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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.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 3.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 1900 items) |
| Abstract | James Lee Love was an educator and textile company executive of Burlington, N.C. The collection consists of correspondence and other papers related to Love's association with the University of North Carolina, the North Carolina textile industry, including the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company and Burlington Mills, and many philanthropies. Correspondents include Alexander Boyd Andrews, Graham Hudson Anthony, Thomas Barbour, Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Coates, James Bryant Conant, Frank Porter Graham, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Paul H. Hanus, Archibald Henderson, Thomas Felix Henderson, Robert Burton House, Walter Lippman, James Spencer Love, William DeBerniere McNider, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and Samuel Bryant Turrentine. Also included are papers of James Lee Love's father, Robert Calvin Grier Love, and son, James Spencer Love, both textile executives; detailed memoirs of J. L. Love's childhood in Gaston County, N.C., and of his academic career at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, especially his connection with the Lawrence Scientific School; and a framed oil portrait of him by Phillip H. Giddens. An addition to the collection consists mainly of correspondence between J. L. Love and his first wife, June Spencer Love (died 1920) and their children, including Cornelia (born 1892) and James Spencer, concerning family, career, and academic matters. These letters date mostly from the summers of 1892, 1893 and 1911. Other letters are from various family members, particularly Cornelia P. Spencer and Laura Battle Phillips. Also included are volumes and pictures. |
| Creator | Love, James Lee, 1860-1950. |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: SHC Staff
Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007
Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, November 2009; Dawne Howard Lucas, December 2021
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.
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Subject Headings
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.
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Related Collections
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Biographical Information
James Lee Love (1860-1950) was an educator and textile company executive, of Burlington, N.C. Love was born in Gaston County, N.C., the oldest child of Robert Calvin Grier Love (1841-1907) and his wife Susan Elizabeth Rhyne Love. He was educated at the University of North Carolina and Johns Hopkins University. He married Julia "June" Spencer, daughter of James and Cornelia Phillips Spencer in 1885. He taught at the University of North Carolina from 1885 to 1889 when he joined the faculty at Harvard University. He taught mathematics at Harvard until 1911, also serving as assistant dean and later dean of the Lawrence Scientific School and director of the Harvard Summer School.
In 1909 James Lee Love became treasurer of the Gastonia (N.C.) Cotton Manufacturing Company, founded by his father in 1887, and in 1923 joined his son James Spencer Lover (1897-1962) in establishing Burlington Mills Corporation with which he was associated until 1935.
James Lee and June Spencer Love had two children: Cornelia Spencer Love (born 1892) and James Spencer Love. June Spencer Love died in 1920 and in 1923 James Lee Love married Mary Elizabeth Satterfield of Henderson, Ky., by whom he had two children: Mary Elizabeth and Jean Lee. He died in Burlington, N.C.
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Scope and Content
The collection includes correspondence and other papers related to Love's association with the University of North Carolina, the North Carolina textile industry, including the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company and Burlington Mills, and many philanthropies.
University of North Carolina material includes correspondence with Frank Porter Graham, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Archibald Henderson, Robert B. House, T. F. Hickerson, William DeBerniere McNider, and alumni secretary Mayron "Spike" Saunders, and files related to the University library, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Fund and the Old Students Club, and the University Press which in 1949 published Tis Sixty Years Since, a memoir of his student days by Love.
Material related to the North Carolina textile industry including Burlington Mills and Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company files; two letters, 1880 and 1884, to James Lee Love from his father Robert Calvin Grier Love, founder of the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company; a few papers related to Robert Calvin Grier Love's estate; and a memoir of Daniel Efrid Rhyne (born 1852), co-founder of the company, written by James Lee Love in 1946.
The James Spencer Love file includes letters about Burlington Mills and the textile industry, state and national politics, personal and family affairs, government commissions on which James Spencer Love served, and copies of James Spencer Love's correspondence wtih Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Frank Porter Graham, and others.
There are other files of family correspondence and Love genealogy; a memoir of Cornelia Phillips Sencer written by James Lee Love in 1949; and files related to James Lee Love's philanthropic interests including several North Carolina Presbyterian chruches and a park built by Love in Gastonia, N.C., in memory of his parents.
Among the James Lee Love-Miscellaneous file are letters from Rabbi Stephen Wise, Samuel B. Turrentine, Alexander Boyd Andrews, Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Coates, Walter Lippman, Graham Hudson Anthony, and others.
