Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards, 1905-1980s, 2007

Summary

Creator:

Barbour, Durwood

Abstract:

The collection assembled between the 1950s and 1980s by white alumnus of the University of North Carolina Marion Durwood Barbour (1929-2016) contains nearly 8,000 picture postcards with views of nearly every North Carolina city and town during the first half of the twentieth century. These picture postcards depict parades and public gatherings; schools; agriculture; textile mills and other industries; vistas in the mountains and on the coast; courthouses, railroad stations and other public buildings; fires, floods, train wrecks, and other disasters; performances of outdoor dramas; and vignettes of the state's military history. The collection also contains photographic postcards created by twentieth-century North Carolina photographers from across the state, including Bayard Wooten of New Bern and Victor Meekins of Dare County, and printed postcards produced by Albertype Company, Hugh Leighton Company, and other widely known printing companies of the era. Many postcards depicting African Americans, including agricultural laborers, prisoners on chain gangs, children, and elderly men and women, and postcards depicting members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in traditional costume including headdresses, illustrate racist stereotypes of the period. Some captions contain language that underline the racist undertones of the images.

Extent:

7834 items (9 linearfeet)

Language:

Materials in English

Library Catalog Link:

View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

M. Durwood Barbour, a white postcard collector, resident of Raleigh, N.C., and a member of the 1952 class of the University of North Carolina, became interested in picture postcards as an offshoot from his hobby of collecting North Carolina bank notes and his appreciation for early photographic images of the state. Over the course of twenty-four years Barbour accumulated a collection of over 7,800 picture postcards. In his early years of collecting postcards, Barbour mostly sought views of North Carolina towns and cities, but as he became more familiar with the hobby of deltiology he was increasingly attracted to views showing activities and events as well as "real photo" postcards. Barbour traveled to numerous out-of-state postcard shows and spent many hours searching and participating in online auction sites seeking special items for his collection.

Scope and content:

This collection includes picture postcards related to North Carolina taken between 1905 and the 1980s. Included are views of almost every town and city in North Carolina. Towns and cities notable to the collection include Asheville, Beaufort, Bryson City, Charlotte, Cherokee, Durham, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Hamlet, New Bern, Pinehurst, Raleigh, Sanford, Southern Pines, and Winston Salem. Also notable in the collection are postcards depicting subjects related to African American history, disasters such as fires, floods, and train wrecks, health resorts, parades and public gatherings, agriculture and industry, military history, scenic views, and public buildings such as courthouses and railroad stations.

Also included are "real photo" postcards created by North Carolina photographers: Thomas R. Draper in Beaufort County, E.C. Eddy in Southern Pines sisters Edith Felch and Dora Felch in Sanford, M. B. Gowdy in Carteret County, J. J. Hitchcock and Walter Holladay in Durham, Frank Marchant in Hamlet, D. Victor Meekins in Dare County, John E. Spencer in Rockingham, H. Lee Waters in Lexington, and Bayard Wootten in New Bern.

This collection also includes printed postcards produced by several of the most widely known companies of the period, including the Albertype Company, the American News Company, the Artvue Post Card Company, the Asheville Post Card Company, the Auburn Greeting Card Company, the Commercial Colortype Company, the Curt Teich Company, the Dexter Press, the E.C. Kropp Company, the Ess and Ess Company, the Graycraft Card Company, the Hugh Leighton Company, the Illustrated Post Card Company, the Indianapolis Post Card Company, the PCK Series, Raphael Tuck & Sons, the Rotograph Company, Tichnor Brothers, the Valentine Post Card Company, and the W.M. Cline Company.

Picture postcards come in two types: printed and photographic. Printed picture postcards are mass produced using printing presses; photographic, or "real photo" postcards, are produced from a negative using photographically sensitized paper specially made with a postcard back, usually in limited numbers. The collection includes picture postcards related to North Carolina taken between 1905 and the 1980s.

The Addition of 2007 is an audio recording of an interview by Fred Wasser, a white radio producer and host of Breathing Room: Jazz and the Standards, of Durwood Barbour, concerning the donation and related exhibit of his postcard collection at the North Carolina Collection.

Acquisition information:

Received from M. Durwood Barbour, Raleigh, N.C. in December 2006 (Acc. 31248) and from Fred Wasser in August 2007 (Acc. 103667).

