Courtney Sharpe Ward Papers, 1932-2007 (bulk 1934-1938)

Collection Number: 05687

Collection Title: Courtney Sharpe Ward Papers, 1932-2007 (bulk 1934-1938)

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Size	1.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 400 items)
Abstract	Papers of peace activist, clubwoman, and journalist Courtney Sharpe Ward (1911-1997) of Lumberton, N.C., primarily document her pacifism work during the 1930s and early 1940s with several local and national organizations, including North Carolina Peace Action Association, YMCA's at North Carolina colleges and universities, the National Council for Prevention of War, National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, and Duke University's Institute for International Relations. Other materials pertain to her work in Christian education, particularly Sunday school for children in the Methodist Church, South, to her involvement with women's organizations and in particular the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, and to the early years of her career as a journalist and columnist with the Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton, N.C. Collection materials include a scrapbook, correspondence, printed organizational items, such as informational sheets, brochures, and meeting programs, newspaper clippings, photographs, handwritten notes and reflections, scripts for peace pageants performed in the 1930s, and drafts of lectures and speeches delivered. The collection illustrates the anti-war efforts in which she and her associates including former congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and University of North Carolina System President Frank Porter Graham engaged in the mid 1930s.
Creator	Ward, Courtney Sharpe, 1911-1997.
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language	English

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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 Courtney Sharpe Ward Papers #5687, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information: Received from Ann Ward Little in 2015 (Acc. 102347).

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.

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Processed by: Laura Hart, April 2016

Encoded by: Laura Hart, April 2016

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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.

Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Courtney Sharpe Ward (1911-1997) was born Anna Courtney Sharpe on 11 February 1911 in Lumberton, N.C, to Daisy Sharpe and John Allen Sharpe. After graduating in 1931 from the Women's College of Duke University, she worked with her two brothers Jack Ward and Albert Ward and their father at the Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton. Ward (then Sharpe) was active in the Chestnut Street Methodist Church and taught Sunday school there. During the 1930s she joined the North Carolina Peace Action Association and served as president. In 1937, she traveled extensively through Europe and Turkey with her cousin Frank Turner and sent regular reports to the Robesonian about her travels.

In 1938, she married Archibald F. Ward, Jr., Lumberton, N.C. native and a recent graduate of the Crozer Theological Seminary. The Wards lived first in Towson, Md., and later in 1942 they moved to Williamsburg, Va., where Archibald became minister of the Williamsburg Baptist Church. Their daughter Ann was born in 1942.

In the 1950s following the dissolution of her marriage, Ward resumed her career as a journalist and served as a correspondent in Williamsburg for the Richmond, Va., News Leader. An enthusiastic supporter of the United Nations, she had the opportunity to interview many speakers at the international assemblies held in Williamsburg. The speakers she interviewed included leading North Carolina progressive Frank Porter Graham, Harvard sociologist and Russian emigre Pitirim Sorokin, Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, British historian Arnold Toynbee, actress Myrna Loy, and Jordan's King Hussein.

In 1966, Ward retuned to Lumberton, N.C., and to the Robesonian where her brothers Jack Ward and Albert Ward served respectively as editor and business manager. Ward served as a columnist, feature writer, and editor for the society page until the family sold the newspaper in 1982. Ward died in Durham, N.C., in 1997.

Adapted from Ann Ward Little's "Courtney Sharpe Ward: Activist and Journalist," 2013.

Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Papers of peace activist, clubwoman, and journalist Courtney Sharpe Ward (1911-1997) of Lumberton, N.C., primarily document her pacifism work during the 1930s and early 1940s with several local and national organizations, including North Carolina Peace Action Association, YMCA's at North Carolina colleges and universities, the National Council for Prevention of War, National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, and Duke University's Institute for International Relations.

Other materials pertain to her work in Christian education, particularly Sunday school for children in the Methodist Church, South, to her involvement with women's organizations and in particular the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, and to the early years of her career as a journalist and columnist with the Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton, N.C. The scrapbook's inside cover contains clippings of her 1932 column "About It & About By A Bohemian."

Collection materials dating from circa 1932 to 1942 include a scrapbook, correspondence, printed organizational items--such as informational sheets, brochures, and meeting programs--newspaper clippings, photographs, handwritten notes and reflections, scripts for peace pageants performed in the 1930s, and drafts of lectures and speeches delivered. The collection illustrates the anti-war efforts in which Courtney Sharpe Ward and her associates including former congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and University of North Carolina System President (later United States Senator and United Nations official) Frank Porter Graham engaged in the mid 1930s.

