Access Restrictions

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.

Use of audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to Use

Permission to publish Paul Green materials must be obtained from the Paul Green Foundation (see staff for address).

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 Paul Green Papers, #3693, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy available of Series 1. General Files and Series 6.1. Diaries.

Provenance

Received from Paul Green, 1975-1981; from the estate of Paul Green, 1981-1986; from Elizabeth Lay Green, 1981, 1982, and 1986; from others, including the estate of Paul Green, 1976-1990; Ken Frazelle, 1994 (Acc. 94051); Paul M. Green, 1994 (Acc. 94063); Laurence G. Avery, 1996 (Acc. 96097); transfer from the North Carolina Collection, July 2000 (Acc. 98690); Paul Green Foundation, April 2004 (Acc. 99770) and June 2011 (Acc. 101447); Mary Alice Dorton, May 2004 (Acc. 99796); Betsy Green Moyer, December 2004 (Acc. 99954); Hildegarde Dahl, June 2005; Chuck Sumner of Roxboro, N.C., January 2006 (Acc. 100296); Cecil McClees, January 2007 (Acc. 100580); Laurence G. Avery, 2007 (Acc. 100735); Estate of Paul Green, 2007 (Acc. 100736); Paul Green Jr., January 2008 (Acc. 100850); Frank Daddario, July 2008 (Acc. 100979); Lynn and Carolyn Ikenberry, February 2009 (Acc. 101684); Reid B. Sinclair, August 2009 (Acc. 101160); Cloud Hill Books in October 2012 (Acc. 101670); Martin Wallace in October 2018 (Acc. 103596).

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: Church Israel, Ryan Teall, and others, 1998

Encoded by: Jackie Dean, 1998

Revisions by: Margaret Dickson, John Blythe, and others; Kathryn Michaelis, June 2009; Anne Wells, Melanie Meents, and Nancy Kaiser, 2019

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

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.

• >Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1900-1956.
• American literature--20th century.
• Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941.
• Authors, American--Political and social views.
• Boyd, James, 1888-1944.
• Caldwell, Erskine, 1903-1987.
• Couch, William T. (William Terry), 1901-1988.
• Daniels, Jonathan, 1902-1981.
• Davidson, Donald, 1893-1968.
• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Ehle, John, 1925-
• Gordon, Caroline, 1895-1981.
• Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
• Green, Elizabeth Lay, 1897-1989.
• Green, Paul, 1894-1981.
• Griffin, John Howard, 1920-1980.
• Guthrie, Tyrone, Sir, 1902-1980.
• Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967.
• Johnson, Gerald White, 1890-1980.
• Johnson, James Weldon, 1871-1944.
• Koch, Frederick Henry, 1877-1944.
• Lenya, Lotte.
• Odum, Howard Washington, 1884-1954.
• Sandburg, Carl, 1878-1967.
• Smith, Betty, 1896-1972.
• Southern States--Intellectual life.
• Southern States--Social conditions.
• Stringfield, Lamar Edwin, 1897-1957.
• Tate, Allen, 1899-1979.
• Theater--United States.
• United States--Intellectual life.
• United States--Social conditions.
• Welles, Orson, 1915-1985.
• Wright, Richard, 1908-1960.

• SOUTHERN ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM COLLECTION (#4007). Interviews with Paul Green are numbered B-0005-1,2,3,4,5,6, and B-0040-1,2.
• PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICES, UNC-CH. Photographs of Paul Green.
• UNC ARCHIVES. ACADEMIC AFFAIRS: RECORDS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DRAMATIC ART. Series 2: Carolina Playmakers. Subseries 3: Scripts. ("Enchanted Maze," "Shroud My Body Down," "Texas Calls," "Tread the Green Grass").
• NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION. Typed transcriptions of diaries (VCB G79g) and other materials.

[The following essay is a slightly adapted version of a sketch by William S. Powell, published in Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, volume 2, pp. 358-359 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986), and used with permission. It is followed by a list of works by Paul Green prepared by Rhoda Wynn in 1976, also slightly adapted.]

