James Free
A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress
Prepared by Bradley E. Gernand
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
2008
Contact information:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html
Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division,
2008
Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms008052
Title: James Free Papers
Span Dates: 1929-1996
Bulk Dates: (bulk 1951-1979)
ID No.: MSS83945
Creator:
Free,
James
Extent: 2,950
items;
9 containers plus 1 oversize;
4 linear feet
Language: Collection material in
English
Repository:
Manuscript Division, Library of
Congress,
Washington, D.C.
Abstract: Journalist. Story files
and scrapbooks of clippings of Free's articles for various newspapers,
especially as Washington, D.C., correspondent for the
Birmingham News covering the civil rights movement and
the Cold War.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this
collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person
or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed
alphabetically therein.
Personal Names
Free, Ann
Cottrell.
Free,
James.
Hubbard,
L. Ron (La Fayette Ron), 1911-1986.
Subjects
African Americans--Civil
rights.
American
newspapers--Alabama--Birmingham.
Birmingham
news.
Civil rights
movements--United States.
Civil rights--United
States.
Cold War.
Journalism--Washington
(D.C.)
Motion pictures--Caribbean
Area.
Occupations
Journalists.
Provenance:The papers of James Free, journalist, were given to the Library of
Congress in 1997 by his wife, Ann Cottrell Free.
Processing History:The papers of James Free were arranged and described in 1999. The
register was revised in 2008.
Copyright Status:The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of James Free in
these papers and in other collections in the custody of the Library of Congress
is reserved. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division for
further information.
Preferred Citation:Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the
following information: Container number, James Free Papers, Manuscript
Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
| Date |
Event |
| 1908, Nov. 5 |
Born, Gordo, Ala. |
| 1929 |
B.A., University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Attended Theodora Duncan School of Theater, New York,
N.Y.
Starred in vaudeville productions, "What Women Want" and
"Cradle of the Deep"
|
| 1930 |
B.L., Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
Reporter,
Tuscaloosa News, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
|
| 1931 |
Circulation supervisor,
New York Times, Brooklyn, N.Y.
|
| 1931-1932 |
Associate editor, Tennis magazine |
| circa 1931 |
Insurance salesman, Yazoo and Mississippi Railroad Co. |
| 1932 |
Worked for L. Ron Hubbard aboard schooner in
Carribbean
|
| 1932-1933 |
Editor,
Tuscaloosa Weekly Warrior, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
|
| 1933 |
Visited Central America
Edited English-language newspaper in Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Assisted in campaign for reelection, Richmond Pearson
Hobson, Jr., circuit court clerk of Tuscaloosa, Ala.
|
| 1934 |
Conducted Works Progress Administration project, Suburban
Subsistence Living
Conducted Tennessee Valley Authority research project,
Gorgas, Ala.
|
| 1935-1937 |
Reporter,
Birmingham News, Birmingham, Ala.
|
| 1937-1939 |
Reporter,
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va.
|
| 1939-1941 |
Reporter,
Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
|
| 1941-1946 |
Reporter,
Chicago Sun (later
Sun-Times), Washington, D.C., with a two-year
absence from 1943-1944
|
| 1942-1945 |
Private, United States Army Air Force; officer, United States
Navy
|
| 1946-1947 |
Reporter,
Raleigh News and Observer and Winston-Salem
Journal and
Sentinel, Washington, D.C.
|
| 1947-1979 |
Reporter,
Birmingham News, Washington, D.C.
|
| 1949-1968 |
Public information officer, United States Navy Reserve |
| 1950 |
Married Ann Cottrell |
| 1954 |
Special citation for exceptional Washington reporting, Raymond
Clapper Award Committee
|
| 1960 |
Chairman, Standing Committee of Correspondents of the
Congressional Press Galleries
|
| 1963 |
Nominated for Pulitzer Prize in journalism |
| 1969 |
Elected to Gridiron Club (historian, 1979-1991) |
| 1979 |
Relinquished full duties as Washington correspondent of the
Birmingham News and entered semi-retirement
|
| 1985 |
Published The First 100 Years!: A Casual Chronicle of the
Gridiron Club. Washington, D.C.: The Club
|
| 1989 |
Elected to Society of Professional Journalists Hall of
Fame
|
| 1996, Apr. 3 |
Died, Washington, D.C. |
The papers of James Stillman Free (1908-1996) span the years from 1929
to 1996, with the bulk of the material dated 1951-1979. Free served as national
capital correspondent for several newspapers, notably the
Birmingham News of Birmingham, Alabama, during the Cold
War period and civil rights movement. Free's clippings document reporting on
civil rights from 1961 through 1979. His story files also illustrate media
coverage of the Soviet Bloc and the Cold War.
Free's papers consist of files and scrapbooks of his major stories;
"National Whirligig," the newspaper column he coauthored with his wife, Ann
Cottrell Free; and notebooks in which he recorded interviews and information.
Free's story files are organized alphabetically by subject.
Free also participated in L. Ron Hubbard's Caribbean Motion Picture
Expedition in 1932. Hubbard, a university student, organized and chartered the
expedition with the intent of filming movies in the exotic locales of the
Caribbean. Insufficient capital caused the expedition's insolvency midway
through the voyage, during which only one movie was made. Free's files contain
photographs of expedition members aboard the schooner Doris Hamlin, the schooner's deck log and daily reports,
and correspondence and notes by Free.
Additional papers of James Free may be found in the Manuscript
Division's records of the Gridiron Club of Washington, D.C., which Free served
as historian from 1979 to 1991.
