

The collection includes business letters, chiefly 1904-1910, received by Peter Spence Gilchrist's firm, Southern Card, Clothing, and Reed Company, relating to the building of fertilizer plants and the installation of works for phosphate processes along the eastern seaboard.