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Size | About 3,200 items (14.0 linear feet) |
Abstract | William Prince, born in Roanoke, Va., and raised in Chapel Hill, N.C., was a successful magazine illustrator in the 1920s and 1930s. He was head of the Art Department at the University of North Carolina during World War II and produced drawings and posters in aid of the war effort. The Southern Part of Heaven, his boyhood memoir, was published in 1950. Actress Lillian Hughes Prince, William's wife, appeared in many stage productions in and around Chapel Hill, particularly with the Carolina Playmakers. She also played Queen Elizabeth in Paul Green's The Lost Colony, 1947-1953, and acted with the touring company of Howard Richardson's Dark of the Moon, 1945-1946. The couple had one adopted daughter Caroline, who returned to her birth parents in 1941. The bulk of the collection is correspondence, mostly between the Princes, much of it during their courtship. Also included are professional letters relating to William Prince's career as an illustrator and writer and to Lillian Prince's stage career; journals and diaries of both Princes; drafts of two unfinished books by William Prince; collected material, including a scrapbook about The Southern Part of Heaven and three scrapbooks about Lillian Prince's stage career; financial material; and photographs of family members and friends, stage productions, and William Prince's book and magazine illustrations. There is also a small group of materials relating to the purchase of land by the Order of Gimghoul at the University of North Carolina in the 1910s. The Addition of 2004 contains photographs, correspondence, and other papers. Photographs are primarily of William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince; they include photographs of the Princes with their adopted daughter, Caroline. There are also letters from William Meade Prince to Lillian Hughes Prince written during their courtship, letters to the Princes from Caroline, and other items. |
Creator | Prince, William Meade, 1893-1951.
Prince, Lillian Hughes, d. 1962. |
Language | English. |
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.
William Meade Prince (9 July 1893-10 November 1951) was born in Roanoke, Va. and lived in Chapel Hill with his parents and grandfather, Episcopal rector Dr. William Meade, from age five to fifteen. Prince then moved to Birmingham, Ala., to work for a short time. He studied at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, 1913-1915, and, upon winning a contest sponsored by Collier's magazine, began his career as a magazine and book illustrator. Prince illustrated stories for magazines such as Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Red Book, and Cosmopolitan. He also produced illustrations for the work of authors such as James Street, Philip Wylie, Kathleen Norris, William Saroyan, and Arnold Bennet. He was noted for his illustrations of the stories of Roark Bradford, and, among other advertising assignments, did a long-running advertising campaign for Dodge cars.
After moving to Chapel Hill with his wife, Lillian Hughes Prince (17 June 1893-25 February 1962), whom he met while in Birmingham, Ala., and married in 1915, Prince became involved with acting. During this time, he remained active as an illustrator and taught in the Art Department of the University of North Carolina. He also produced The Southern Part of Heaven (1950), the best-selling memoir of his childhood. During World War II, Prince was for a time as acting head of the University of North Carolina Art Department and also did drawings and posters for the Committee to Defend America, the American Field Hospital Corps, and the USO.
Lillian Hughes Prince had been active with the Westport Players when she lived in Westport, Conn., and had studied acting with Harry Irvine at the Academy of Allied Art in New York City. From the 1930s until her death in 1962, she had parts in many Carolina Playmakers productions, including The House of Connelly by Paul Green, The Little Foxes, Ah, Wilderness!, Our Town, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Showboat, Oklahoma, and Spring For Sure. Prince performed in Blithe Spirit with the Raleigh Little Theater and shortly afterwards joined the cast of Howard Richardson's Dark of the Moon with the Schubert national touring company, where she had the role of the "cunjer woman" during the 1945-1946 season. Prince also performed in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas ( Patience, Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore) and held the role of Queen Elizabeth in Paul Green's outdoor drama The Lost Colony during the summers from 1947 through 1953.
