By Gene Hyde, Head of Special Collections & University Archivist, UNC Asheville
This article appeared in the Volume 1, Issue 3 Winter 2020 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.
For this issue of the Appalachian Curator, we take a look at the origins of Special Collections at UNC Asheville. Established in 1977 (and opening its doors in 1978), UNCA’s Special Collections were originally founded as the Southern Highlands Research Center.
The 1970s was a fertile decade for Appalachian Studies, Appalachian research, and Appalachian special collections and archives. Much was afoot: the Appalachian Journal was started in 1972, the Appalachian Consortium published the Bibliography of Southern Appalachia in 1976, and the Appalachian Journal published the special issue “A Guide To Appalachian Studies” in 1977. The first Appalachian Studies Conference was held at Berea College in 1978. Appalachian Special Collections were also growing and developing. Berea hired its first professional trained archivist in 1975, and Appalachian State University hired its first professionally trained librarian to manage the W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection in 1978. East Tennessee State University opened the Archives of Appalachia in 1978.
It was in the midst of all this activity that UNC Asheville created its own Appalachian special collection. Organizing efforts began in 1976,
and by January 1977 a “Historical Resources and Archives Committee” was developing guidelines for a regional repository. As UNCA library director Ainsley Whitman said at the time, noting that there were already Appalachian repositories in Asheville and Western North Carolina, in starting a collection at UNCA:
“in one sense we may be ‘walking on eggs’ when we consider that Pack Library has the Sondley Collection, the Thomas Wolfe Collection, and a history collection. There is the new McDowell Project at A.B. Tech. The WNC Historical Association may have certain axes to grind. Western Carolina has a tremendous collection in this field already with an Archivist on their staff. Appalachian has a room and a sizable collection and considerable interest in this type of endeavor. We will be entering an already crowded field. How will we fit into this picture?”
Despite this “already crowded field,” UNC Asheville established an Appalachian Collection. But what would they call it? Several names were suggested for the new collection, including the French Broad Valley Historical Center, the Historical Center of WNC, and the Archives of the Blue Ridge. They finally called in the Southern Highlands Research Center.
The newly formed Southern Highlands Research Center (SHRC) was founded by historians working with the library director. The first director was Bruce Greenawalt, and he outlined the new SHRC’s collection goals in the accompanying newspaper article. The initial collection emphasis would be on the Asheville area, and would focus on business and commercial records, religious history, the black community, and “ad hoc” environmental and political groups. Indeed, some of the earliest collections obtained include the Reuben B. Robertson Collection (he was the manager of Champion Paper), the Congregation Beth HaTaphila Congregation papers, the Heritage of Black Highlanders Collection, and the Upper French Broad Defense Association Collection.
For the first decade or so, the Southern Highlands Research Center was run by historians, with Milton Ready following Greenawalt at the helm. It was located in several locations on campus. By 1993 the SHRC was renamed to Special Collections and became part of Ramsey Library, where it has been since then. The current Special Collections at UNCA continues to collect materials that reflect its original mission: collections acquired over the last few years include the Isaiah Rice Collection of photos from an Asheville African American photographer, the papers of Agudas Israel Synagogue, records from the Southern Dharma Retreat Center, records from RiverLink and Mountain True (two prominent Asheville based environmental groups), and records from the Grove Park Inn and Biltmore Industries.
This article from the 1988 issue of the original Curator provides a snapshot of the collection a decade after its founding:
