Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not processed and are currently not available to researchers. For information about access to these materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff. Please be advised that preparing unprocessed materials for access can be a lengthy process.

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 John Henderson Cotten papers #1505, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Map of Okinawa received from John H. Cotten of Chapel Hill, N.C., in July 1948. All other material received from Lyman A. Cotten of Chapel Hill in October 1984.

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: Mark Beasley with the assistance of Enola Guthrie, January 1987

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Finding aid updated in June 2010 by Kathryn Michaelis for digitization.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

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.

• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Race relations.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Cotten, Elizabeth Henderson.
• Cotten, John Henderson, 1913-1982.
• Cotten, Lyman A., 1909-1991.
• Cotton family.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Okinawa Island (Japan)--Maps.
• United States. Navy--Officers--Correspondence.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Library--History.

• Elizabeth H. Cotten Papers (#1650)
• Lyman A. Cotten Papers (#182)
• Sallie Southall Cotten Papers (#2613)
• Cotten Family Papers (#3589)

Elizabeth Brownrigg Henderson was born in Salisbury, N.C., on 4 August 1875, the daughter of John Steele and Elizabeth Cain Henderson. She spent her childhood in Salisbury and in Washington, D.C., while her father served in Congress, 1885-1895. She graduated from St. Mary's School in Raleigh, N.C. Elizabeth Henderson and Lyman A. Cotten, a naval officer from North Carolina, were married in 1908. During Captain Cotten's naval career, Lyman and Elizabeth lived in the United States, China, Turkey, and Japan. While in the United States, Mrs. Cotten was active in the women's suffrage movement. Elizabeth Cotten moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1926, following the death of her husband. In 1932, she began working at the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina Library. She also served as the first executive secretary of the Friends of the Library. She died on 3 February 1975.

John Henderson Cotten was born in Karulzawa, Japan, in 1913 to Lyman A. Cotten, naval attache, and Elizabeth Henderson Cotten. In 1935, Cotten was graduated from the United States Naval Academy. He served on convoy duty with the United States Navy in the Atlantic until the outbreak of World War II. As commander of the U.S.S. Charles J. Badger, a destroyer, he was involved in the bombardment of the Gilbert Islands, Okinawa, and other Pacific Islands. Cotten was awarded the Bronze Star in 1945. Following the war, Cotten held several assignments, chiefly in Washington, D.C. He served at a number of service schools, including the Armed Forces College in Norfolk, Va. (1952); the Fleet School in Key West, Fla. (1953); and the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. (1956-1957). Cotten acted as naval liaison officer to the Eighth Army in South Korea in 1954. He also saw duty on naval vessels such as the Des Moines (1948-1950); the Compass Island (1959-1960); and the Galveston (1961). Cotten died at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1982.

(Elizabeth Cotten information adapted from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by William S. Powell.)

The collection is chiefly weekly letters, 1931-1962, from Elizabeth Henderson Cotten (1875-1975) of Salisbury and Chapel Hill, N.C., librarian at the University of North Carolina, to her son, John Henderson Cotten, concerning work, family, and social matters, but also commenting on such topics as racial integration and the arts in Chapel Hill. Also included are several letters about family matters from John Cotten to his brother, Lyman A. Cotten (1909- ); several photographs of friends and relatives of Cotten; and a few items relating to Cotten's naval experience, including a Japanese map, captured by United States Marines, of Okinawa Island.

• Image folder (PF-1501/1)