Southern States

This collection contains the papers of William Campbell Binkley, chair of the Department of History at Vanderbilt University from 1930-1953. Binkley's research interests involved the history of the American West, especially the early history of Texas.

The Sam Fleming Southern Civilization Book and Periodicals Collection, 1770s-2020s, consists of rare and contemporary books as well as periodicals from the Southeastern United States. These materials support existing manuscript collections and the research and teaching initiatives of Vanderbilt faculty and students.

The Mrs. Shelton Griffin Diary contains a diary written by a woman working on a cotton and peanut farm in south Alabama at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1931, detailing daily farming life in rural Alabama.

This collection contains a handwritten daily diary dated 1915-1916 by Ranson Griffin. Griffin is 74 year old woman that details her life, family, and friends in rural Alabama.

The Latinx Histories of the U.S. South Collection, 2025, consists of artifacts collected or created by undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University for the class HIST 1375: Latinx Histories of the US South, taught by Dr. Edward Wright-Ríos, during the fall semester of 2025.

The Owsley Charts were compiled at Vanderbilt University circa 1939-45 through the combined efforts of Harriet Chappell Owsley, Blanche Henry Clark, and Chase Mooney, under the direction of Frank Lawrence Owsley, Professor of History. The charts themselves represent a composite of Schedules I (land ownership), H (slave ownership), and IV (products of agriculture) of the unpublished Federal Census for Tennessee, 1850 and 1860.

The John Seigenthaler Papers, 1927-2014, contain correspondence, clippings, writings, speeches, photographs, artifacts, recordings, and other materials of journalist, writer, and Tennessean editor John Seigenthaler, 1927-2014.