PAUL ELIOT GREEN, dramatist, author, and teacher, was born on 17 March 1894 in Harnett County, North Carolina, the son of William Archibald and Betty Lorine Byrd Green. He grew up on his father's farm engaging in the labors and pleasures of rural life. For a time he played minor-league baseball for a team in Lillington and was widely acclaimed as a pitcher because he was ambidextrous. Music also was an important part of his life. His mother bought an organ and taught her children to play. Green taught himself to play the violin and later composed music for his plays. After graduation from nearby Buies Creek Academy in 1914, he worked to earn money for college and entered The University of North Carolina in 1916. As a freshman he wrote poems that were published in The Carolina Magazine, and he was the author of the play produced by the seniors at commencement.

In April 1917, before finishing his first year at the university, Green enlisted in the army for service in World War I. Before leaving for France he published at his own expense a thin volume of poems, Trifles of Thought by P.E.G., because he was not certain that he would survive the war to pursue the literary career of which he dreamed. Young Green rose rapidly through the ranks from private to corporal, sergeant, and sergeant-major with the 105th Engineers, 30th Division; afterwards he was commissioned second lieutenant with the Chief of Engineers in Paris. During a year's service at the front in Belgium and France, he participated in several months of heavy combat in the trenches. This experience had a lasting effect on him, though he was always reluctant to speak about it. He returned to the university in 1919 and graduated with a major in philosophy in 1921. Green studied under Frederick H. Koch, a newly arrived member of the faculty, who had organized the Carolina Playmakers in 1918. The new professor encouraged Green and others to write "folk plays" based on local subjects and their own experiences. Plays by his students, including many by Paul Green, were produced. One of the students, Elizabeth Lay, daughter of the Reverend George Lay, rector of St. Mary's College in Raleigh, married Green on 6 July 1922. After a year of graduate study in philosophy under Professor Horace Williams in Chapel Hill, Green went to Cornell University for further graduate work and in 1923 became an assistant professor of philosophy at The University of North Carolina. He remained in that department until 1939, when he became a professor of dramatic art. In 1944, he resigned to devote full time to writing.

Throughout his twenty-one years as a professor, Green wrote plays as well as short stories, novels, and poetry. Although many were produced by the Carolina Playmakers in Chapel Hill, some were produced in Washington, D. C., New York, and elsewhere. In 1927 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for In Abraham's Bosom produced at the Garrick Theater in New York. His other Broadway plays included The House of Connelly, Roll Sweet Chariot, Johnny Johnson, and Native Son .

For many years Paul and Elizabeth Green collaborated with others in the production of "The Literary Lantern," a newspaper column of book reviews and book news. In 1925, Green became editor of The Reviewer, a literary journal. He also contributed to newspapers, particularly the Raleigh News and Observer . Travel for educational purposes occupied some of his time. In the summer of 1926 he was at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and, while on leave of absence as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1928 and 1929, he studied the theatre in Germany and England. In 1951, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, he traveled and studied the theater in Japan and elsewhere in the Orient.

After seeing the motion picture, The Birth of a Nation, in 1915, Green anticipated the development of this medium as a true art form. He welcomed the opportunity in 1932 to go to Hollywood, Calif., under contract to Warner Brothers to write scripts for motion pictures. For various lengths of time and for different companies, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he wrote scripts in Hollywood for films starring George Arliss, Lionel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Will Rogers, and others. Although well paid for his work, he was rarely satisfied with the artistic quality of the final product, and scandalized by what he saw as Hollywood's immorality. He often declined to accept particular assignments and finally ended the association after 1964.

Long interested in a new form of drama, Green was inspired by some plays he saw in Germany. As early as 1928, he wrote Professor Koch of his hope to use the theme of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island in dramatic production. This was realized in 1937, when The Lost Colony, a "symphonic drama" as he termed it, was produced in an outdoor theatre on Roanoke Island, site of the 1587 colony. Employing the spoken word, song, music, dance, pantomime, and light, it was a notable success and except for the years of World War II has been produced by the Roanoke Island Historical Association each summer since. This was merely the first of such works by Green and others; historical dramas, presented at or near the site of the actual events depicted, have appeared all around the United States. Green himself was the author of fifteen plays written to be performed outdoors in North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and elsewhere.

