Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

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 Robert Henry Mason Papers #4494, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Robert Mason of Southern Pines, N.C., in October 1987, January 1994 (Acc. 94008), April 1996 (Acc. 96034), and March 1997 (Acc. 97038).

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: Gina Overcash, November 1987; Roslyn Holdzkom, March 1993 and July 1996

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Dawne Howard Lucas, January 2022

Not fully processed pending additions.

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.

• American Society of Newspaper Editors.
• American newspapers--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• American newspapers--Sections, columns, etc.--Editorials.
• American newspapers--Virginia--History--20th century.
• Betts, Doris.
• Daniels, Jonathan, 1902-1981.
• Davis, Burke, 1913-2006.
• Dill, Alonzo Thomas.
• Journalists--Virginia--History--20th century.
• Mason, Robert Henry, 1912-
• Newspaper editors--Virginia--History--20th century.
• Sanford herald (Sanford, N.C.)
• Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)

• Joseph Lenior Chambers Papers (#3827).

Robert Henry Mason was born on 1 September 1912 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in Mebane. He received an A.B. degree from the University of North Carolina in 1933. He married Frances Fulton of Walnut Cove, North Carolina, in 1939. The Masons have one daughter, Frances (Mrs. Robert F. Baldwin, Jr.).

Robert Mason was editor of the Virginian Pilot from January 1962 until his retirement in October 1978. He had been the newspaper's managing editor, Sunday editor, city editor, and a staff writer. Before joining the Pilot in 1941, he worked for The Sanford Herald, The Raleigh Times, and the Durham Morning Herald, all in North Carolina. He left the Pilot during World Was II when he served as a Naval Reserve lieutenant in the Pacific Amphibious Force, and again for five years (1952-1957) while editing the Sanford paper, of which he then was part owner.

For seventeen years beginning in 1960, Mason was a member of the board of trustees of the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences and its successor, the Chrysler Museum of Norfolk. As chairman of the Norfolk Civil War Centennial Committee, he cooperated with the Atlantic Amphibious Force training command in staging a scale-model reenactment of the Merrimack ( C.S.S Virginia) - Monitor battle on its hundredth anniversary. He has written and spoken extensively on Civil War naval topics, the Confederate cruisers especially.

Mason received a National Book Award for literary criticism in 1951 and twice was a Pulitzer juror. He was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors for twenty years. In 1987, he was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the author of One of the Neighbors' Children, published by Algonquin Books in 1987.

In 1980, Mason and his wife moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina. He is active in Weymouth, a regional cultural center. He continues to write, publishing articles in such journals as the William and Mary Law Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Naval Institute Proceedings

Correspondence, speeches and writings, news clippings, and photographs documenting the career of Robert Henry Mason. Correspondence is with newspaper colleagues, other business associates, government officials and friends, including Jonathan Daniels (1902-1981), Doris Betts (1932- ), Alonzo Dill, and Burke Davis, and deals with such matters as the American Society of Newspaper Editors; the "Sanford Herald," Sanford, N.C., which Mason partly owned in the mid 1950s; and the editorial stance of the "Virginian-Pilot."

• Photographs (P-4494/1-25)