P40: Louis Round Wilson Collection

Extent: 849 items.

Formats: black-and-white and color photographs, photograph album, tintypes, daguerreotype, ambrotype, cyanotype.

Provenance: Penny and Elizabeth Wilson, Chapel Hill, NC, 8 November 1989; accession number 30377.

Biographical Sketch: Louis Round Wilson (27 December 1876–10 December 1979) was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, the sixth child of Jethro Reuben and Louisa Jane Round Wilson. In 1909 Louis Round Wilson married Penelope Bryan Wright of Coharie. The couple had four children: Elizabeth, Louis, Jr., Penelope, and Mary Louise (Mrs. Dean Stockett Edmonds, Jr.). Wilson died just shy of 103 years old and is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Wilson attended various Lenoir schools, and worked as a typesetter and printer's devil from 1891 to 1894 before he enrolled in Davenport College in Lenoir in 1894. In 1895 he attended Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where he also first worked in a library as an assistant. Wilson then transferred to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in the autumn of 1898, graduating in May 1899. In August of that year he began teaching at Vine Hill Male Academy in Scotland Neck; the following year he taught at Catawba College in Newton.

In 1901 the University of North Carolina appointed Wilson as its librarian, a position he held until 1932 when he left Chapel Hill for the University of Chicago to become the dean of the Graduate Library School. During those thirty-one years, Wilson developed collections, and oversaw the planning and construction of two of the university's main libraries: the Carnegie Library in 1907 and the building in 1929 that, in 1956, would bear his name. He also trained staff librarians and taught courses in librarianship, joining the faculty in 1907. In 1920 Wilson was named Kenan Professor of Library Science.

Wilson returned to the UNC School of Libray Science faculty in 1942. In 1951 he became special assistant for development to the chancellor and in 1959, after retiring from the faculty, he accepted the position of special assistant to the president of the University of North Carolina system, from which he retired in 1969.

This sketch is abridged from a much more detailed entry in Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (Volume 6), by William S. Powell.

Collection Description: The collection is minimally organized and sorted, consisting largely of family snapshots and some studio portraits. Box 1 contains some photographs related to Wilson Library.

Related Material: Louis Round Wilson Papers (#3274), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Container List

Box 1: Photographs of Louis Round Wilson and others

• Envelope 1: [family snapshots, including Elizabeth Wright Wilson and Penelope Wilson, 1916-1963]
• Envelope 2: [Louis Round Wilson Library]
• [Dedication of addition to the library]
• [UNC Library named Wilson Library, March 1956]
• [Library events, including Friends of the Library events and speakers]
• Envelope 3: [Portraits of Louis Round Wilson]
• Envelope 4: [Wilson family events]
• Edmonds children, August 1965 [Wilson grandchildren]
• [sub-envelope label]: Penelope Wilson, Louis R. Wilson's Birthday, Christmas 1965
• [sub-envelope label]: Christmas 1961 and Penny's Birthday
• [sub-envelope label]: Circa 1964
• Envelope 5: [Wilson family events]
• [sub-envelope label]: Christmas and Louis R. Wilson's Birthday 1960
• [sub-envelope label]: Circa 1964
• [sub-envelope label]: Christmas and Louis R. Wilson's Birthday 1957
• [sub-envelope label]: Summer 1959 and April 1960
• [sub-envelope label]: 1958
• Envelope 6: [sub-envelope label]: Christmas and Louis R. Wilson's Birthday 1959
• Envelope 7: [Family portraits]
• [single photograph]: "Return from Europe, Summer 1935 on Steamship . . . " [portrait with Thomas Wolfe and others]
• [Family events]
• Envelope 8: [Portraits of Louis Round Wilson]

Box 2: Identified photographs not including Louis Round Wilson

• Envelope 1: [portraits]
• Elizabeth Wright Wilson
• W. A. Battey
• Mary Wright
• Jethro Reuben Wilson [father of Louis Round Wilson]
• Ghost Elliot
• E. M. Wilson's Buddies
• House party at Kentwood
• Home of Dr. and Mrs. A. A. Kent, Lenoir, NC, 1906
• Hattie Round
• Betty Wright
• William Gordon
• Frank K. Water
• E. M. Wilson
• Alice Wilson
• Rev. G. H. Round, Lenoir, [grandfather of Louis Round Wilson]
• Mary Louise Round, [grandmother of Louis Round Wilson]
• J. Archie Kent
• Rebecca and Beriche [spelling?] Dalton Wright
• Maude England
• Envelope 2: [Family events]
• includes Elizabeth Wilson, Penelope Wilson and Mary Louise Wilson Edmonds with children
• Envelope 3: [Family events]
• [Single photograph depicting Louis Round Wilson at card file of main desk at Wilson Library, UNC]

Box 3: Identified photographs that do not include Louis Round Wilson

• Envelope 1: [Family members and friends]
• [Single photograph depicting the graduating class of Chapel Hill High School, 1930, including Penelope Wilson]
• Envelope 2: [Family members, mainly Penelope Wilson]
• [Photographs of Wilson Home, 607 Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill]
• Envelope 3: [Portraits of Wilson family members]
• Rosalie Smith
• Hugh McLean Wilson
• John and Margaret Wright
• J. A. Kent
• Penelope Wilson

Box 4: Identified photographs that do not include Louis Round Wilson

• Envelope 1: Portraits of Louis Round Wilson
• Envelope 2:
• [Elizabeth "Betty" Wilson]
• Views of Salem College
• [Mary Louise Wilson Edmonds and Dean Stecklet Edmonds, Jr.]
• Envelope 3: [Portraits]
• R. H. Wright
• Alfred Kent
• Penelope Wright Wilson
• Mary Louise Wilson
• Hannah and Elizabeth Thomas Geare
• Hugh McLean Wilson
• Alice Green Wilson and Edwin A. Wilson
• Mrs. R. W. Wilson with Robert W. and Jane Bliss
• Envelope 4: [Portraits]
• Betty Vaiden Wright
• Louisa Wilson
• Mrs. Louis Round Wilson (Penelope Wright)
• Penelope Wilson
• [Graphic print of Wilson Library, UNC (undated)]
• Envelope 5: [Unidentified Portraits]
• [two different men, baby]
• Envelope 6: [Unidentified Portraits]
• [children, mothers and children, brides]

Box 5: Special photograph formats

• Mother and Alice (tintype)
• [Unidentified woman and child in case] (ambrotype)
• George H. Round [in case] (tintype)
• [Unidentified man in case] (daguerreotype)
• [Students of Mrs. L. J. Wilson at Davenport College] (tintype)
• [Wilson family members] (3 tintypes)
• [Album containing portraits of Round family] (mainly tintypes)

Box 6: Unidentified

• Envelope 1: Portraits
• Mrs. Louis Round Wilson
• Elizabeth "Betty" Wilson, African American Women
• [Single photograph]: Children's pageant
• [Tintype]: Two unidentified people with small columned rotunda in backround; hand-written on verso: "Auld Brig o' Doon / August 9, 1930."
• Envelope 2: [Various portraits]
• Envelope 3:
• [Single photograph]: [Wedding portrait]
• [Single photograph]: [Swimmers at pool]
• [Portraits of unidentified men and women]
• Envelope 4: [Unidentified portraits of women and children]
• Envelope 5: [Unidentified portraits of two infants]

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