Green's contributions were widely recognized. In addition to the early Pulitzer Prize and the Guggenheim Fellowship, he received the Belasco Little Theatre Tournament trophy in 1925. Other honors included the National Theatre Conference plaque, the American Theater Association citation for distinguished service to the theater, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union's Frank P. Graham Award, the Morrison Award, the North Caroliniana Society Award, the North Carolina Writers Conference Award, and the Sir Walter Raleigh cup. In 1979 the General Assembly named him North Carolina's dramatist laureate. He received honorary doctorates from The University of North Carolina, Davidson College, Campbell College, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and four out-of-state colleges and universities.

He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and of the executive committee of the U. S. National Commission for UNESCO (1950-52). In 1951, he was a delegate to the UNESCO conference in Paris. Green also held the following positions: president, American Folk Festival, 1934-1945; president, National Theatre Conference, 1940-1942; member, Board of Directors, American National Theatre and Academy, 1959-61; delegate, International Conference on the Performing Arts, Athens, Greece, 1962; member, Advisory Committee, North Carolina School of the Arts, beginning in 1964; member, Advisory Board, Institute of Outdoor Drama, beginning in 1952.

From his youth, when he demonstrated sympathy and compassion for the poor, blacks, and others whom he saw around him in his rural community, Paul Green acted and spoke in support of the basic rights of all humanity. A gentle, kindly man, he knew when, where, and how to direct attention to the wrongs he witnessed and to seek redress. Civil rights, poverty, and political oppression were all causes of concern to him, and he lent support to them in person, in print, and financially. He spoke out against and wrote plays dealing with war, lynching, chain gangs, prejudice, and superstition. Even though at times his stand was unpopular in many quarters, his ideals were understood and there was little or no personal criticism of him. It was known that Green was "haunted by the ideal of perfection" and that he believed in the "uniqueness of man as responsible to his neighbor and to God."

Paul and Elizabeth Green were the parents of Paul Eliot, Jr., Nancy Byrd (Cornwell), Elizabeth "Betsy" McAllister (Moyer), and Janet MacNeill (Lauritzen, 1955-1958, and later Catlin). Paul Green's siblings were Daniel Hugh Green, Gladys Green Sylvester, Mary Green Johnson, Erma Green Gold, and Caro Mae Green Russell (Couch in the mid-1960s). Elizabeth Lay Green's sisters were Virginia "Ginger" Lay Hawkins, Ellen Lay Hodgkinson, Nancy Lay White, and Lucy Lay Zuber; her brother was Henry C. Lay.

Paul Green died on 4 May 1981. He was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery near the Paul Green Theatre on the university campus.

SEE: Agatha B. Adams, Paul Green of Chapel Hill (1951); Chapel Hill Newspaper, 30 June, 1, 2, 5 July 1976, 5, 6, 10 May 1981; Barrett H. Clark, Paul Green (1928); Vincent S. Kenny, Paul Green (1971); Walter S. Lazenby, Paul Green (1970); McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, vol. 2 (1972), for a list of his plays (a copy in the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, has been updated with typed additions); New York Times, 6, 10 May 1981; Pembroke Magazine 10 (1978); Raleigh News and Observer, 2 Apr. 1950, 5, 6, May 1918; Who's Who in America (1980).