Post World War II materials include Ward's handwritten notes dated 1964 and 1978 about her peace work during the 1930s, copies of a 1972 article Ward wrote for the Robesonian about Frank Porter Graham following his death, notes for a lecture on educators' social responsibility that Ward gave in 1986, and a biographical sketch written in 2007 by Ward's daughter Ann Ward Little.

Contents list

Expand/collapse Courtney Sharpe Ward Papers, 1932-2007 and undated.

circa 400 items.

Box 3	Scrapbook, 1932-1938 Chiefly newspaper clippings including several clippings from columns by Ward (then Sharpe) in the Robesonian and many about peace activism and organizations with which she affiliated. Other materials include photographs, a few letters, and printed items such as peace bonds, programs from events, post cards, and other travel ephemera.
Folder 1	Peace Action, 1933-1934 Includes a typescript program for the "First N.C. Peace Action Meeting," handwritten notes for suggested actions such as "Have study groups" and "Honor local Peace Heroes," a reprint of article "En Avant!--For Peace Action" about the Institute of International Relations at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and "A Program of Peace Action for the Churches of Christ in America, Armistice Week."
Folder 2	"Report of Institute + Peace Action to Kiwanis Club," 1934 Handwritten notes on Peace Action and the Institute of International Relations at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
Folder 3	Handwritten notes, 1934 Notes on "Disarmament" taken at the Institute for International Relations at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
Folder 4	"Peace Action," 1934-1936 News bulletin issued by the National Council for Prevention of War.
Folder 5	Methodist Episcopal Church, 1934-1937 and undated Printed items for Christian education and Sunday School in the Methodist Episcopal Church includes "Widening Horizons, Deepening Friendships," "Are You Sharing in Building a New World?," and "Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men" in the Educational Service Bulletin. Also included is a script for a church pageant titled "Thirty-three Years."
Folder 6	Correspondence, 1935 Correspondents include Jeannette Rankin and other staff with the National Council for Prevention of War, United States Congressman J. Bayard Clark, faculty and staff at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., and Salem College in Winston-Salem, N.C., and ministers with the Presbyterian Church. Some outgoing correspondence pertains to the sale of peace bonds.
Folder 7	Handwritten notes, 1935 and undated Notes on "Building for Peace" and "Integrity" pertain to a 1935 Methodist youth congress.
Folder 8	Draft article, 1935 Article quotes extensively from an address on "the necessity of renewal and strengthening of neutrality legislation" that Ward (then Sharpe) gave to a Kiwanis Club.
Folder 9	"We the people pay for war," 1935 Summary of a talk about peace work.
Folder 10	North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, 1935 Handwritten and typescript notes on the Federation's third-third annual convention held in Elizabeth City, N.C., and an issue of The North Carolina Clubwoman.
Folder 11	Speech, "The Present Situation: What We Can Do About It," circa 1935 "The World Court and the League of Nations are not perfect organizations--panaceas for the ills of the world--but they are important steps in the right direction."
Folder 12	Toyohiro Kagawa's Songs from the Slums, 1935 A poetry book with a foreword by Sherwood Eddy. On the inside, Ward (then Sharpe) wrote "Methodist Y.P. Conference Dec. 30, 1935."
Folder 13	Notebook and notes, 1935 "'Facing Life with Christ,' Methodist Young People's Conference Memphis, Tenn. Dec. 28-31, 1935."
Folder 14	Speech, "The Junior Club Woman in a Growing World," circa 1935 "To have been allowed to live one's years on earth in this century I feel to be greatest of privileges; to be a woman in this age in a country influenced by the teachings of Christ is a high calling."
Folder 15	Tenth Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, 1935 Handwritten notes and a report on the tenth anniversary Conference on the Cause and Cure of War that Ward (then Sharpe) delivered in Lumberton, N.C. Notes begin, "National Peace conference on the day before Coughlin [Father Charles Coughlin] speech. His power was realized and steps were taken to offset it."
Folder 16	Reviewers Club, 1935 Handwritten notes for a speech. "Peace is a woman's job."
Folder 17	Newspaper clippings, 1935-1936
Folder 18	National Council for Prevention of War, 1935-1936 Chiefly printed items including a 1936 brochure about the organization "What? When? Where? Why? Who?"
Folder 19	Jeannette Rankin, 1935-1942 and undated Printed materials include newspaper clippings, a press release, and a biographical sketch about Rankin, the first woman elected to the United States Congress in 1916 and a peace activist with the National Council for the Prevention of War. Also included are Ward's handwritten reflections of meeting Rankin at the Institute of International Relations at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and visiting Rankin in her home state of Georgia.
