Mainly letters from family members, personal friends, public school educators, University of North Carolina faculty members, fellow archivists and historians, publishers, and colleagues in various professional organizations. Correspondence concerns Connor's life as student, public school educator, secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission, University of North Carolina trustee, and historian.

Letters from family and friends dominate until 1906 and continue, scattered, through 1920 with his father, Henry Groves Connor, as his most regular family correspondent. There are letters from Sadie Hanes Connor both before and after the Connors' marriage.

Some material relates to Connor's teaching experience and work with the state Educational Campaign Committee, including his service as judge of educational projects for the 1907 Jamestown Exposition. Public school educators Harry P. Harding, Charles L. Coon, and R.G. Kittrell, who became superintendents of schools in Charlotte, Wilson, and Tarboro, respectively, wrote Connor about school issues.

Connor's work in establishing the state archives is reflected in correspondence with Dunbar Rowland (Mississippi Department of Archives and History), Thomas M. Owen (Alabama Department of Archives and History), and A.S. Salley, Jr. (Historical Commission of South Carolina), and with national leaders in archival work, including Waldo G. Leland, Worthington C. Ford, J. Franklin Jameson, and Gaillard Hunt. With Hunt, Connor served on a committee to investigate the physical condition of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the State Department; their report is enclosed in a letter of 5 May 1920.

Many letters concern Connor's close association with the University of North Carolina as a trustee (1913-1920) and show his involvement in the selection of university presidents in 1913-1914 and 1918-1919. Connor corresponded about North Carolina research with several historians, among them Samuel A. Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, Alfred M. Waddell, and Charles McLean Andrews. There is also routine correspondence from publishers of the numerous books Connor was writing, as well as from various organizations to which he belonged. In 1920, when he was studying at Columbia, R.B House wrote him about North Carolina Historical Commission business and J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton and Harry W. Chase kept in touch about his coming to the university as a Kenan professor.

Letters concerning Connor's career as Kenan professor of history, his own and others' historical writings, the Connor family, and contemporary issues both inside and outside North Carolina.

During his transition from graduate student at Columbia University to history professor at the University of North Carolina, Connor wrote in June 1921 to his brother Henry Groves Connor, Jr., about his assessment of the university's trustees, faculty, and general status. On 24 August and 1 September, he also discussed the future of the North Carolina Historical Commission and reviewed his accomplishments as its secretary for eighteen years.

Legislative appropriations for the university and the university budget were continuing topics of discussion in Connor's correspondence, and pertinent letters are scattered throughout, especially toward the beginning and end of most years. The present and future relationship of women students to the university was the topic of correspondence between Connor and others in March 1923. Also in 1923, Connor wrote a brief biographical sketch of his father, Henry Groves Connor, in a letter of 31 October. The proposal to build a bell tower on campus was debated in letters of November 1923 and January 1924. Comments on the completed bell tower appear in letters of October and November 1931. The location of the new library was discussed in February 1924 correspondence.

In a letter of 10 March 1924, Connor explained the extent of the "Lily White" movement in the North Carolina Republican party to a fellow professor in California.

The teaching of evolution became a controversy in the legislature and at the university during 1925-1926. See especially letters of 5 and 25 September 1925 and 7 and 16 May 1926 for comments on the controversy's effect at the university and on state politics.

Connor, in trying to answer required forms for the state bureaucracy, described the typical daily duties of a professor (May 1925). A Connor letter of 23 March 1927 is indicative of racial attitudes at the university; he suggested that people were not ready to accept a black guest professor.

Much correspondence, 1926-1928, involved Connor's efforts to finish his two-volume work, North Carolina: Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 1584-1925. In 1928, Connor corresponded with several colleagues who helped him write the final chapters. The publication of the book in 1929 occasioned several letters about the actual date of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (especially 15 April 1929 and 3 January 1930).

