Restrictions to Access

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

No usage restrictions.

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 Nellie Ferry and Colleen Chapman Collection #70151, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from Buckingham Books in March 2023 (Acc. 20230403.2).

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: Rebecca Stubbs, May 2023

Encoded by: Dawne Howard Lucas, June 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.

• Country music fan clubs.
• Country music.
• Fan magazines.
• Popular music--United States--20th century.
• Women--United States--Social conditions.
• Chapman, Colleen, 1930-1999.
• Ferry, Nellie, 1912-1972.
• Sons of the Pioneers.

Colleen Chapman and Nellie Ferry, two white women from Oregon, were fans of the country music group Sons of the Pioneers, as well as the many spin-off artists, films, radio shows, and television shows based on or featuring the group. They attended radio show performances and concerts throughout the country, documenting their trips with photographs, facts about the musicians, and preparing their fan club fanzine. Nellie Ferry (1912-1972) worked for radio stations in Portland, Ore., including KVAN. She hosted radio interviews and shows for country western musicians and was head of the T. Texas Tyler fan club. Her husband Earnest V. Ferry (1907-1960) worked as a machinist for Union Pacific, and also operated Ferry's Foto service which supplied photographs for country western fan clubs. Colleen Chapman (1930-1999) was an amateur photographer who founded the Shug Fisher Fan Club in Portland, Ore. As president of the fan club, she was the primary contact with the Sons of the Pioneers and other cowboy western musical groups.

This collection contains materials created and collected by Nellie Ferry and Colleen Chapman, two white women from Oregon, who ran country and western music fan clubs in the early 1950s. Materials consist of photographic prints and negatives, unpublished acetate audio discs, and printed materials related to country and western musicians, principally the Sons of the Pioneers but also Ernest Tubb, Chet Atkins, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Merle Travis, Maddox Brothers and Rose, and others.

• Photograph albums (PA-70151/1-8)