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.
Size | 21.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 10,000 items) |
Abstract | The Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn Papers, 1880s-1960s, document the experiences and perspectives of a white woman who lived in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and who was a daughter, sister, wife, and mother in a family actively engaged in preservation of the "Lost Cause" mythology about the American Civil War. Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn was a lifelong participant in Confederate memory organizations and activities; she also wrote fiction and non-fiction. Materials include personal and family correspondence, writings, photographs, scrapbooks, printed materials, newspaper clippings, and other materials. |
Creator | Glenn, Elizabeth Elliott Lumpkin, 1880 or 1881-1963. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
This finding aid compiles archival collecting, description, and preservation work performed by Nancy Kaiser, Patrick Cullom, Rebecca Stubbs, Gillian McCuistion, and Biff Hollingsworth, March 2020
Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, March 2020
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.
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Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn (1880-1963), a white writer, lawyer, wife, and mother, was also the Lumpkin family historian. She was the fifth daughter born to William Wallace Lumpkin and Anna Morris Lumpkin, but the first to survive early childhood. She had three younger brothers and two younger sisters, Grace Lumpkin and Katherine Du Pre Lumpkin. Elizabeth and her surviving sisters were the subjects of white historian Jacquelyn Hall's book, Sisters and Rebels: The Struggle for the Soul of America.
The Lumpkin family lived in Georgia, and later moved to South Carolina. As a young girl, Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn was known for her child prodigy-like oratory at Confederate veterans reunions and other "Lost Cause" gatherings. She was trained by her father, a Confederate veteran. Her formal education included study at South Carolina College, the Georgia Normal and Industrial College, the Georgia Female Seminary, the Curry School of Expression in Boston, and the Empire School of Expression in New York City.
After school, Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn began a brief career as a teacher. She taught first at Mount Camel Graded School in Abbesville, S.C., and then was professor of speech and the head of the Department of Reading and Expression at Winthrop Normal and Industrial College in Rock Hill, S.C. Her marriage in 1905 to Eugene Byron Glenn, a white doctor in the mountains of western North Carolina, ended her work as a teacher outside the home.
The Glenn family had five children: Eugene Byron Glenn (b. 1908), William Lumpkin Glenn (1908-1909), Marian Sevier Glenn (b. 1910), Ana Dudley Lumpkin Glenn (b. 1912), and William Wallace Lumpkin Glenn (b. 1915).
Throughout her adult life Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn wrote fiction and non-fiction, and was active in Confederate memorializing groups, as well as the Women's Auxialiary of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina.
Back to TopThe Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn Papers document the experiences and perspectives of a white woman who lived in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and who was a daughter, sister, wife, and mother in a family actively engaged in preservation of the "Lost Cause" mythology about the American Civil War. Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn was also a writer, a trained lawyer, teacher, and a participant in the Woman's Auxiliary to the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina and in Confederate memory organizations and activities. As the family's historian, she also amassed family papers from other generations of Lumpkins. Materials include personal correspondence, including letters exchanged with her sisters and her father's post Civil War correspondence; writings; extensive photographs, chiefly portraits, of family members; scrapbooks, both assembled and loose papers intended to be compiled into scrapbooks; printed materials; newspaper clippings; and other materials.
Back to TopAppraisal note: Materials that were moldy and disintegrated beyond recognition have been removed from the collection by the collecting archivist.
Arrangement: Format and topical groupings created by Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn and/or the donor have been preserved and are indicated with quotation marks; otherwise, collection materials were received as loose papers and minimally arranged into format groupings by the collecting archivist.
Processing Note: Box level information is not complete. Examination of all boxes in the addition may be necessary to access all relevant materials.