Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 William Cole Jones Papers #5195, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Ledford and Julia Sewell Carter of Bloomington, Ind., in January 2005 (Acc. 100001).

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: Elise Allison, May 2005

Encoded by: Elise Allison, May 2005

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.

• Atlanta (Ga.)--Politics and government.
• Atlanta (Ga.)--Social life and customs.
• Atlanta journal.
• Carter, Julia Sewell.
• Editors--Georgia--History.
• Family--Georgia--Social life and customs.
• Georgia--Politics and government.
• Georgia--Social life and customs.
• Jones, William Cole, 1881-1951.
• Journalists--Georgia--History--20th century.
• Newspaper employees--Georgia.
• Queen Elizabeth (Ship).

William Cole Jones was born on 13 December 1881 and grew up in Macon, Ga. He attended Mercer University, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1902 and his master's degree in 1904. On 10 January 1907, he married Edith Sewell, and in May 1909 they had a daughter, Emily. Her death in a freak accident on 31 October 1918 profoundly affected Jones and his wife for the rest of the their lives.

On 1 April 1906 Jones began working for the Atlanta Journal as a reporter covering the police and capitol beats with an occasional feature story. These early articles are practically his only signed work. His first editorials may have been published as early as 1908, and by 1910 his work appeared regularly, though anonymously, on the editorial page. His editorials covered topics ranging from social and cultural issues to local, national, and world politics and events. Jones had risen to chief editorial writer by 1927, and he was appointed associate editor of the Atlanta Journal in 1934.

In 1946, Jones was chosen as the Atlanta Journal's representative in a group of American journalists invited by the Cunard White Star Line to make the maiden peacetime voyage on the Queen Elizabeth. The group sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to England on the Queen Mary in late September and returned to New York on the Queen Elizabeth in mid-October. During this trip, Jones wrote fourteen articles about life aboard the ships and his sightseeing experiences in England.

William Cole Jones was a member of the Symposium, one of the oldest literary and social clubs in Atlanta. Over the years, he read numerous papers at its meetings, and he was its president when he retired from the Atlanta Journal in August 1951. He died on 22 October 1963 at his home in Decatur, Ga.

The collection consists of materials documenting the life and work of journalist William Cole Jones of Atlanta, Ga. It contains correspondence; newspaper clippings; notes and a book by his niece, Julia Sewell Carter entitled William Cole Jones: A Sage of the South Remembered (2004), a biography and genealogy of Jones that includes photographs of him and his family and a selection of his writings; and editorials, radio addresses, literary essays, short stories, and speeches by William Cole Jones. The bulk of the correspondence was received in the aftermath of his daughter's sudden death in 1918 and at his retirement in 1951. Pamphlets, programs, notes, correspondence, and images relate to Jones's trip to England in the fall of 1946 to represent his newspaper on the maiden peacetime voyage of the Queen Elizabeth.

Pictures (P-5195)