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.
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.
Size | 5.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 3500 items) |
Abstract | The collection assembled by white tobacco industry executive Bowman Gray, Jr. (1907-1969) contains correspondence, newspaper clipping files, leaflets, circulars, pamphlets, ephemera, propaganda, and government publications and documents related to the First and Second World Wars and interwar period. Letters received by white businessman Frank M. Gregg (1864-1937) of Cleveland, Ohio, and printed items and ephemera Gregg contemporaneously amassed comprise the bulk of materials related to the First World War. Materials pertain to the American Red Cross, National Security League, war relief societies, liberty loans and bonds, war refugees, conscription, military training, anti-war, peace, and "America First" campaigns, and government regulations on industry. Clipping files pertain chiefly to the Second World War and the interwar period particularly the 1930s and include editorials and opinion columns, political cartoons, and news articles the collector arranged in groupings by type, chronology, and subject. Subjects are wide ranging and include United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler, and other individuals, public opinion, civilian efforts and the home front, European Jews, censorship, Allied Forces, Axis Powers, military engagements and campaigns, North Africa, China, and post war planning. |
Creator | Gray, Bowman, Jr., 1907-1969. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Wilson Library Staff
Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007
Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, May 2010
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.
Updated: July 2019
Back to TopThe 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.
Bowman Gray, Jr., (1907-1969), a white executive in the tobacco industry, was the son of Nathalie Fontaine Lyons Gray and Bowman Gray, Sr., president of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Bowman Gray, Jr., graduated from The University of North Carolina in 1929 and began work with the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1930, first as a salesman. He served as president of the company from 1957 until 1959. He then became chairman of the board and chief executive officer and remained chairman until his death.
In 1936, Gray married Elizabeth Palmer Christian of Richmond, Va., and the couple had five sons: Bowman, Frank Christian, Robert Daniel, Lyons, and Peyton Randolph.
During the Second World War, Gray served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and on active duty in Norfolk, Va. He worked for the Navy's intelligence service and was credited with founding the branch known as operational intelligence, in which enemy operations were analyzed.
Gray's philanthropic support was expansive and included projects, funding, and board memberships for orphanages, schools, research, the YMCA, and his alma mater UNC. Bowman Gray donated his extensive collections about the two world wars to UNC in the 1960s.
*Information for this biographical note was compiled from an article in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press.
Back to TopThe collection assembled by white tobacco industry executive Bowman Gray, Jr. (1907-1969) contains correspondence, newspaper clipping files, leaflets, circulars, pamphlets, ephemera, propaganda, and government publications and documents related to the First and Second World Wars and interwar period. Letters received by white businessman Frank M. Gregg (1864-1937) of Cleveland, Ohio, and printed items and ephemera Gregg contemporaneously amassed comprise the bulk of materials related to the First World War. Materials pertain to the American Red Cross, National Security League, war relief societies, liberty loans and bonds, war refugees, conscription, military training, anti-war, peace, and "America First" campaigns, and government regulations on industry. Clipping files pertain chiefly to the Second World War and the interwar period particularly the 1930s and include editorials and opinion columns, political cartoons, and news articles the collector arranged in groupings by type, chronology, and subject. Subjects are wide ranging and include United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler, and other individuals, public opinion, civilian efforts and the home front, European Jews, censorship, Allied Forces, Axis Powers, military engagements and campaigns, North Africa, China, and post war planning.
Back to Top
Box 1-10
Box 1Box 2Box 3Box 4Box 5Box 6Box 7Box 8Box 9Box 10 |
Papers, 1910s-1940s |