Title: Muriel Williams Mather Papers

Date/Date Range :   1939-1990 (bulk 1940-1954)

Extent: 0.5 linear feet

Abstract:

This collection documents Muriel Williams's testimony in two hearings regarding suspected Communist activity before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1940 and 1950.

Call number: MS-2585

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

Aquisition Information:

This collection is property of the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library.

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], Muriel Williams Mather Papers, MS-2585. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of one box divided into five series: Biographical; Correspondence; Legal and Political Papers; Clippings; and Publications.

Muriel Speare was born on August 14, 1913 to Charles and Lowel Burnett Speare. She was the youngest of three girls. She was educated at Mount Holyoke College, graduating in 1935. She moved to Tennessee and began working for the TVA as a secretary in 1936. It was while working for the TVA that she first came into contact with the Communist party, which she formally joined in 1937. After leaving the party in 1939, she testified in several matters regarding people suspected of being Communists and potential Communist involvement in the TVA. She was married three times: once to Bernard Borah, once to Stillman Williams, and once to Kirtley Mather.

The bulk of this collection documents Muriel Williams's testimony in two hearings regarding suspected Communist activity before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The first hearing had to do with the suspected presence of Communists in the TVA and took place in Chattanooga in 1940. Williams testified that while she had been a Communist, she had been exposed to a Communist "fifth column" operating within the TVA. The second hearing had to do with William Remington, who was accused of perjury when he denied being a Communist. Remington appeared before the HUAC in 1950, where Williams testified that he had been active in Communist activities when she was a party member. Remington was eventually sentenced to five years at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, where he was murdered by two other inmates in 1954.

• Mather, Muriel Speare Broah Williams, 1913-.
• Tennessee Valley Authority.
• United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944)
• United States -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945.