In June 1929, Connor became chairman of the history department at the University of North Carolina. From February to June 1930 much of the correspondence centers on Connor's chances of becoming the successor to Harry W. Chase as university president. In April, correspondence indicates that Connor briefly considered the presidency of Rutgers, a job which would have tripled his salary.

Connor spent the academic year 1931-1932 doing research on North Carolina history sources in England. Colleagues, family, and friends wrote to him about conditions at the university and the worsening financial situation in the state (see especially 1 and 28 January 1932). Connor gave a despairing review of his own U.N.C. salary history, 1921 to 1933, in a letter of May 1933.

Letters on which the journals of his experience as archivist of the United States are based, including his own correspondence and typed transcripts of letters from the files of J. Franklin Jameson that relate to Connor's appointment. Letters of May through September 1934 reflect Connor's initial refusal to leave his position at the University of North Carolina, his selection as the American Historical Association's choice for the job, and the lobbying effort by the history and archival communities to secure his appointment. Many of the letters of 1934-1935 show the pressure on Connor to find jobs in the new Archives for everyone from relatives to those with the backing of the Democratic patronage machine.

Correspondence between Connor and A.R. Newsome, Solon J. ("Steve") Buck, and Theodore C. Blegen of March and September-October 1935 reveals increasing interest in establishing a separate organization of archivists outside of the American Historical Association's Public Archives Commission. In a November 1936 letter, Solon J. Buck supplied a draft for the Society of American Archivists' constitution. Member lists and plans for the first annual meeting of the Society were discussed in letters of May and June 1937. There is also correspondence (April-August 1937) between Connor and Samuel Flagg Bemis, when they were both working on a report for a Society of American Archivists committee about requirements for archival graduate training.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's interest in the work of the Archives is evident in his suggestions for establishing a motion picture archives in a vault under Constitution Avenue (30 October 1935). The question of a motion picture archives continued to be a subject of discussion in letters from Roosevelt and others (see letters of 15 February 1936, 23 and 24 April 1937, 15 and 24 May 1937, and 16 February 1938). Roosevelt also took an interest in the question of moving Civil War records from the War Department to the Archives. (The war records issue appears in letters of 7 July 1937, 2 and 6 August 1937, 2 and 16 December 1938, and 9 January 1939). Roosevelt requested that Connor have the preservation department at the Archives work on his personal papers (letters beginning December 1937 and scattered thereafter), and he called on the services of Connor in planning the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y. (December 1938 and scattered thereafter).

Letters also reflect Connor's continued interest in and contact with people and events in North Carolina, including the results of the consolidation of the University of North Carolina system (March and October 1934), the proposal of Burton Craige to establish an endowed professorship (March and April 1937), the death of Duke University professor of history William K. Boyd (March 1948) and that of U.N.C. business manager Charles T. Woollen (October 1938), the restoration of the Bennett Place historic site (November-December 1938, May and August 1940), and the proposal to make the Alamance Battleground a national park (February 1940). Scattered letters from friends also kept him informed about the university, the town of Chapel Hill, and the work of the North Carolina Historical Commission. Robert B. House's letter of 5 October 1938, besides eulogizing Charles T. Woollen, also documented the growth of the enrollment and physical plant of the university, 1901-1938. A letter of 14 June 1941 from Frank Porter Graham makes clear the offer to Connor to return to U.N.C. as Burton Craige Professor of History and Jurisprudence.

Letters concerning Connor's activities with various organizations and his position as Burton Craige professor of History and Jurisprudence. Organization letters include those involving Society of American Archivists business from 1942 through 1948. The number of Society of American Archivists letters is especially heavy in 1942 and 1943 when Connor was president. There is another heavy concentration of letters from February through September 1946 when Connor was part of a committee making plans to amend the S.A.A. constitution.

Much correspondence comes from Connor's work with the North Carolina Historical Commission, which became the Department of Archives and History in 1943. As head of the executive board, Connor had regular correspondence with Charles Christopher Crittenden, who was secretary of the Historical Commission and executive head of the Department of Archives and History.There were money-raising plans for the reconstruction of Tryon Palace (July-November 1944) and the purchase of the North Carolina Charter of 1663 (1948-1949), as well as plans for a new archives building (November 1944, July 1945, August 1946, January 1950) and for getting a Barrow process laminating machine (November 1947; May, November 1948).