Box 3	Photographs, circa 1935 Black and White prints Chiefly unidentified images, many with Ward (then Sharpe) in various locations that according to separate handwritten notes (located in the image box) may include Williams College in Massachusetts, Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pa., United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., New York City, Georgia, and Lumberton, N.C. One image, identified as "ACS at International Relations or Human Relations Inst. at Wms College", depicts Ward (then Sharpe) with Frank Porter Graham. Another image dated October 1935 is labeled "Selling peace bonds to Mayor Johnson." Several images may depict Jeannette Rankin.
Folder 20	Correspondence, May-December 1936 Correspondents include Jeannette Rankin and other staff of the National Council for Prevention of War, the YMCA at Duke University in Durham, N.C., officers and staff with the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, staff with the Southern Peace-Action Movement in Durham, N.C., staff for the Women's Missionary Council of the Methodist Church, South, and Gaeta World Boyer with the Peoples Mandate to Governments to End War in Washington, D.C.
Folder 21	Correspondence, January-April 1936 Correspondents include ministers with the Southern Baptist Convention, Presbyterian Church, and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Jeannette Rankin and other staff of the National Council for Prevention of War, the YMCA's at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and North Carolina State College (now University) in Raleigh, N.C., Tom Alderman Sykes with the Duke Institute of International Relations, and United States Congressman J. Bayard Clark.
Folder 22	General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1936 Printed items include a program for the seventeenth council meeting in Miami, Fla., in 1936, travel ephemera for Florida, and a brochure "Objectives of Department of American Citizenship."
Folder 23	Handwritten notes, reflections, and a prayer, 1936 and undated Includes notes on spring flowers and reflections titled "My purpose in life is," "Why Marry?," "Why Not Marry?," "Description of the Home I would Like to Establish," "What I would like to do," and "Intermediate Goals."
Folder 24	North Carolina clubs, 1936 Includes a message from the North Carolina League for Progressive Legislation calling for mobilization "to educate for social change," and a resolution adopted by the Eliza Fuller Missionary Society of Chestnut Street Methodist Church in Lumberton, N.C., in part states "We believe modern warfare is mass murder which cannot be participated in consistently by Christian peoples."
Folder 25	Peoples Mandate to Governments to End War, 1936 Chiefly printed items including a statement of purpose, which "is to express such overwhelming opposition to war that governments will not dare resort to it. 50,000,000 signatures to the Mandate is the goal." Also contains press releases and solicitations for donations.
Folder 26	Emergency Peace Campaign, 1936 Printed items are a brochure for the Southern Student Division in conjunction with Southern Peace-Action Movement at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and a leaflet "Why Fight" with anti-war quotations from generals and politicians, including Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Napoleon.
Folder 27	Lumberton High School, 1936 Printed items are programs for a peace pageant and commencement at the public high school in Lumberton, N.C.
Folder 28	"Peace Agent Organ of Southern Peace-Action Movement," 1936 Issues of newsletter published by Duke University YMCA.
Folder 29	Young People's Conference, Memphis, Tenn. 1936 Speech pertains to a youth conference sponsored by the Methodist Church with the theme "Facing Life with Jesus Christ."
Folder 30	North Carolina Peace-Action News, circa 1936
Folder 31	North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs 1936-1937 and undated Printed items include a program for the annual meeting of the tenth district of the Federation held in Lumberton, N.C., a program for the Federation's thirty-fourth annual convention in High Point, N.C., and a brochure for the Department of International Relations.
Folder 32	Notebook, 1936-1937 "I am young and life is but promise, / Is it too much I desire- / To find Beauty and Goodness and Truth…"
Folder 33	Marathon Round Tables, 1936-1937 and undated Chiefly printed materials pertaining to the round tables sponsored by the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War. "You can help to evolve a Foreign Policy for the United States that will Prepare For Peace."
Folder 34	"Talk for School Children," 1936-1937 "I too have a dream. It's going to take a lot of sacrificing to make it come true and none of the things you're working for will be realized unless the dream of peace is accomplished."
Folder 35	Other printed materials, 1936-1940 and undated Printed items from organizations including the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, National Conference of Jews and Christians, Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, Institute of Human Relations, Institute for Propaganda Analysis, Tuskegee Institute, Dillon County Council of Farm Women (South Carolina) Lucis Trust, Committee to Keep America Out of War, American Friends Service Committee, and the League of Nations Association.
