Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 As I Look Back, #3669, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Eugune E. Barnett of Arlington, Va., January 1964.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A copy of the original finding aid for this collection is filed in folder 1a.

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: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, January 2009

This collection was rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.

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.

• Americans--China--History--20th century.
• Autobiographies.
• Barnett, Eugene E.
• Children--Florida--Social life and customs.
• China--Social life and customs--1912-1949.
• College students--Southern States--Social life and customs.
• Emory University--Students--History--20th century.
• Florida--Social life and customs.
• Hangzhou (China)--Social life and customs.
• Missionaries--China--History--20th century.
• Shanghai (China)--Social life and customs.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--20th century.
• Vanderbilt University--Students--History--20th century.
• Young Men's Christian Association (Hangzhou Shi, China)
• Young Men's Christian Association (Shanghai, China)

Eugene E. Barnett (b. 1888) was born in Leesburg, Fla., to Robert H. Barnett, a Methodist minister, and Sarah Epperson Barnett. He graduated from Emory University, Oxford, Ga., 1907, and was a graduate student at Vanderbuilt University, Tenn., and the University of North Carolina where he also served as student secretary of the campus Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He later continued his work for the YMCA as in Hangchow, 1910-1921, and Shanghai, 1921-1936, China. He married Bertha Mae Smith in 1910. After 1936 he continued his domestic and international YMCA work based in New York and participated in numerous organizations to promote world peace, international relief work, and human relations.

The collection includes recollections of Eugene E. Barnett, titled "As I Look Back: Recollections of Growing Up in America's Southland and of Twenty-six Years in Pre-Communist China," covering the years of his boyhood in Florida as the son of a Methodist minister and his education at Emory, Vanderbilt, and the University of North Carolina, but focusing chiefly on the years of his work with the Young Men's Christian Association in Hangchow and Shanghai, China, 1910-1936.