Connor was also on the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina Press (1942-1948) and on Archibald MacLeish's Librarian's Council of the Library of Congress (1942). There are scattered letters pertaining to both. (The majority of papers from the Board of Governors of the Press will be found in Series 4 (Organization Materials), along with those of other organizations in which Connor participated.)

After he left the National Archives, Connor heard occasionally from Solon J. Buck, Thad Page, and other former associates about happenings there. The issue of whether the Declaration of Independence belonged in the Library of Congress or the National Archives arose in letters of December 1944 through February 1945.

The death of Franklin D. Roosevelt prompted some correspondence between Connor and the director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (June 1945) about the effects of his death and Roosevelt's plans and intentions for his library.

Correspondence with J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton in 1944 (January, February, March, June) dealt with the revival of the Historical Society of North Carolina, of which Connor served as head in 1949.

Affairs at the university are reflected in letters scattered throughout this period. Connor was on a committee in 1944 to make an agreement between the university and the Chapel Hill public schools. The agreement, as well as former ones from 1926 and 1936 are in the January 1944 letters. Race relations in Chapel Hill are reflected in letters of July and September 1944, which discussed a controversy begun when Charles Jones, a Presbyterian minister, invited black band members to a campus youth picnic. Another controversy arose in the history department over conflicts in personality and revisionist teaching of Reconstruction, centering around Professor Howard K. Beale (see letters of August, September, 1946; April 1947).

Arrangement: by volume number.

Reminiscences about the organization of the National Archives, the establishment of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, and related experiences in Washington, D.C., 1934-1941, based on personal recollections, news accounts, letters, and federal documents. Connor organized these reminiscences in six ring binders; for preservation purposes, the pages have been removed and placed in folders. The original volume numbers have been retained in numbering pages in the folders. The titles of the sections within each volume are Connor's. (See volume I, page 1 for a note by Connor on his sources.)

Arrangement: chronological.

Transcripts of telephone calls received by Connor at the National Archives. Many of these consist of requests for positions on the Archives staff. Others deal with issues of concern to Connor as archivist of the United States, including congressional attitudes towards the Archives and progress of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Interspersed are a few reminiscences Connor wrote, based on the transcripts.

A separate reminiscence describes the genesis of the Burton Craige professorship at the University of North Carolina in 1937 and how Connor received the appointment in 1941.

Arrangement: chronological.

A collection of notes recording meetings and other activities of Connor, chiefly in Washington, D.C. The notes seem to be based on his appointment calendar, correspondence and telegrams, and some news clippings. In a separate folder (931) is a list of his major professional activities for 1937.

Arrangement: chronological.

A letter from Princeton University and one from the Library of Congress note U.N.C. -related materials. A letter written by Connor's secretary reports on the status of the project at the time of his death.

Arrangement: chronological.

Typed transcriptions of materials gathered from the Southern Historical Collection, the University Archives, and other sources.

Arrangement: chronological.

Typed transcriptions of items copied from the University Archives' Faculty Records on student conduct and discipline.

Arrangement: chronological.

In addition to items relating to Connor's position as archivist of the United States, included are reviews of books and articles written by Connor, reviews of speeches he made, announcements of various jobs and positions he took and honors he received, editorials and articles speculating that he would be named president of the University of North Carolina, and a book review he wrote. Additional clippings relate to members of his family. These include death notices of his brothers and of his father; and articles about other members of the Connor family.

Arrangement: chronological.

Items from University of North Carolina ceremonies, North Carolina social and historical events, and, especially, Connor's activities in Washington, D.C.

Arrangement: chronological.

Membership cards and certificates from social, historical, genealogical, and honorary organizations; personal items such as passports and baptismal certificates; and two biographical sketches of R. D. W. Connor.