Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

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 Grace McSpadden Overholser Papers #5424-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Nannerl O. Keohane in May 2009 (Acc. 101108).

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: Matt Dailey and Rachel Shope, February 2011

Encoded by: Matt Dailey, February 2011

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.

• African Americans--Study and teaching.
• Overholser, Grace McSpadden, d. 1971.
• Saint Andrews Presbyterian College (Laurinburg, N.C.)--Faculty.
• Women college teachers--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Wright, Richard, 1908-1960--Criticism and interpretation.

Before her marriage to Dub White, Grace McSpadden Overholser was married to James Overholser and, at some point, worked as a reporter. Later in life, she taught English and African American studies and served as dean at Saint Andrew's Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C.

She was the mother of Nannerl O. Keohane, a political theorist and former president of both Duke University and Wellesley College. Keohane funded the establishment of the Grace McSpadden Overholser Archival Fellowship for African American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where Overholser had taken courses. The fellowship focuses on strengthening the documentation of African American experiences throughout North Carolina.

The collection contains memoranda, letters, notes, writings, course syllabi, and other items chiefly relating to Grace McSpadden Overholser's tenure at Saint Andrew's Presbyterian College. Materials include an article that Overholser wrote regarding Richard Wright; letters to the editor of New Letters, a journal at the University of Missouri in which Overholser's Richard Wright article was published; a schedule and participant list of the 1971 Afro-American Institute at the University of Iowa; letters to the director of the Afro-American Institute; an essay regarding the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University; several pages of Overholser's notes and course syllabi; and other materials.