William Prince also acted in some of the plays in which his wife was involved, including Ah, Wilderness!, Blithe Spirit, and The Lost Colony, in which he played Ananias Dare. After the success of The Southern Part of Heaven, which he also illustrated, Prince began working on two other books. One was to be a record of a trip that he and Lillian made out West. Prince was working on the other project, apparently a sequel to his boyhood memoirs, when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Chapel Hill home in November 1951. Lillian Prince died in New York in 1962. The couple had one adopted daughter Caroline, who returned to her biological parents in 1941. Both William and Lillian Prince are buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Back to TopPersonal correspondence, most of it between the William and Lillian Prince during their courtship, constitutes most of these papers. Over the years, the correspondence between the Princes records the development of William Prince's career as an artist and his wife's career as a stage actress. Many of the letters are from times when Lillian Prince was on tour with stage productions, particularly 1945-1946, when she played the "cunjer woman" with the Schubert national touring company in Dark of the Moon by Howard Richardson. Other correspondence relates to the 1950 Rinehart & Co. publication of William Prince's boyhood memoir of Chapel Hill, N.C., The Southern Part of Heaven. His tenure during World War II as head of the Art Department at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, as well as his activities during the war making posters and drawings for the Committee to Defend America, the American Field Hospital Corps, and the USO are also documented. Professional correspondence concerning William Prince's career as an illustrator and writer is present in both the personal correspondence series and in professional correspondence in the collected material series. The same is true for correspondence relating to Lillian Prince's stage career.
Journals and diaries for both Princes are included in the writing series, as are several drafts of two unfinished books by William Prince. Much of the collected material is contained in four scrapbooks, one compiled by Lillian Prince about The Southern Part of Heaven and three others about Lillian Prince's stage career. Financial material concerns the Princes' taxes, stock, and property holdings, as well as some royalty statements for The Southern Part of Heaven. Pictures are chiefly family photographs, some photographs taken from stage productions in which either Lillian or both William and Lillian acted, and photographs of book or magazine illustrations by William Prince. The Addition of 2004 contains photographs, correspondence, and other papers. Photographs are primarily of William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince, including photographs of the Princes with their adopted daughter Caroline. There are also letters from William Meade Prince to Lillian Hughes Prince written during their courtship, letters to the Princes from Caroline, and other items.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
NOTE: Professional correspondence concerning The Southern Part of Heaven and Lillian Prince's acting career is filed in the collected material series.
Chiefly personal letters, most covering the period of the Princes' courtship, from 1912 until their marriage on 24 November 1915, while William Prince attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts and Lillian Hughes lived with her parents in Birmingham, Ala. A substantial number of letters are from 1945-1946, when Lillian Prince was on tour with Dark of the Moon. Other letters were written by the Princes to friends while they were on a European tour.
There is also some business correspondence concerning the Rinehart & Co. publication of William Prince's memoir, The Southern Part of Heaven, and his career as an illustrator for magazines. Also included are telegrams, mainly condolences on William Prince's death, and a few Christmas cards and postcards.
Arrangement: chronological; undated arranged alphabetically by title.
Twenty-one personal diaries and journals of William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Price, some leather bound, some in notebooks, and some loose-leaf; drafts of William Prince's novel-in-progress, variously titled Poodle on the Prarie or An Itching Tarheel; and drafts of a sequel to Prince's boyhood memoirs, also variously titled So Far So Good and Anecdotage of an Artist.
There are also drafts of William Prince's short stories, magazine articles, and lectures as an instructor in the Art Department of the University of North Carolina. Speeches to various clubs and civic groups concerning William Prince's work as an artist and writer include those presented at the opening of an exhibit of his artwork in Raleigh, sponsored by the North Carolina Artists' Society, and those to the Raleigh Women's Club, the Oxford Women's Club, and the Women's Club of Fayetteville about the Southern Part of Heaven. "The Beautiful Water," an article on fishing that William Prince wrote and illustrated for the January 1947 issue of Sports Afield is also included.
Arrangement: chronological.
Memorabilia, mainly contained in four scrapbooks, one about William Meade Prince's memoir, The Southern Part of Heaven, one about Lillian Hughes Prince's role with the 1945-1946 production of Dark of the Moon, one about her career as a stage actress in various Carolina Playmakers productions at the University of North Carolina, and one concentrating on her tenure as Queen Elizabeth in the outdoor drama, The Lost Colony by Paul Green.
