Military Collection State Archives of North Carolina North Carolina Council of Defense Records (WWI 1) [World War I] Collection Number: WWI 1 Title: North Carolina Council of Defense Records Dates: 1916-1921, 1928-1930, 1932-1933 (bulk 1917-1920) Creator: North Carolina Council of Defense; Council of National Defense; Joseph Hyde Pratt; and various others. Abstract The North Carolina Council of Defense Records is composed of the original correspondence, subject files, financial records, organizational records, and operational materials created and utilized by the North Carolina Council of Defense from its formation on May 31, 1917, through the completion of an unpublished history of the Council by one of its members in 1932. The materials document the operations and war-time resources management of North Carolina, as well as of the county Councils of Defense in North Carolina. Correspondence from citizens and county officials regarding various war-time issues are represented in the collection. The collection also contains information, records, posters, and reports from other states’ Councils of Defense; and training, promotional, and public awareness materials from the Council of National Defense. Overall, the collection documents the status of North Carolina’s resources, government, and citizens throughout World War I. The records in this collection were accumulated from 1917 to 1933 by members of the state and county Councils of Defense, and deposited with the North Carolina Historical Commission by 1933. Physical Description: Approximately 11.75 linear feet Language(s): English; French; German; Italian Repository: State Archives of North Carolina, 4614 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699- 4614 Restrictions on Access: There are no restrictions on accessing this collection. Restrictions on Use: There are no restrictions on the use of this collection. Preferred Citation [Item name or title], [Box and Folder Numbers], North Carolina Council of Defense Records, WWI 1, WWI Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C. 1 Acquisition This collection was acquired in multiple parts by the North Carolina Historical Commission from 1918 to 1932. The bulk of the collection was acquired between 1918 and 1921 by Daniel Harvey Hill Jr., a member and Secretary from 1921-1924 of the North Carolina Historical Commission, and Robert B. House, the North Carolina Historical Commission’s Collector of World War Records, since June 19, 1919. Hill also served as the chairman of the North Carolina Council of Defense’s Historical Committee, which cooperated with the Historical Commission to collect and document the state’s war-time history. All of the materials in this collection were acquired or collected as part of the North Carolina Historical Commission’s on-going World War historic materials collection project, which was authorized by Sections 3 and 4 of Chapter 144 of the North Carolina Public Laws and Resolutions in 1919. Most of the collection was acquired by the end of 1920, as listed in the 1918-1920 North Carolina Historical Commission Biennial Report. Elements of the collection—in keeping with the statutes of the 1919 law—were received after the end of North Carolina’s involvement in war-time activities in 1920, as organizations and counties finally had time to compile their war records to send to the Historical Commission. The Joseph Hyde Pratt Papers (Subseries IF) was received from Joseph Hyde Pratt, a member of the North Carolina Council of Defense, in three separate donations, which were reported in the Biennial Reports published in 1920, 1930, and 1932. Separated Material Oversized items that did not fit in large archival boxes were relocated to the Military Collection Oversized Map Case in the Archives Stacks 3B, and are stored in WWI 1 Oversized Folders 1-3 (see Collection Inventory for list of individual oversized items stored in those folders). Related Material Records of the Council of National Defense (Record Group 62), 1915-37. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland. Processing Information The original North Carolina Council of Defense records were received by the North Carolina Historical Commission (present-day State Archives of North Carolina) in multiple accessions from 1918 to 1932. The collection was apparently loosely arranged by creator, with the original organization of the records left intact. During the 1920s, the Historical Commission worked on arranging the World War I Papers in groups of common themes or creators. In 1964, Maurice S. Toler and John R. Woodard of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History prepared a finding aid for the “World War I Papers, 1903-1933,” which consisted of thirteen series of records. This was the first known formal organization of the World War I, and a basic finding aid completed to the box and item level was finalized on June 30, 1964. From 1964 until 2014, as 2 more World War I materials were received by the State Archives of North Carolina, the items were added to a new box at the end of each appropriate series. The Council of Defense records by 1964 had been subdivided into eight basic divisions, which were not numbered. The divisions are as follows: General Correspondence, 1917‐1921, no date; Papers of Col. Joseph Hyde Pratt; Subject Files; History of the North Carolina Council of Defense; County Councils; Council of National Defense; Other States’ Councils of Defense; and Soldiers’ Record Cards. The original order and provenance of the World War I materials received by the State Archives from 1918 to 1932 was somewhat lost over time. The reprocessing of the collection, completed in June 2015, attempts to rejoin portions of the Council of Defense records, and to more logically organize the collection into numbered series and subseries to match the original acquisition records for the collection. For example, photographs of the Council of Defense and North Carolina county Councils of Defense members were stored in Series XII: Photographs and Postcards (which was created by 1964 artificially as a series). These photographs were moved to WWI 1 North Carolina Council of Defense Records, and organized in Series I (see the North Carolina Historical Commission’s 1918-1920 Biennial Report for justification for this reorganization). Paperclips and rusted metal fasteners were removed from the items in the collection. Original materials were removed from bindings which were turning acidic, causing damage to the materials. Newspaper clippings and newspaper articles which were retained were photocopied as preservation copies, to protect other archival materials in a given folder from being further discolored by the acidity in the newspaper clippings. Newspaper citations were retained on the preservation copy if such information was pre-existing on the original newspaper clippings. Badly torn or faded documents were photocopied as preservation copies, to save the informational content of the records for collection users. Oversized items such as posters and large certificates—originally folded and stored in regular file folders in the collection—have been relocated to Oversized Boxes 31-32, and Oversized Folders 1-3 (stored in the Military Collection Oversized Map Case). Each oversized item is described based on which original folder and series/subseries the item was located in prior to reprocessing of the collection. The collection has been processed to folder-level, meaning that items within each folder are not typically arranged in any particular order or described individually (unless otherwise required based on the uniqueness of the materials). Where possible, the original collection’s folder titles were retained. When added description was required to assist researchers to locate unique items in the collection, folder titles were supplemented with more detailed description in parentheses after the original folder title. Processed by: J. Cameron Crawford; Laura Guthrie; and Matthew M. Peek, June 2015. 3 Arrangement The North Carolina Council of Defense Records collection is arranged in four series and eight subseries. The arrangement is as follows: Series I: North Carolina Council of Defense Subseries IA: History of the North Carolina Council of Defense Subseries IB: General Correspondence Files Subseries IC: Soldiers’ Record Cards Subseries ID: Subject Files Subseries IE: North Carolina Council of Defense Photographs Subseries IF: Joseph Hyde Pratt Papers Series II: North Carolina County Councils of Defense Series III: State and National Council of Defense Materials Subseries IIIA: State Councils of Defense Materials Subseries IIIB: Council of National Defense Materials Series IV: Oversized Materials Historical Note In an attempt to garner a united national support for the United States’ involvement with the World War I effort, and believing in the imperativeness of uniting and expediting all measures for the coordination of a prolonged war effort, the U.S. Congress created the Council of National Defense with the passage of the Army Appropriation Act (39 Stat. 649) (also called the National Defense Act of 1916) on August 29, 1916. The Council of National Defense was a presidential advisory board that included six members of the President’s Cabinet: Secretary of War Newton D. Baker (chairman of the Council); Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels; Secretary of Agriculture David Houston; Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane; Secretary of Commerce William Redfield; and Secretary of Labor William