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.
Size | 3.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 3000 items) |
Abstract | Charles Andrew Jonas of Lincoln County, N.C., attorney, state senator and representative, U.S. congressman, and Republican Party official. Correspondence, speeches, financial records, newspaper clippings, and pictures, chiefly 1940-1948, relating to the political and business careers and personal life of Jonas. Subjects include political campaigns; the Republican Party in North Carolina and South Carolina; the 1930 nomination of Judge John J. Parker to the U.S. Supreme Court; lay activities in the Methodist Church; and Jonas's treatment for cerebral arteriosclerosis after 1948. Correspondence is by and about prominent Republicans, including presidential candidates Thomas E. Dewey and Wendell Wilkie; North Carolina industrialist Stuart Cramer; North Carolina Republican Party chairman Sim DeLapp; Mrs. W. P. Few, Republican Party committeewoman from Durham, N.C.; North Carolina Republican gubernatoral candidate R. H. McNeill; B. Carroll Reece, chairman of the Republican National Committee in the 1940s; and James E. Shephard, president of North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, N.C. There is also some personal correspondence between Jonas and his son Charles Raper Jonas. |
Creator | Jonas, Charles Andrew, 1876-1955. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Roslyn Holdzkom, October 1989; Lu Ann Jones, April 1994
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Dawne Howard Lucas, December 2021
The organizational scheme established by Charles A. Jonas was maintained as far as was practicable.
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.
Charles Andrew Jonas (1876-1955) was born in Lincoln County, N.C. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1902, received a law degree from UNC in 1906, and returned to Lincolnton to practice law.
Jonas first won office in 1914 when he ran as Republican candidate for state senator from Lincoln and Catawba counties. In 1926 and 1934, he won terms in the North Carolina House of Representatives. From 1921 to 1925, he served as assistant district attorney in the Western District of North Carolina. From 1927 until 1947, he served as a Republican national committeeman, and was delegate to four Republican national conventions, 1916 and 1928-1936. In 1928, Jonas won a single term to Congress, but he lost congressional campaigns in 1930, 1932, and 1942. In 1930, he was named U.S. district attorney for Western North Carolina and held that position for one year under recess appointment. The Senate failed to confirm his nomination to the post.
After suffering with cerebral arteriosclerosis for several years, Jonas died in Charlotte in 1955. A son, Charles Raper Jonas, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 until 1973.
(For more information, see Mary A. Baker, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume 3, 1988, pp. 311-312.)
Back to TopThe Charles A. Jonas Papers are a partial and scattered record of Jonas's long career in politics and elected office. Some correspondence illuminates family life during Jonas's final years of declining health, but, aside from these items, there are rarely comments on matters beyond the business of politics. The papers were included with the papers of his son, Charles R. Jonas, donated to the Southern Historical Collection in 1989. The elder Jonas's other staff and personal papers have probably been lost or destroyed.
The collection was arranged according to the organizational scheme established by Charles A. Jonas as far as practicable. Most of his file labels were maintained.
Back to TopArrangement: alphabetical by file title.
Correspondence, speeches, financial records, newspaper clippings, and pictures, largely bulk 1940-1948, relating to the political and business careers and personal life of Jonas. Arrangement is by subject, in keeping with Jonas's organizational scheme.
Arrangement: chronological.
Primarily newspaper clippings about Jonas's political career, with a few campaign brochures.
Folder 52 |
Newspaper clippings. |
Folder 53 |
Campaign brochures, and miscellaneous publications. |
Arrangement: chronological.
Image P-4536/1 |
Photograph of Jonas's UNC law school class, circa 1906. |
Image P-4536/2-5
P-4536/2P-4536/3P-4536/4P-4536/5 |
Studio portraits of Jonas, circa 1920s-1940s. |
Image P-4536/6 |
Photograph of Jonas working at his desk, circa 1940s. |