Loose material includes playbills and reviews. Also included is professional correspondence relating to William Prince's work as an illustrator and as author of The Southern Part of Heaven, and to Lillian Prince's career as a stage actress, mainly with the Carolina Playmakers. There are also several illustrations, particularly those for The Southern Part of Heaven; sketches by William Prince; and some biographical material relating to the families of William and Lillian Prince, most notably Lillian Prince's mother, Mary Lillian Mctyeire Hughes.
Arrangement: chronological.
Chiefly papers concerning property owned by William and Lillian Prince, including homes in Westport, Conn., Chapel Hill, N.C., and Manteo, N.C. Also included are the Princes' tax returns and related materials, including stock holdings, 1953-1961, and some royalty statements dated 1951 from Rinehart & Co. for William Prince's book, The Southern Part of Heaven.
There is also a folder correspondence, apparently not directly related to the Princes, dated 14 February 1916-20 May 1918, from Dr. Joseph Pratt, and later, from his secretary Miss H. M. Berry, regarding the payment of subscriptions due from members of the Order of Gimghoul for the purchase of ninety acres of land at Piney Prospect, Chapel Hill, which included Dromgool Rock.
Arrangement: by family member.
Processing Note: See also Addition of 2004.
Family photographs of the Princes, as well as publicity photographs, and photographs from stage plays in which either Lillian or both William and Lillian had roles. Photographs from plays are arranged alphabetically by play title, if known. Other pictures include a few photographs of William and Lillian as children; some photographs of the Prince homes, Swan Pond in Westport, Conn., Chaumiere in Chapel Hill, and their cottage in Manteo, N.C.; photographs of William or Lillian Prince posed as models for possible paintings by William Prince to be used as book or magazine illustrations; and photographs of completed illustrations by William Prince.
Photographs, correspondence, and other papers. Photographs are primarily of William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince, including photographs of the Princes with their adopted daughter, Caroline. There are also letters from William Meade Prince to Lillian Hughes Prince written during their courtship, letters to the Princes from Caroline, and other items.
Image Folder PF-3660/31-36
PF-3660/31PF-3660/32PF-3660/33PF-3660/34PF-3660/35PF-3660/36 |
William Meade Prince photographs #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." PF-3660/31-36Includes childhood photographs; individual portraits; William Meade Prince at his houses in Westport, Conn., and in Chapel Hill, N.C., and painting and teaching art classes the University of North Carolina. |
Image Folder PF-3660/37 |
Lillian Hugh Prince photographs #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." PF-3660/37Includes childhood photographs, individual portraits, and Lillian Hughes Prince in costume. |
Image Folder PF-3660/38 |
William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince photographs #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." PF-3660/38Portraits of William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince at home, with their daughter Caroline, and with their pet dogs. |
Oversize Image Folder OP-PF-3660/1 |
William Mead Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince photographs #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." OP-PF-3660/1Includes a photograph of an unidentified man titled "Mr. Gault as Sir Peter Teazle." |
Oversize Image Folder OP-PF-3660/2 |
William Mead Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince photographs #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." OP-PF-3660/2Outside under an arbor with their dogs. Includes photographs depicting both William Meade Prince and Lillian Hughes Prince and of Lillian Hughes Prince alone. |
Image Folder PF-3660/39 |
Photographs of William Meade Prince's artwork that inspired the mural on the side of the Carolina Coffee Shop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, N.C. #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." PF-3660/39 |
Folder 203 |
Correspondence, 1913-1951 #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." Folder 203Includes letters from William Meade Prince to Lillian Hughes Prince written during their courtship and letters from the Princes' adopted daughter Caroline. |
Folder 204 |
Writings and other papers #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." Folder 204Rough drafts of unpublished works of William Meade Prince, sketches of the Princes' pet dogs, and printed materials. |
Folder 202 |
Newspaper clippings about the Princes #03660, Subseries: "Addition of April 2004 (Acc. 99780), 1913-1961." Folder 202 |
Part of this collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
The Addition of April 2004 has not been incorporated into the original deposit of material.
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