This collection is arranged alphabetically by type of material and
therein alphabetically.
| Container |
Contents |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| BOX 1
|
Biographical information
|
|
| BOX 1
|
General,
1929-1996, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 1
|
Newspaper clippings,
1942-1996, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 1
|
Photograph with Ronald Reagan,
1985
|
|
| BOX 1
|
Diary,
1944
|
|
| BOX 1
|
Notebooks,
1965-1980, n.d. (3 folders)
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Scrapbooks |
|
| BOX 2
|
Civil rights articles,
1961
See Oversize |
|
| BOX 2
|
Letters from members of Congress
re Free's career,
1979
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Raymond Clapper Award entries,
1954
See Oversize |
|
| BOX 2
|
Subject file |
|
| BOX 2
|
Agriculture,
1955-1959, 1967-1969, 1977-1978,
n.d.
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Allen, James B.,
1978-1979, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Andrews, George,
1970-1971
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Berlin, Germany,
trips
|
|
| BOX 2
|
East Berlin, German Democratic
Republic,
1961
|
|
| BOX 2
|
West Berlin, Federal Republic
of Germany,
1961-1962
|
|
(2
folders)
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Bevill, Tom,
1977-1979
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Biographies,
1951-1979, n.d.
|
|
(2
folders)
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Black, Hugo Lafayette,
1967
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Blount, Winton M.,
1970-1979
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Boykin, Frank W.,
1955-1959, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 2
|
Buchanan, John,
1976-1979, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 3
|
Carter, Jimmy,
1977-1979, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 3
|
Central America, visit,
1933
|
|
| BOX 3
|
Civil rights |
|
| BOX 3
|
Newspaper front pages,
1961-1965
|
|
| BOX 3
|
Praise and criticism by Free,
1960-1961
|
|
| BOX 3
|
Stories,
1951-1969, n.d.
|
|
(4
folders)
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Defense,
1951-1978, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Economics,
1952-1953, 1961, 1978, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Education,
1952-1958, 1977, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Edwards, Jack,
1976-1979
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Elections,
1951-1960, 1976-1978, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Electric power industry,
1950-1960, 1977, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Elliott, Carl,
1953-1965, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Environment,
1976-1978, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Feature stories,
1956-1978, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Fernsworth, Larry,
1978
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Fitzgerald, A. Ernest,
1970-1982, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Flippo, Ronnie C.,
1978-1979
|
|
| BOX 4
|
Flowers, Walter,
1977-1978
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Ford, Gerald R.,
1986
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Foreign affairs,
1962-1966, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Heflin, Howell T.,
1978-1979
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Hill, Lister,
1952, 1966-1968, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Hubbard, L. Ron |
|
| BOX 5
|
Biographical information,
circa 1986
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Caribbean Motion Picture
Expedition
(1932)
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Article by Robert Burgess re
Doris Hamlin (schooner),
1986
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Deck log and daily record of
Doris Hamlin (schooner) and expedition,
1932
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Photographs of
Doris Hamlin (schooner) and crew,
1932
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Notes by Free,
n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Reviews of book,
Dianetics,
1988-1989
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Jackson, Philip C., Jr.,
n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Johnson, Lyndon B.,
1964-1969, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Kennedy, John F.,
1960-1963, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 5
|
Kennedy, John F., and Martin
Luther King, Jr., probe of assassinations, 1968,
1976-1978
|
|
| BOX 6
|
"National Whirligig" (syndicated
column with Ann Cottrell Free)
|
|
| BOX 6
|
Columns,
1961-1962, n.d.
|
|
(2
folders)
|
|
| BOX 6
|
Correspondence,
1960-1962, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 6
|
Newspaper articles |
|
| BOX 6
|
Birmingham News |
|
| BOX 6
|
1945-1961
|
|
(3
folders)
|
|
| BOX 7
|
1961-1982
|
|
(3
folders)
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Chicago Sun,
1946
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Evening Star, Washington, D.C.,
1939
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Richmond Times-Dispatch,
1937-1938, 1947
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Nichols, Bill,
1976-1978
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Nickerson, John C.,
Jr.,
1955-1959, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Political party conventions,
1952-1968, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Politics,
1960-1965
|
|
| BOX 7
|
Redstone missile
See same container, Nickerson, John C. |
|
| BOX 8
|
Russia trip (1975),
1975
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Selden, Armistead I.,
1979
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Shelby, Richard C.,
1979
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Space,
1961-1962, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Sparkman, John Jackson,
1953-1955, 1966-1967, 1975-1978,
1985
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Strode, Hudson, and Carl Carmer,
1976
|
|
| BOX 8
|
United States Congress,
1952-1979, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Vance, Robert S.,
1976-1977
|
|
| BOX 8
|
Wallace, George C. |
|
| BOX 8
|
1963-1979
|
|
(3
folders)
|
|
| BOX 9
|
1982, 1992, n.d.
|
|
(2
folders)
|
|
| BOX 9
|
Waterways,
1951-1966, 1979, n.d.
|
|
| BOX 9
|
Telephone numbers,
circa 1950s-circa 1960s
|
|
| BOX OV 1
|
Oversize |
|
| BOX OV 1
|
Scrapbooks |
|
| BOX OV 1
|
Civil rights
articles,
1961 (Container 2)
|
|
| BOX OV 1
|
Raymond Clapper
Award entries,
1954 (Container 2)
|
|
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