• Broadway Plays:
• In Abraham's Bosom, 1926
• The Field God, 1927
• The House of Connelly, 1928
• Johnny Johnson, 1937, with Kurt Weill
• Native Son, 1941, with Richard Wright
• The No 'Count Boy, 1925
• Roll, Sweet Chariot, 1935
• Numerous bills of one-act plays on and off Broadway
• "Symphonic Dramas: "
• The Lost Colony, annually since 1937, Roanoke Island, North Carolina
• The Highland Call, 1939, 1940, Fayetteville, North Carolina; 1955, 1956, Campbell College, Buies Creek, North Carolina; and 1976 as Cumberland County Bicentennial Drama, Fayetteville, North Carolina
• The Common Glory, annually since 1947, Williamsburg, Virginia
• Faith of Our Fathers, 1950, 1951, Washington, D.C.
• The 17th Star, 1953, Columbus, Ohio
• Wilderness Road, 1955, 1956, 1957, and annually since 1973, Berea, Kentucky
• The Founders, 1957, 1958, and 1964, Williamsburg, Virginia
• The Confederacy, 1958, 1959, Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Cross and Sword, annually since 1965, St. Augustine, Florida
• The Stephen Foster Story, annually since 1959, Bardstown, Kentucky
• Texas, annually since 1966, Palo Duro Canyon, Texas
• Trumpet in the Land, annually since 1970, New Philadelphia, Ohio
• Drumbeats in Georgia, 1972, 1973, Jekyll Island, Georgia
• We the People, 1976, Bicentennial Drama, Columbia, Maryland
• Louisiana Cavalier, premiered 1976, Natchitoches, Louisiana
• The Lone Star, premiered 1977, Galveston, Texas
• Plays Published:
• The Lord's Will and Other Carolina Plays, 1925
• Lonesome Road, Six Plays for the Negro Theatre, 1926
• The Field God and In Abraham's Bosom, 1927
• In the Valley and Other Carolina Plays, 1928
• The House of Connelly and Other Plays, 1931
• Roll, Sweet Chariot, 1935
• Shroud My Body Down, 1935
• Hymn to the Rising Sun, 1936
• Johnny Johnson (with music by Kurt Weill), 1937
• The Enchanted Maze, 1939
• Out of the South, fifteen plays, 1939
• Native Son (adaptation of Richard Wright's novel), 1941
• Peer Gynt, (American version), 1951
• Wings For to Fly, Three radio plays of Negro life, 1959
• Five Plays of the South, 1963
• The Sheltering Plaid, (one-act), 1965
• The Honeycomb, 1972
• Symphonic Dramas as indicated above.
• Also many one-act plays published individually.

• Novels:
• The Laughing Pioneer, 1932
• This Body the Earth, 1935

• Short Stories: (volumes)
• Wide Fields, 1928
• Salvation on a String, 1946
• Dog on the Sun, 1949
• Words and Ways, 1968
• Home to My Valley, 1970
• The Land of Nod and Other Stories, 1976

• Essays: (volumes)
• The Hawthorn Tree, 1943
• Forever Growing, 1945
• Dramatic Heritage, 1953
• Drama and the Weather, 1958
• Plough and Furrow, 1963

• Screen plays:
• Cabin in the Cotton (from the novel of the same title by H. H. Kroll), Warner Brothers, 1932, starring Richard Barthelmess and Bette Davis.
• Voltaire, Warner Brothers, 1933, starring George Arliss.
• State Fair (from the novel of the same title by Phil Strong), Fox Film Corporation, 1932, starring Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers.
• Dr. Bull (from the novel, The Last Adam, by James Gould Cozzens), Fox Film Corporation, 1933, starring Will Rogers.
• David Harum (from the novel by E. N. Westcott), Twentieth-Century Fox, starring Will Rogers.
• Time Out of Mind (from a Rachel Field novel), Twentieth-Century-Fox, starring Lionel Barrymore.
• The Rosary (Treatment).
• Broken Soil, Sam Goldwyn, starring Gary Cooper and Anna Sten.
• Red Shoes Run Faster (from the novel by Henry Bellaman).
• Roseanna McCoy (from the novel by Alberta Hannum), Sam Goldwyn.
• Black Like Me or Journey into Shame (from the autobiography by John Howard Griffin), Film Features, 1964.

• Lyrics and music:
• The Lost Colony Songbook, compiler/lyricist, 1938
• The Highland Call Songbook, compiler/lyricist, 1941
• Song in the Wilderness (Cantata with music by Charles Vardell) lyrics, 1947
• The Common Glory Songbook, compiler/lyricist (includes Paul Green melodies), 1951*
• Carmen (American version), 1953
• Texas Songbook, compiler/lyricist (includes Paul Green melodies), 1967
• Numerous tunes and lyrics for his dramatic works

• Radio plays:
• A Start in Life, in The Free Company Presents, ed. James Boyd, 1941
• Wings For to Fly, Three Plays of Negro Life, 1959.
• Foreign productions:
• The Field God, Gate Theatre, London, 1927-28
• White Dresses, Japan, 1951
• Johnny Johnson, Bochum, Germany, 1973-74
• Johnny Johnson, Finnish National Theatre, Helsinki, 1975-77
• The House of Connelly, Vienna, Austria

This collection documents practically all facets of the life of Paul Green from his army service in France in World War I until his death in 1981. It also includes significant material documenting the life and work of his wife, Elizabeth Lay Green, and numerous items relating to members of the Greens' immediate and extended families.

