This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
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.
Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 20 items) |
Abstract | Alice Morgan Person of Franklin County, N.C., was, beginning in 1882, the producer and distributor of Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy, a proprietary medicine. In 1857, she married Joseph Arrington Person, a planter from Franklin County, N.C., with whom she had nine children. Materials include two handwritten versions (72 pp. and 57 pp.) of an autobiography by Alice Morgan Person in which she discussed the difficulties and successes associated with her business efforts; an autograph album chiefly containing clippings relating to Person; Person's account book, 1910-1912; two versions of Person's will. Also included are two volumes, 1872-1873 and 1913-1916, of the diary of Person's sister, Lucy Morgan Beard, a schoolteacher of Hickory, N.C., chiefly concerning teaching and family and social activities. |
Creator | Person, Alice Morgan, 1840-1913. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Timothy A. Long, January 1993
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
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.
Back to TopThe 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.
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Alice Morgan was born in 1840 near Petersburg, Va. She received most of her education at home. In 1857, she married Joseph Arrington Person, a wealthy planter from Franklin County, N.C. The couple settled at Person's plantation and had nine children.
In 1863, Joseph Person organized a company of North Carolina volunteers. He soon was discharged from service, however, because of a disability. Shortly after returning home, he suffered a debilitating stroke that prevented him from working for the rest of his life. Her husband's disability, coupled with the economic consequences of the Civil War, led Alice Morgan Person to market a patent medicine, the recipe for which had been given her by a neighbor.
In 1882, she began selling Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy door-to-door in Charlotte, Raleigh, and other major North Carolina towns. The Remedy proved quite popular, and Person was soon known throughout the South for her medicine and for her piano playing. She performed popular tunes at fairs in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, and made a recording of her music at Victor Records in New Jersey.
Alice Person travelled extensively during her lifetime for both business and pleasure. In 1913, during one such trip to the West Coast, she suffered a seizure and died. She left a considerable estate, most of which had been accumulated as a result of her business activities. Also surviving her is an autobiography that offers a detailed account of her public life, including the challenges of starting and sustaining a business as a "woman in a man's world."
Back to TopChiefly items of or about Alice Morgan Person, including an autograph/memory album, 1884-1902; a few letters, 1894 and undated; an extensive account book, 1908-1912; two wills, 1913; three copies of her autobiography, undated and 1971; two newspaper clippings, 1913 and 1972; and several miscellaneous items. Also included are two volumes of Person's sister's diaries, 1872-1873 and 1913-1916, containing day-to-day observations of Lucy Morgan Beard's teaching and social activities, mostly in Hickory, N.C.
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