Processing information:

Most titles are transcribed from the original postcards. Punctuation, grammar, and spelling in some titles have been altered.

Processed by: Zachery Whitaker and Patrick Cullom, April 2014

Encoded by: Zachery Whitaker, April 2014 and Patrick Cullom, October 2014

Revisions by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2019

Remediation by: Nancy Kaiser, July 2023 (added statement about "Croatan")

NOTE: Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identiies 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.

NOTE: "Croatan" (or "Croatoan") is an identity term that was used by the Indigenous peoples of the Hatteras and Roanoke Islands in the late 16th century. In subsequent centuries, the Indigenous peoples of Sampson, Craven, Robeson, Cumberland, Hoke and Scotland counties in North Carolina were thought to be the descendants of the Croatan Indians and were so called by North Carolina state officials; however, many tribal nations existed and exist now in this area who prefer to use their own identity terms, including the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, and others.

In 2023, archivists examined the use of "Croatan" in Wilson Library archival collections and decided to leave this term in places where it refers to the Indigenous peoples of the Hatteras and Roanoke Islands, is part of a title, or is the proper name of a geographic feature or location. We have replaced "Croatan" with the appropriate identity term for materials that refer specifically to the groups noted above. When we are unable to make a determination, we use "Indigenous peoples." We recognize the complexity of this issue and welcome feedback on this decision 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.

Related

Related material:

• North Carolina Postcard Collection (P0052)

Separated material:

• Digital files (DF-P0077/1)

Alternative form available:

Digital Collection: North Carolina Poscards (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Indexed terms

Subjects:

African Americans--History.
Agriculture.
Factories.
Health resorts.
Natural disasters.
Railroad stations.
Photographic postcards--1905-1980s.
Photomechanical prints--1905-1980s.
Postcards--1905-1980s.
Real photo postcards--1905-1980s.

Names:

Draper, Thomas Richard, 1868-1940.
Eddy, E. C. (Ellsworth Curtis), 1882-1969.
Felch, Dora Alice, approximately 1886-
Felch, Edith E., approximately 1874-
Gowdy, M.B.
Hitchcock, John J., approximately 1877-
Holladay, Waller, approximately 1875-
Marchant, Frederick, 1872-1942.
Meekins, Daniel Victor, 1897-1964.
Spencer, John E., approximately 1865-
Waters, H. Lee (Herbert Lee), 1902-1997.
Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959

Places:

Alamance County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Alexander County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Alleghany County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Anson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Ashe County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Avery County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Beaufort County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Bertie County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Bladen County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Brunswick County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Buncombe County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Burke County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Cabarrus County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Caldwell County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Camden County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Carteret County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Caswell County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Catawba County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Chatham County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Cherokee County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Chowan County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Clay County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Cleveland County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Columbus County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Craven County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Cumberland County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Currituck County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Dare County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Davidson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Davie County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Duplin County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Durham County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Edgecombe County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Forsyth County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Franklin County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Gaston County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Gates County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Graham County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Granville County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Greene County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Guilford County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Halifax County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Harnett County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Haywood County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Henderson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Hertford County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Hoke County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Hyde County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Iredell County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Jackson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Johnston County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Jones County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Lee County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Lenoir County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Lincoln County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Macon County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Madison County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Martin County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
McDowell County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Mecklenburg County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Mitchell County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Montgomery County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Moore County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Nash County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
New Hanover County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Northampton County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Onslow County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Orange County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Pamlico County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Pasquotank County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Pender County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Perquimans County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Person County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Pitt County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Polk County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Randolph County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Richmond County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Robeson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Rockingham County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Rowan County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Rutherford County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Sampson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Scotland County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Stanly County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Stokes County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Surry County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Swain County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Transylvania County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Union County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Vance County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Wake County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Warren County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Washington County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Watauga County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Wayne County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Wilkes County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Wilson County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Yadkin County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.
Yancey County (N.C.)--Pictorial works.

Restrictions to access:

Access to streaming audio materials may be restricted to researchers who can authenticate with an ONYEN or who are physically present on campus. For further information about access to streaming audiovisual materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff at Wilsonlibrary@unc.edu

Restrictions to use:

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 Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards #P0077, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:

North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives

Louis Round Wilson Library

200 South Road

Chapel Hill, NC 27515

Contact:

(919) 962-3765

wilsonlibrary@unc.edu