Also included are detailed memoirs of J. L. Love's childhood in Gaston County, N.C., and of his academic career at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, especially his connection with the Lawrence Scientific School; and a framed oil portrait of him by Phillip H. Giddens. An addition to the collection consists mainly of correspondence between J. L. Love and his first wife, June Spencer Love (died 1920) and their children, including Cornelia (born 1892) and James Spencer, concerning family, career, and academic matters. These letters date mostly from the summers of 1892, 1893 and 1911. Other letters are from various family members, particularly Cornelia P. Spencer and Laura Battle Phillips. Also included are volumes and pictures.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Subject Files
Arrangement: alphabetical by subject or last name of correspondent.
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Series 2. Volumes, 1920-1945.
| Folder 65 |
Volume 1: Diary, James Lee Love, 1937Includes brief daily entries including routine descriptions of travel and daily activities during trips to Palm Beach and Daytona Beach, Fla., and occasional comments on Burlington Mills financial affairs. |
| Folder 66 |
Volume 2: Diary, James Lee Love, 1939-1940Includes detailed daily entries which consist primarily of analytical comments on clippings pasted in the volume dealing with world affairs, religions and the state of the church, education, race relations, and individuals with whom Love had been associated including James Spencer Love, Porter Sargent, William Fogg Osgood, A. M. Scales, and Charles Hughes Johnson. There is also much introspective autobiographical material dealing with his parents, childhood in Gaston County, N.C., education at the University of North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard, a number of Presbyterian ministers including Robert Z. Johnson, Robert Hall Morrison, and Robert Calvin Grier, and that pattern and meaning of his life. |
| Folder 67 |
Volume 3: Recollections, James Lee LoveIncludes information on James Lee Love's grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives; his father's Confederate service; detailed descriptions of social events including corn-shucking, house-raising, log-rolling, and quilting; household chores and hobbies including spinning, shearing sheep, soapmaking, guns and hunting, the farm and farm animals, his religious education, and reading habits. |
| Folder 68 |
Volume 4: Recollections, James Lee LoveDiscusses James Lee Love's family house and furnishings at Fairview, N.C.; transportation; early schools he attended; the family move to Woodlawn (later Mount Holly), N.C., where Love attended Kings Mountain High School; his father's cotton gin and a nearby blacksmith and shoemaker; trips to Charlotte, N.C., to sell cotton and buy merchandise for his father's store; his choice of a career and educational plans; and the school at Woodlawn including three memorable teachers. |
| Folder 69 |
Volume 5: Recollections, James Lee LoveDescribes the Woodlawn, N.C., school and Kings Mountain High School. There are also descriptions of the early days of Belmont Abbey, Goshen Presbyterian Church, revivals and camp meetings, and pottery making in Kings Mountain. The latter half of the volume deals with his entry at the University of North Carolina in 1880, the Di and Phi societies, the faculty, and dormitory life. |
| Folder 70 |
Volume 6: Recollections, James Lee LoveDescribes James Lee Love's time at the University of North Carolina, 1882-1884, including his work as assistant to Dr. Mangum, 1883-1884. There is much information about his courtship of Julia "June" Spencer, whom he married in 1885. He describes his classmates, especially W. G. Randolph and Samuel B. Turrentine; his mother-in-law Cornelia Phillips Spencer; a scandal at Kings Mountain High School which percipitated his family's return to Gastonia, N.C.; his year of study at Johns Hopkins University including lectures by William Thompson, Lord Kelvin; teaching at the University of North Carolina, 1885-1889; creation of the University Library in 1888; his dismissal in 1889; and his year of graduate work at Harvard University, 1889-1890. |
| Folder 71 |
Volume 7: Recollections, James Lee LoveContinues to describe James Lee Love's dismissal from the University of North Carolina, the retirement of Kemp Plummer Battle, Charles and Laura Phillips, and his family's friendship of Sarah Welling of Warwick, N.Y. THe remainder of the volume covers his years at Harvard University, including the birth and childhood of his two children, his work with the Lawrence Scientific School and Harvard summer school, and trips to Europe in summers of 1897 and 1899. A few pages added in 1949 cover the closing of the Lawrence Scientific School and his own dismissal from Harvard. |
| Folder 72 |
Volume 8: "Notes to accompany volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Recollections [volumes 3-7]," 1939Includes clippings, a history of pre-Civil War cotton mills in Gaston County, N.C., with which his family was associated, and additional information on the Love family, especially Andrew Love. |
