Arrangement: chronological.

Family and professional correspondence of Francis Preston Venable (1856-1934), professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina 1880-1930, and president of the University, 1900-1914. About two-thirds of the correspondence is between family members. The remaining letters are chiefly professional correspondence. A few letters relate to personal business matters.

Most of the correspondence from 1861 to Venable's marriage in 1884 consists of letters from members of his family: sisters Mary, Natalie, Cantey, his mother and stepmother, and his father. These letters relate mainly to family matters and daily life in Charlottesville, Virginia. There are a few letters dating from the Civil War period from his father, Charles Scott Venable, offering fatherly advice but telling very little about the war or its participants. Several letters, October-December 1879, are from Venable to his stepmother, describing his studies in Germany and giving his impressions of life there.

After Venable's marriage in 1884, personal letters between him and his wife, Sallie Manning Venable, and in time, their children, predominate. Professional correspondence with scientific colleagues and letters concerning publishing begin to appear, as do items relating to personal business, real estate, and bonds.

The correspondence from 1900 to 1914 includes few items relating to Venable's tenure as president of the University of North Carolina. An exception is a group of over fifty letters, from autumn, 1912, concerning a hazing incident in which a student died. Correspondents concerned with the hazing incident include W.B. Phillips, James Sprunt, and W.H.S. Burgwyn. Another item of note during this period is a letter from W.R. Kenan, 27 May 1907, concerning Union Carbide legal matters.

After 1913, there is a gradual decline in numbers of letters from family members and an increase in professional correspondence. In 1914, there are several letters from the Bureau of Mines relating to Venable's research in radioactive metals, a few personal letters from James Sprunt, and a letter from R.D.W. Connor accepting Venable's resignation as president of the university on behalf of the board of trustees. In a letter dated 6 September 1918 Venable was notified of his appointment as "consulting chemist" to the War Department. A few letters concerning the disposition of the estate of Venable's stepmother (Mary Southall Venable) appear in April 1920.

Other letters of interest from the 1920s include: a letter from Louis Round Wilson 22 April 1922 on raising money to build a new library; rejection letters 25 October 1923 and 10 April 1924, from publishers; May 1924 letters concerning the illness of James Sprunt; a 24 June 1924 letter about the atomic weight of zirconium, an important research project of Venable's; a letter to George Washington Carver, 14 February 1925, discussing Carver's work with sweet potatoes (unmailed?); a letter from Archibald Henderson, 27 December 1926, on Venable Hall; and a letter from E.A. Alderman, 20 June 1928, concerning a six million dollar gift by an anonymous donor to the University of Virginia.

After 1929, the volume of correspondence diminishes rapidly, with the chief subjects being Venable's retirement in 1930 and his death in 1934. An item of special interest in this period is a letter from Frank Porter Graham, 1 February 1930, asking Venable to endorse a statement "To the people of North Carolina" urging the acceptance of social change brought about by industrialization. There are several letters from Venable's half-brother, Charles S. Venable, to his mother, 1943-1945.

The last four folders in the series contain undated letters that are almost entirely between family members.

Correspondence, 1893-1941, legal documents, patents, and printed material concerning the discovery of calcium carbide and acetylene gas and their commercial uses, and the formation of the Union Carbide Corporation.

Noteworthy items include a "Memorandum of agreement," 27 March 1893, between F.P. Venable, Thomas L. Willson, and W.R. Walker to organize "a company for the manufacture, application and introduction of calcium and similar carbides" (folder 97), and a letter, 9 September 1921(?), from Venable to John Motley Morehead, claiming that Venable had been promised seventeen percent of the stock in said company as a reward for his role in identifying calcium carbide and acetylene gas (folder 96).

Two items of interest among the printed material (folder 98) are Calcium Carbide and the Process of Manufacture (1940?) by William R. Kenan, Jr., and "Some of the Properties of Calcium Carbide" (1895) by F.P. Venable and Thomas Clarke.

Arrangement: chronological.

These are the minutes of four "annual" meetings of the "Research Club," a social organization of Chapel Hill professors that periodically poked fun at academic research. Included in its membership were Venable, Edward Kidder Graham, J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, W. C. Coker, W. M. Dey, C. S. Mangum, and others. The club met at least six times: in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, and 1921. The minutes of all but the 1916 and 1921 gatherings are in this series. A complete set of minutes is in the University of North Carolina Archives.

In addition to farcical parliamentary preliminaries, each set of minutes includes a tongue-in-cheek "paper" by each member. Topics of Venable's papers included "The Ontological Basis of the Atomic Theory of Darwinism in Relation to the Cosmological Basis of the Electron Theory of Modern Dances" (1914), and Chapter IV of The Laundry Ticket: A Story of Love and Adventure .

Except where otherwise noted, these writings are by, or presumed to be by, F.P. Venable.

Pamphlets, genealogies, newspaper clippings, and other items concerning Venable and members of his family, including ancestors.

Arrangement: chronological.

Bills and receipts, invitations, calling cards, programs, insurance policies, honors and appointments, stocks, Confederate bonds, research reports, maps, and other items.

Two of the Confederate bonds were issued by the state of North Carolina in 1862 and signed by Governor Zebulon Baird Vance; another Confederate bond was issued by the Confederate government in Richmond in 1864 (folder 158).

The two maps (folder 161) are of special interest. One map (probably hand-drawn by Confederates) depicts the Kentucky-Tennessee area in 1862, with railroad lines and distances between towns marked in. Another map, printed by C. Crozet, shows "the Internal Improvements of Virginia According to the Resolutions of the Assembly of April 7, 1838."

Other items of interest are two research reports to the Secretary of the Interior on problems related to gas warfare, 1917-1918 (folder 162), and two poems (folder 162) "written by moonlight" in 1932 in Chapel Hill, by James Asa Johnson.

Class and laboratory notebooks, financial records, calendars of outgoing letters, travel accounts, and other volumes. Most of the nineteen class and laboratory notebooks date from 1879 to 1881 and 1889, and were compiled by Venable when he was a student in Germany. The seven financial record books include bank account books, records kept by Venable as administrator of an estate, records of personal expenses and income, and "Purchases for U.N.C., 1889," (incomplete). The travel accounts document travel in Italy, Germany, and the United States in 1880-81, 1908, and 1910. Particularly notable is a 34-page travelog of a trip on the steamer Konig Albert in March 1908 from Germany to New York City (volume 30). Two calendars of outgoing letters list the names and addresses of persons to whom Venable sent letters between 1923 and 1927 and between 1929 and 1931. The other volumes include a class register and grade book, 1881, a North Carolina Geological Survey field book, 1915, "A List of Addresses, Papers and Other Publications [by] F.P. Venable, 1879--" (volume 38), and other items.

Note: P-4368/47-63 are identified and unidentified classmates and friends of FPV from the University of Virginia.

Diplomas and other items relating to Francis and Louise Venable, 1905-1920.