Green's work as a dramatist and writer is thoroughly documented. "General Files" (Series 1), arranged by year and then alphabetically by correspondent or subject, were established by Green and his assistants. These are primarily Green's professional correspondence files. They are extensive, holding about 30,000 items, and have been intensively indexed.

Series 2 ("Dramatic Works") and Series 3 ("Other Writings") further document Green's professional career. Each of his "symphonic dramas" is covered in Series 2 by a set of files that typically includes background material, drafts, musical scores, and business records of various types. Series 3 consists of drafts of poems, novels, essays, and other works, and other material relating to them; these extend from poems written in France during and just after World War I to writings on which Green was working shortly before his death. Series 8 consists of material that Green filed as "Source Material," largely items relating to research for essays, articles, lectures, and plays.

Green's work as writer and dramatist also is referred to in some of the family correspondence in Series 4, is reflected in the financial records, appointment books, and subject files in Subseries 5.1 and 5.5, and 5.6 respectively, is discussed in his diaries in Series 6, and is evident in some of the photographs and tape recordings in Series 7. Series 8 contains "source material," and is maintained as it was organized by Paul Green or his assistants. This series is comprised of a variety of material, including preliminary research for articles, lectures, essays, and plays, miscellaneous clippings and other writings, novelty items, and family correspondence during Paul Green's trip to Greece and the USSR during the summer of 1962.

Green's humanitarian interests and activities also are extensively documented in this collection. They are the subject of many letters in Series 1, which, again, are accessible through the index that forms the appendix to this inventory. They also are mentioned in letters in Series 4 and are reflected in Subseries 5.1 and 5.5. Subseries 5.3 is a set of files devoted by Green to material relating to capital punishment (see also Series 8, under "C," and Series 3.3, folder 3926Y).

All series, except the two (2 and 3) devoted strictly to his writings, document Paul Green's personal life. Green included many personal and family letters in his professional correspondence files (Series 1), and many otherwise professional letters include personal elements.

It should be noted, finally, that this collection documents the lives of others as well. This is especially true of Green's wife, Elizabeth Lay Green. Series 4 consists of her files; it documents her own work as a writer and editor, her friendships, and events in the lives of relatives close and distant.

The Addition of April 2004 contains a card index and audiocassette recordings of plays, concerts, interviews, speeches, conferences, dedications, banquets, and other events related to Paul Green and others. The Addition of January 2006 consists of one mounted photograph of Thomas Wolfe, inscribed to Paul Green from Wolfe's sister Mabel, 1950. The Addition of January 2007 consists of three letters, 1918-1927, two of which were written by Paul Green to his father and to Florence Shaw of Asheville, N.C., and one of which was written by Mary Green to Florence Shaw. The Addition of July 2007 (Acc. 100735) includes materials possibly used by Laurence G. Avery in the publication of A Southern Life: Letters of Paul Green, 1916-1981. Some may be photocopies of material found elsewhere in the collection. Papers include correspondence, diary entries and Elizabeth Lay Green memoirs. The Addition of 2007 (Acc. 100736) includes checks, receipts, and other financial records. The Addition of January 2008 contains letters of Paul and Elizabeth Lay Green; Elizabeth Lay Green's memoirs; Paul Green's poetry journal; audiocassettes containing a 1994 radio story on the 100th birthday of Paul Green and a Soundings interview with Laurence G. Avery; and videotapes of an interview with Paul Green, a 1987 production of Listen to My Song, "Life as Art: A Tribute to Paul Green," and American Masters: Broadway Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre. The Addition of February 2009 is an audiocassette labelled "Paul Green conversation."