| Folder 73 |
Volume 9: "Harvard as I Remember, 1889-1911," typed copyDiscusses the evolution of the mathematics department of which he was a member, the rise and fall of the Lawrence Scientific School under the leadership of Nathaniel S. Shaler, and the Harvard summer school, including the 1900 session for Cuban teachers. There is also material on Harvard athletics, especially football, the election of A. Lawrence Lowell as president in 1909, and Harvard faculty with whom he worked, especially president Charles Eliot, Paul H. Hanus, Albert Bushnell Hart, Dudley A. Sargent, LeBaron Briggs, and William E. Byerly. Included also are copies of his correspondence with Harvard officers, especially Eliot, during his years on the faculty, and information on Harvard taken from other sources. This discussion is interrupted by reflections on a desireable education program, his own education, Dr. James Phillips, and the evolution and value of a Ph.D. degree. |
| Folder 74 |
Volume 10: "Some Early School Houses in Gaston County [N.C.]," James Lee Love, 1945Brief account of the location, buildings, teachers, and coursework of the seven schools James Lee Love attended in Gaston County, N.C., between 1866 and 1880. |
| Folder 75 |
Volume 11: "Cullings from old University of North Carolina Catalogues, Personal Notes," James Lee Love, undatedNotes on faculty, enrollment, courses, costs, and other subjects taken from University of North Carolina catalogues, 1875-1884. There are also two writings, possibly addresses, related Chapel Hill, N.C., and college education, respectively. |
| Folder 76 |
Volume 12: "Recollections of Robert Calvin Grier Love by his oldest son James Lee Love in 1942."Discusses the parents of Robert Calvin Grier Love and his wife Susan Rhyne, their neighbors and social life in Fairview, N.C., and their move in 1871 to Woodlawn, N.C., where Love farmed and managed a general store. There is also discussion of Robert Calvin Grier Love's personality and personal habits, his return from Woodlawn to Gastonia, N.C., in 1883, and his pioneering work in the textile industry in Gaston County, N.C., along with J. D. Moore, George A. Gray, D. E. Rhyne, and J. A. Abernathy. There is also an account of the joint ventures of Robert Calvin Grier Love and his son John in textiles, banking and real estate and the collapse of the family fortunes following the Panic of 1904-1905. |
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Additions
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Addition of November 1981
Folder 77-78
Folder 77Folder 78 |
Volume 13: "Recollections," typescript |
| Folder 79a-79b |
Volume 14: "Recollections," printed copy |
| Folder 80 |
Volume 15: "R. C. G. Love, A Builder of the New South: A Story of Reconstruction Days," James Lee Love, 1949 |
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Addition of June 1982
Mostly letters from Cornelia Spencer Love to her parents James Lee and Julia Spencer Love concerning her work in the library at the University of North Carolina, and events and acquaintances in Chapel Hill, N.C., 1917-1918. There are also a few letters from James Spencer Love.
Folder 42-44
Folder 42Folder 43Folder 44 |
Correspondence: 1917-1918 |
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Addition of October 1982
Chiefly correspondence between James Lee Love and his wife, June Spencer Love, and their children, Cornelia and James, concerning family, career, and academic matters. These letters bulk around the summers of 1892-1893 and 1911. Other letters are from various family members, particularly Cornelia P. Spencer and Laura Battle Phillips, and friends. Also included are an account book of James Lee and June Love, an address book, a penmanship book and a notebook, and pictures of Julia and May Jones
| Folder 45 |
1875-1883 |
Folder 46-53
Folder 46Folder 47Folder 48Folder 49Folder 50Folder 51Folder 52Folder 53 |
1892-1893 |
| Folder 54 |
1901-1907 |
| Folder 55 |
1908-1910 |
Folder 56-58
Folder 56Folder 57Folder 58 |
1911 |
| Folder 59 |
1913-1914 |
| Folder 60 |
1915 |
Folder 61-62
Folder 61Folder 62 |
1916 |
| Folder 63 |
1917 |
| Folder 64 |
1919-1920 and undated |
| Folder 81 |
Volume 16: Penmanship booklet, undatedPossibly used at the University of North Carolina. |
Volume 17: Address book, Julia Spencer, Heidelberg, (Germany?), undated |
|
Volume 18: Account book of June and James Lee Love, 1885-1887 |
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Volume 19: Booklet of miscellaneous notes, circa 1892 |
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| Image P-4139/1 |
Jones, Julia, cabinet card, circa 1870-1890Photographer: M. Nestler, Vevey (France?) |
| Image P-4139/2 |
Jones, May, cabinet card, circa 1870-1890Photographer: F. H. Rice, Worchester, Mass. |
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Items Separated
Photographs (PF-4139/1).
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