Henry Lee Swint Papers

Collection

Identifier: MSS.0429

Staff Only

Scope and Contents Note

The Henry Lee Swint Papers date from 1933 to 1978 and are comprised primarily of correspondence, writings, and research notes. Swint carried on an extensive correspondence with students, former students, and colleagues at other institutions, mainly discussing research interests and personal concerns. A more limited correspondence with faculty and other colleagues at Vanderbilt contains information regarding administrative matters, including controversial subjects such as the 1960 dismissal of Divinity School student James Lawson for participating in civil rights demonstrations in Nashville. The collection also includes a fairly extensive file of speeches and lecture notes, book reviews, article manuscripts and offprints, correspondence regarding Swint’s two books, and research notes on Vanderbilt’s history. The Swint Papers are organized into eight series, as follows:

Correspondence (4.35 cft.)
Writings (2 cft.)
Research Notes (3 cft.)
Student Work (2.7 cft.)
History Department (2.5 cft.)
University Committees and Other Administrative (.5 cft)
Institutes on Communism and American Democracy (.35 cft)
Tapes (3.35 cft.)
Elizabeth Swint Papers (.35 cft)

Dates

1933 - 1978

Biographical Sketch

Henry Lee Swint (1909-1985) served on the faculty of the Vanderbilt University History Department from 1939 to 1985. Born and raised in southern Alabama, Swint received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Birmingham Southern College in 1929. In 1930, Vanderbilt awarded him the Master of Arts in history and he embarked on a college teaching career. Between 1930 and 1936, he taught at Louisburg College in Louisburg, North Carolina (1930-1931), King College in Bristol, Tennessee (1931-1934), and Middle Georgia State College in Cochran, Georgia (1934-1936). He began work toward the Ph.D. at Vanderbilt in 1936. After completing his dissertation on "The Northern Teacher in the South, 1862-1870" in 1939, he was appointed Instructor in Vanderbilt’s history department. He became an Assistant Professor in 1942 and progressed through the ranks until 1971, when he was appointed Holland N. McTyeire Professor of History. He held that chair until his death in 1985.

Vanderbilt University Press published Swint’s two books -- his dissertation (1941) and a second work entitled Dear Ones at Home: Letters from Contraband Camps (1966). Swint also wrote numerous book reviews and articles and served on the administrative board of the Andrew Jackson Papers. In 1969, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trust appointed Swint to research and write a history of Vanderbilt for the university’s centennial celebration in 1975. Swint worked on the project from 1969 to 1977, but did not complete it. Paul Conkin took up the project again in 1982 and incorporated Swint’s work into Gone With the Ivy: A Biography of Vanderbilt University (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).