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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.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 3 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 1200 items) |
| Abstract | Personal papers of Milton "Ab" Abernethy and Minna K. Abernethy, white publishers of the journal Contempo and operators of the Intimate Bookshop in Chapel Hill, N.C. Materials include: Ab's correspondence from his student days at North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (now North Carolina State University) in 1928-1929 (he was thrown out of N.C. State by the Honor Court for publishing an article about widespread cheating on campus); drafts and other papers related to articles he published while at N.C. State; correspondence from North Carolina political leaders while Ab was running the student Democratic Club at N.C. State; a letter from Clarence Darrow (who Ab had written for help with his appeal for expulsion); papers from 1929-1930 about a project he was working on related to the conditions of textile workers in the South; photographs of the Intimate Bookshop; and other papers. Also included materials documenting Minna K. Abernethy's leadership in the Daniels Defense Committee, an ad hoc group (marked by the House Un-American Activities Committee as a Communist front group) who advocated for the exoneration of Bennie Daniels and Lloyd Ray Daniels, two Black men accused of the murder of a white taxi driver in Pitt County, N.C. Even though their appeal went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the two men were ultimately executed. Daniels Defense Committee materials include correspondence with the Daniels' attorney, legal papers and research, papers on fundraising for a defense fund, leaflets with facts about the case, and other items. There is also a copy of The Enchanted Lake, signed by Joseph Caldwell. |
| Creator | Abernethy, M. A. (Milton A.)
Abernethy, Minna K. |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: Biff Hollingsworth and Davia Webb, September 2023
Encoded by: Dawne Howard Lucas, September 2023
Updated by: Laura Smith, 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.
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Subject Headings
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.
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Related Collections
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Biographical Information
Milton "Ab" Abernethy and Minna K. Abernethy were white publishers and book store operators in Chapel Hill, N.C. In the 1930s, they were two of the publishers of Contempo, a journal of literature and social commentary. They also operated the Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street until they were run out of Chapel Hill in the 1950s due to allegations that they were printing Communist literature from the bookshop.
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Scope and Content
Personal papers of Milton "Ab" Abernethy and Minna K. Abernethy, including: Ab's correspondence from his student days at North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (now North Carolina State University) in 1928-1929 (he was thrown out of N.C. State by the Honor Court for publishing an article about widespread cheating on campus); drafts and other papers related to articles he published while at N.C. State; correspondence from North Carolina political leaders while Ab was running the student Democratic Club at N.C. State; a letter from Clarence Darrow (who Ab had written for help with his appeal for expulsion); papers from 1929-1930 about a project he was working on related to the conditions of textile workers in the South; photographs of the Intimate Bookshop; and other papers. Also included materials documenting Minna K. Abernethy's leadership in the Daniels Defense Committee, an ad hoc group (marked by the House Un-American Activities Committee as a Communist front group) who advocated for the exoneration of Bennie Daniels and Lloyd Ray Daniels, two Black men accused of the murder of a white taxi driver in Pitt County, N.C. Even though their appeal went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the two men were ultimately executed. Daniels Defense Committee materials include correspondence with the Daniels' attorney, legal papers and research, papers on fundraising for a defense fund, leaflets with facts about the case, and other items. There is also a copy of The Enchanted Lake, signed by Joseph Caldwell.
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M. A. Abernethy and Minna K. Abernethy Papers, 1805-1984
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Items Separated