Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 George Washington Allen Papers #2711, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Ruth and Beth Allen of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1940.

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: Roslyn Holdzkom, April 199

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Dawne Howard Lucas, May 2021

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

This description is based on an inventory produced by Ellen R. Strong in 1965

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.

• Allen family.
• Allen, Alexander A., 1855-1918.
• Allen, Alexander A., fl. 1832-1870.
• Allen, George Washington, fl. 1832-1874.
• Allen, Ruth Linton, fl. 1891-1914.
• Allen, Willie M., b. 1853.
• Bainbridge (Ga.) -- Social life and customs.
• Confederate States of America -- Social conditions.
• Europe -- Description and travel.
• Family -- Alabama -- Social life and customs.
• Family -- Georgia -- Social life and customs.
• Journalists -- Georgia -- History -- 19th century.
• Lafayette (Ala.) -- Social life and customs.
• Lawyers -- Georgia -- History -- 19th century.
• Linton family.
• Mathematics -- Problems, exercises, etc. -- History -- 19th century.
• Opelika (Ala.) -- Social life and customs.
• Plantation life -- Alabama.
• Plantation life -- Georgia.
• School prose -- History -- 19th century.
• Slavery -- Alabama.
• Slavery -- Georgia.
• Smith, Hoke, 1855-1931.
• Southern States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950.
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Destruction and pillage.
• Wheat family.
• Women -- Education -- Alabama -- History.
• Women teachers -- Alabama -- History.

George Washington Allen owned large plantations around Opelika and Lafayette, Alabama. His brother, Alexander A. Allen, held sizeable plantations near Bainbridge and Lexington, Georgia, and was also a lawyer. A large portion of this collection consists of letters between the two brothers, as they discuss business, political, and family affairs. Topics in antebellum papers include: planting and harvesting of crops (chiefly cotton); life on the plantations, including the buying and selling of slaves; family affairs; the practice of law; and, as the Civil War approached, the possibility of conflict between the North and the South. Civil War papers deal with military preparations and, later, with descriptions of destruction left in the wake of battles. There are a few early papers relating to the Wheat family, to which the Allens were related, and the Wheats surface periodically throughout the collection.

Postwar letters discuss Reconstruction in Georgia and Alabama, but also in Florida and Texas where family members, including Alexander A. Allen, who opened a law practice in Tampa, had settled. A major topic during his period is developing relationships between farmers and former slaves. In the 1870s and 1880s, topics covered include family affairs; the cotton crop; and life at the Opelika Female Institute, the Home School in Opelika (Misses B. & W. Allen, principals), and other Alabama schools in which some of Allen family members, chiefly women, taught. There are also letters to Alexander A. Allen's son, also named Alexander A. Allen (d. 1918), reporter for the Macon Telegraph and the Atlanta Journal, and, later, editor of the Telegraph, from, among others, Hoke Smith (1855-1931). In the 1890s through 1918 and again in the 1920s, there are letters from various family members traveling in Europe, particularly Willie M. (b. 1853) and Ruth Linton Allen, whose teaching careers in various Alabama locations are also documented. Willie was principal of the Girls' High School in Montgomery and on the faculty of the State Normal College at Florence, and Ruth appears to have taught chiefly in schools for girls in Birmingham. Many letters from the 1910s through the 1930s deal with genealogy, particularly relating to the Allen family's Linton relations. There are additional Linton family history materials in Series 2, which also contains miscellaneous clippings, school essays, and other items.

Volumes consist chiefly of scrapbooks relating to the teaching duties of Allen family members, 1880s-1920s. Also included, however, are 1828 and 1831 mathematics books, an 1869 record of cotton picked, and volumes containing souvenirs of European trips.

• Oversize volumes (SV-2711/4, 18, 19, 21)