Restrictions to Access

For Series 5, no copying of materials is permitted without permission from a trust officer of the Wachovia Bank and Trust Company.

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.

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 Betty Smith Papers #3837, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Received from Nancy Smith Pfeiffer and Mary Smith MacCaulty in April 1973; Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., of New York, N.Y., in January 1974; Paul Green of Chapel Hill, N.C., in March 1975; Wachovia Bank and Trust Company (on loan) in February 1985; the Chapel Hill Museum in December 1998 (Acc. 98246); and Nancy Smith Pfeiffer in April 1999 (Acc. 98353).

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.

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.

• Authors and publishers--United States--History--20th century.
• Authors, American--Correspondence
• Finch, Robert Voris, 1909-1959.
• Fort Monroe (Va.)--History--World War, 1939-1945.
• Jones, Joseph Piper, 1906-
• Novelists, American.
• Smith, Betty, 1896-1972.
• Soldiers--United States--Correspondence.
• United States. Army--Military life--History.
• Women authors, American--History--20th century.
• Women authors--Relations with men.
• Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• World War, 1939-1945--Participation, American.

• Joseph Piper Jones Papers (#3985)

Elisabeth Wehner, professionally known as Betty Smith, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on 15 December 1896, to the children of German immigrants. She never completed high school and moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., when she married George H. E. Smith of Brooklyn, a senior law student at the University of Michigan. While in Ann Arbor, she was permitted to attend the University as a special student without being a candidate for a degree; she took classes in journalism, drama, writing, and literature. Smith won the Avery Hopw00d Award for work in drama and continued her studies at the Yale Drama School with Professor Baker as one of "Baker's Dozen, "thirteen students chosen to study play writing. Smith completed the three-year course, but was not awarded an M.F.A. since she held no other degrees.

Smith moved to New York with her two daughters, Nancy and Mary, in 1934 and worked for the Federal Theater, set up during the Depression by the W.P.A., which relocated her to Chapel Hill in 1936.

Smith and her first husband divorced in 1938. She was married to Joe Jones, a writer, journalist, and associate editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly, from 1943 to 1951. Smith was active in the theatrical community of Chapel Hill for many years, writing and helping with stage productions. She received both the Rockefeller Fellowship and the Dramatist Guild Fellowship for writing and wrote numerous plays before publishing her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in 1943. Smith's other novels include Tomorrow Will be Better (1947), Maggie-Now (1958), and Joy in the Morning (1963).

Integration of materials in this collection has been deferred pending additions and changes in ownership and restrictions. Researchers are, therefore, cautioned to review the entire inventory to locate materials that may of be interest.

• Extra oversize paper folder (XOPF-3837/1)
• Image folders (PF-3837/1-18)
• Oversize volumes (SV-3837/1-14)