Folder 36	Correspondence, 1937 Correspondents include Alice M. Baldwin, Dean of the Women's College at Duke University in Durham, N.C., Harold Chance of the Emergency Peace Campaign in Philadelphia, Pa., staff with the Board of Christian Education in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, United States Congressman J. Bayard Clark, officers and staff with the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, and staff of the YMCA at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Folder 37	Newspaper clippings, 1937
Folder 38	Summary of experience and work plan, 1937 Statements about work Ward (then Sharpe) had done for peace in the Peace-Action Association and her church. Ward used these statements in an application to attend a summer seminar run by missionary and educator Sherwood Eddy.
Folder 39	Journal, 1937 Loose pages with pre-printed dates and brief entries on the day's activities.
Folder 40	Notebook, 1937 Contains notes for various speeches delivered. "Ours is a day of catch words and phrases. We think and express ourselves in terms of them. It is part of our attempt to adjust ourselves to a tempo of life which is a constant strain on one's strength…"
Folder 41	Duke University Alumni Register, 1937 and 1942
Folder 42	National Council for Prevention of War, 1937-1940 and undated Includes a 1939 speech "America Must Stay Out of Europe's War and Preserve Civilized Life Here" by Charles A. Lindbergh and a handbill with "Reasons for Going Slowly in Naval Building."
Folder 43	Correspondence, 1938-1940 Includes requests for Ward at to speak at organizations' meetings.
Folder 44	Handwritten notes, 1938 and undated Notes pertain to "What's the Use" a vesper talk, "the truth about what war is," and suggestion that women's groups sign peace resolutions, "not as women's clubs, missionary societies or Rotary clubs--but as voters."
Folder 45	Peace bond, 1938 "The National Council for Prevention of War, a corporation existing under the laws of the District of Columbia, pledges to the purchaser of this Peace Bond that the sum represented hereby will be faithfully used for the development of a more adequate peace movement throughout the United States, having as its objective the prevention of war."
Folder 46	Southern Council on International Relations, 1938-1939 and undated Includes minutes from an executive committee meeting in Chapel Hill, N.C., a program for an organizational meeting in Raleigh, N.C., and a memo on "International Problems."
Folder 47	Newspaper clippings, 1938-1940
Folder 48	"They Shall Not Die In Europe," 1939 Printed article written by Arthur Derounian "Depicting the Horror of Modern Warfare."
Folder 49	Baltimore Study Club, 1939 Handwritten notes for a lecture on Confucius.
Folder 50	"Christians and World Peace," 1940 Handwritten notes for a panel at the College of Christian Living held in Towson, Md. and typed notes about the sessions attended.
Folder 51	Congressman Hamilton Fish, 1940 Printed items pertaining to House Joint Resolution providing for a national referendum before American citizens can be conscripted for services overseas, including a radio address titled "Americanism vs. Internationalism" delivered by Congressman Hamilton Fish.
Folder 52	"Peace Action," 1940 News bulletin issued by the National Council for Prevention of War.
Folder 53	North Carolina Press Association, 1942 Items are a bulletin regarding federal wage and hour law and a copy of a letter sent to North Carolina congressman from the association concerning the press, the war effort, and war rationing.
Folder 54	Peace pageants, undated (circa 1930s) Pageant scripts for "A Search for Happiness" from the National Council for Prevention of War and "Good Will, The Magician."
Folder 55	Handwritten notes, undated (circa 1930s) Notes pertain to Mahatma Gandhi.
Folder 56	Draft article, undated (circa 1930s) Article describes a visit to Athens, Greece in the early 1930s.
Folder 57	"Stock Questions and Answers on Peace and War," undated (circa 1930s) "Q. We Need the R.O.T.C. to make good citizens. A. Wholesome sports and a vital church would make good citizens. We should ask whether teaching people to shoot, to bayonet, and to kill--whether teaching men unreasoned obedience part of the time and unmitigated license the rest--make good citizens."
Folder 58	Newspaper clippings, 1961 and undated
Folder 59	Correspondence, 1963 and undated Includes a four-page letter from Angus Wilton McClean, Jr., writing from Hot Springs, Ark., in 15 March 1963 and an undated chain letter "The luck of Flanders."
Folder 60	"Peace Action," 1964 Description of Ward's work during the 1930s with the North Carolina Peace Action Committee.
Folder 61	Frank Porter Graham, 1972 Draft and printed versions of memorial article about Frank Porter Graham written by Ward for the Robesonian
Folder 62	Handwritten notes, 1978 A list of organizations to whom Ward spoke for peace during the 1930s.
Folder 63	Educators for Social Responsibility, 1986 Handwritten notes for a lecture Ward gave.
Folder 64	"Courtney Sharpe Ward, Journalist," 2007 A biographical sketch written by Ward's daughter, Ann Courtney Ward Little.

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The scrapbook and image box with photographs are housed together in box 3.

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Collection Number: 05687 Collection Title: Courtney Sharpe Ward Papers, 1932-2007 (bulk 1934-1938)