John Motley Morehead III Papers, 1914-1988

Summary

Creator:
Morehead, John Motley, III, 1870-1965.
Abstract:

Contains the papers of the white Morehead Family, primarily John Motley Morehead III and his cousin John Lindsay Morehead. Materials include correspondence, business records, family materials, and planning materials. Topics include the Morehead Family; John Motley Morehead III's work with Union Carbide; Morehead's involvement in politics; and Morehead's work with the University of North Carolina, including the gift and planning of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, the construction and donation of the planetarium building and the purchase of the Zeiss planetarium instrument, and the establishment of the John Motley Morehead Foundation (since 2007, the Morehead-Cain Foundation).

Extent:
8000 items (15 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

John Motley Morehead III (1870-1965), a white chemist, politician, diplomat, and philanthropist, was the son of Union Carbide founder James Turner Morehead and the grandson of North Carolina governor John Motley Morehead (1796-1866). An alumnus of the University of North Carolina, Morehead III endowed the John Motley Morehead Foundation, which awards annual undergraduate scholarships. He also served as mayor of Rye, N.Y., and as the United States Ambassador to Sweden. Morehead III's cousin, John Lindsay Morehead (1894-1964), was a white textile executive and principal officer of the John Motley Morehead Foundation.

Scope and content:

Contains the papers of the Morehead Family, primarily John Motley Morehead III and his cousin John Lindsay Morehead. Materials include correspondence, business records, family materials, and planning materials. Topics include the Morehead Family; John Motley Morehead III's work with Union Carbide; Morehead's involvement in politics; and Morehead's work with the University of North Carolina, including the gift and planning of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, the construction and donation of the planetarium building and the purchase of the Zeiss planetarium instrument, and the establishment of the John Motley Morehead Foundation (since 2007, the Morehead-Cain Foundation).

Business and company correspondents include: the John Motley Morehead Foundation; Union Carbide Company; Diebold Safe & Lock Co.; Julien P. Friez & Sons, Inc.; Charles H. Schuman, Inc.; Thomas E. Sears, Inc.; Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company; Ideal Power Lawn Mower Co.; Taylor Instrument Companies; United States Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau; Wahl & Ferguson Tree Surgery and Landscape Forestry; Rock Wool Insulation Corporation; Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company; Hale Desk Company; School of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University; Frederic Blank & Company, Inc.; Williams & Harvey Nursery; Moeller Instrument Company; York Safe and Lock Co.; Erb Electrical Supply Co.; First Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Greensboro, NC; Barber & Coccola, Inc.; Armour Fertilizer Works; Artistic Painting Company, Inc.; New York Board of Fire Underwriters; Pietro Sforza & Sons; Lockwood & Almquist; Spray Water Power & Land Co.; Insurance Exchange; West Virginia Hydro Electric Co.; Henry Claws & Co.; George Pick & Co.; Gulf Oil Corporation; Florida East Coast Railway; Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Sedgwick Machine Company; US Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service; Bethlehem Steel Company; Eggers & Higgins; Leaksville Woolen Mills, Inc.; Order of the Golden Fleece; Phi Beta Kappa; New York State Department of Labor, Division of Employment; R.C.A. Service Company; Jeddo-Highland Coal Company; Evangelical Covenant Church; American Museum of Natural History; United States Olympic Association; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Morehead Cotton Mills; North Carolina Business Hall of Fame; and others.

Individual correspondents include: John Motley Morehead III; John Lindsay Morehead; Lily C. Mebane; President Herbert Hoover; Judge Isaac Meekins; Landscape Architect L. Lundquist; Attorney Roger Faherty; Grant G. Simmons; Mrs. Von Lindern; Fred Starek; Norman A. Cocke; Dr. Frank Porter Graham; William Carmichael; Bob Fetzer; Claude E. Teague; Judge Shepard Bryan; Arthur Roe; D. Hidden Ramsey; Fred. H. Weaver; Lambert Davis; Edward P. F. Eagen; Francis Vandeveer Kughler; Fred L. Bumgardner; J. Maryon Saunders; Richard T. Chatham; William C. Friday; Robert Hanes; Governor Luther Hodges; Gordon Gray; Harold Tribble; Lily Connally Wiley; Orene Fagge; Mrs. J. P. Campbell; Harry Stewart; Hunter Williams; W. J. O'Shaughnessy; Walter J. Benko; Roy Armstrong; James A. Gray; and others.

Acquisition information:

Received from the John Motley Morehead Foundation in June 2023 (Acc. 20230606.2).

Processing information:

Processed by: Rebecca Stubbs, July 2023

Encoded by: Laura Smith, July 2023

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our 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.

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.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

No usage restrictions.

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 John Motley Morehead III Papers #70156, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu