Harrietta Harris papers

The Harrietta Harris papers provide a documentary source in the field of genealogy, home museums, and turpentine camps in Mississippi in the early twentieth century. Work conditions in such camps were often harsh and considered a form of peonage.The papers contain professional, as well as personal papers documenting Harris' life as a professor, social worker, and author and document Harris' genealogical research and devotion to save her family's history.

The papers encompass 0.4 linear foot and contain photographs and tintypes of family members. The tintypes include one of Harris' great-great grandmother, Mittie Conway Cook, two of Cook's husband, Lewis Walter Cook, and one of an unknown child. The collection includes a ledger book kept by Lewis Walter Cook, while he worked in the turpentine camps in Mississippi from 1908-1944. One camp mentioned in the ledger is the Fenton Turpentine Company in Fenton, Mississippi. Fenton is a town north of Diamondhead, Mississippi, and was an early sawmill town that maintained a Black settlement populated by descendants of slaves originating from Senegal.

The papers contain a 1845 statement of freedom for the son of Bonds Conway and Dorias [sp?] Heathcock , Edward Uriah Conway. According to this certificate, which was signed in the Kershaw District of South Carolina, both parents of Edward Uriah Conway were free people of color. The papers also contain negatives, slides, news clippings, birth certificates, death certificates, and correspondence. The correspondence is small, but includes one letter each from and to Oprah Winfrey, Sybil Morial, Samuel DuBois Cook, and Alex Haley. The letter from Alex Haley is a photocopy sent with a check requesting books authored by Harris. Haley also inquires about photocopies of an Octoroon ball and a list of sources that might give him insight into race relations in and around New Orleans.