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No restrictions. Open for research.

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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 Margaret Vale Papers #70150, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Jane McIver in March 2023 (Acc. 20230403.1).

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: Saija Wilson, October 2023

Encoded by: Saija Wilson, October 2023

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.

• Theater--20th century--History and criticism.
• Abortion--Law and legislation--United States--History--20th century.
• Actresses as authors.
• Actresses--Family relationships--United States.
• Actresses--New York (State)--New York--1910-1920.
• Actresses--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
• Actresses--Political activity--United States.
• Actresses--Sexual behavior--United States.
• Disabilities--United States--History--20th century.
• Gender identity--United States--History--20th century.
• Gender identity.
• Playmakers Theatre (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
• Sexuality--History--United States.
• Suffragists--United States--History--20th century.
• Theater programs--United States.
• Vale, Margaret, 1878-1955.
• Women--United States--History--20th century.

• George Howe Notebooks (#1019)

Margaret Vale (1878-1947) was a white silent film and theater actress, a writer, and a feminist who was active in the United States Democratic Party and the Women Democrats of America, and involved in the 20th-century women's suffrage movement. She was born Margaret Smyth Flinn to Jane Adger Smyth Flinn (1849-1914) and Reverend John William Flinn (1847-1907) in Charleston, South Carolina on March 30, 1878.

Her father, Reverend John William Flinn, fought in the Confederate Army's 17th Mississippi Regiment during the American Civil War and later studied at the University of Mississippi, where he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and became the Grand Cyclops of a den. He then moved to South Carolina to attend the Columbia Theological Seminary and later married Jane Adger Smyth Flinn in Charleston, S.C. in 1876. Jane Adger Smyth Flinn was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had married into the Adger family, a wealthy merchant family based in Charleston, S.C. Extended family members from both the Adger Smyth family and the Work Flinn family are referenced in this collection in letters and as letter recipients.

Vale was the first of six children and the first of five daughters born to the Flinns. Her siblings included Jean Adger Flinn Chisholm (1880-1956), Sarah Wilson Flinn Horton (1882-1930), Nell Crawford Flinn Gilland (1885-1942), Sue Smyth Flinn James (1889-1972), and Thomas Smyth Flinn (1891-1961).

Shortly before Vale's birth, her father took a position in New Orleans, Louisiana and after her birth, she and her mother moved there to be with him. They remained in Louisiana until her father was offered a position at South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) where he would become a professor. While in New Orleans, Vale received letters from her Aunt Sue and was helped in composing replies by her parents. This carried on until Vale could write her own letters.

In 1903, Vale married George Howe (1876-1936) who was the nephew to Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States of America, and who would become a Latin professor, Head of the Classics Department, and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vale and Howe maintained correspondence over the course of their relationship, as they were often away from each other for extended periods. The bulk of their correspondence was from 1912-1913, when Howe was in Rome, Italy at the American Academy and Vale was in New York City, New York.

While in New York City, Vale took the stage name Margaret Vale and began her career as an actress. She performed in Our Mutual Girl in 1914, Omar the Tentmaker in 1914, A Gilded Fool in 1915, The Great Lover in 1915, and Was He a Coward? in 1915. During this time, Vale had become interested in the women's suffrage movement and the United States Democratic Party. This interest led her to help found The Women Democrats of America: The National Organization of Democratic Women and to become its Director of Publicity. In 1913 and 1915, respectively, Vale represented Oregon in the suffrage pageant the Metropolitan Opera House and Alaska in the women's suffrage parade in New York City.

During their marriage, Vale and Howe spent an extended period apart. However, they appear to have been living together after 1920 and into the 1930s. In 1934, Howe filed for divorce from Vale in the state of Arkansas citing "indignities" and remarried. After Howe's death in 1936, Vale contested this marriage and in 1942 the Virginia Supreme Court declared his second marriage void. Margaret Vale died of cancer-related illness in 1947 in Charleston, S.C.

This collection includes personal and business correspondence, 1878 to 1955 and undated. The majority of the letters included were written with Vale as the intended recipient. However, this collection also contains several letters that were written by Vale or written by others and not intended for Vale. The content of the correspondence consists of the discussion of life events including Vale's marital difficulties around intimate matters with George Howe and questions about Vale's experience with neuralgia. The photographs in this collection were taken of Margaret Vale, kittens, and the environs around and inside her home with George Howe. There are also scrapbooks, notebooks, production programs, and ephemera collected by Vale, as well as writing and editorial work done by Vale in draft and final forms. There are papers relating to advocacy work performed by Margaret Vale and clippings relating to social issues followed by Vale. Vale's topics of interest included the women's suffrage movement advocating for white women's right to vote, the creation of a national organization for the little theaters of America, the state of marriage and divorce in the United States, and a 1938 court case against the husband of a woman who had had an abortion. Some miscellaneous items are also included like lists of books from Reverend Flinn's library, newspaper sheets from issues of interest to Vale, and proofs of a story about Vale's line of celebrity dolls.

• Photographs (PF-70150/1-3)