Title: Letter from John C. Hodges to James and Wilma Dykeman

Date/Date Range :   1965 January 4

Extent: 0.1 linear feet

Abstract:

This collection contains a single letter from John C. Hodges to James Stokely and Wilma Dykeman, written January 4, 1965. In addition to thanking them for a collection of works, he expresses the desire to obtain any materials they may have kept, in order that the University of Tennessee might preserve them.

Call number: MS-2401

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

This letter was donated to Special Collections.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Letter from John C. Hodges to James and Wilma Dykeman, MS-2401. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of a single folder.

John C. Hodges (namesake of the University of Tennessee Hodges Library) was born in 1892. He took two degrees in his home state of Louisiana before getting a PhD from Harvard. He began working at the University of Tennessee in 1921, serving as head of the English Department from 1941-1962. For a further five years, he helped increase library development. Hodges was co-author to the Harbrace Handbook of English, still used at the University of Tennessee today. In addition, he was top scholar on the works of William Congreve. His extensive collection, gathered from around the world, is now at the University of Tennessee Special Collections. He died in 1967.

James Stokely was born in Newport, Tennessee in 1913. He attended both the University of Tennessee and Princeton University. With his wife, Wilma Dykeman, he wrote several books. He was the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many of which focused on issues of civil rights in the South. In addition, he owned and managed Stokely Apple Orchard in Newport, TN (1940-53) and in Asheville, NC (1944-53). He died in 1977.

Wilma Dykeman was born in Asheville, NC in 1920. Although she attended school in the North, she returned to the South, marrying James Stokely in 1940. Throughout her life, she has been a teacher, historian, reporter and author. Her 1955 book, The French Broad, started her career as historian. In 1981, she was named State Historian. Some of her other works have centered around civil rights (i.e. Neither Black Nor White, written in 1957 with her husband). She has also written several novels, including The Tall Woman (1962), The Far Family (1966) and Return the Innocent Earth (1973). She currently resides in Newport, Tennessee.

In a letter to James Stokely and Wilma Dykeman, John C. Hodges writes to thank them for a copy of "your mother's poems and stories." Whose mother he writes about is never clarified. He also expresses a hope that both Stokely and Dykeman have retained possession of their own manuscripts and that they will consider donating any materials to the University of Tennessee's "Special Documents Room, which is emphasizing everything written by and about Tennesseans."

For other materials related to John C. Hodges, see MS 401, MS 641 and MS 1885.

• Hodges, John Cunyus, 1892-1967.
• Stokely, James, 1913-1977.
• Dykeman, Wilma, 1920-.
• University of Tennessee (Knoxville campus). Libraries.