George Suggs Papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 2006.100

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection primarily consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence and materials for Suggs’ published works, including drafts and research items. Correspondence is organized into two subseries: chronological and subject, which is arranged alphabetically. The letters, memos, and greeting cards cover a variety of matters such as former students, the 1980 Missouri Conference on History hosted in Cape Girardeau, and his involvement as a professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

Suggs’ published works are in chronological order and include drafts, research notes, and correspondence relating to each work. The main focus of his work pertains to labor strife in the gold camps of Colorado between the Western Federation of Miners and the administration of Governor James H. Peabody, the labor difficulties involving the lead and zinc miners and mine operators in the Tri-State Mining District in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and the water mills of the Missouri Ozarks. The series of Suggs’ research materials, organized alphabetically, consists of audiocassettes and microfilm. A large amount of this research material includes labor and union issues covering songs, ballads, National Labor Relations Board materials, Division of Labor, and the International Union of Mine, Mill, & Smelter Workers Convention. Some materials were discarded due to being published elsewhere. A complete list of these works is available in the Appendix.

The other series that constitutes a smaller portion of the collection includes contents of his professional career as a professor at Southeast Missouri State University from 1964 to 1994. Materials documenting his career as a professor consist of syllabi, class exam questions, and history department proposals. Also, included are his collaborations with the H.L. Mitchell film project covering a small part of the Southeast Missouri roadside strike in the 1930s, H.O. Grauel’s University experiences, and Grauel’s research over Erasmus D. Hix. Some of Suggs’ honors and awards are part of the collection including his National Endowment for the Humanities award for labor union research in 1981.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within 1901-2003, Bulk [1970-1994]

Rights Statement

Materials in this collection may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Biographical / Historical

Born on October 17, 1929, Dr. George G. Suggs Jr. was raised in Bladenboro, North Carolina. After high-school graduation in 1947, he attended Wake Forest University for two years, followed by two years of teaching in the Columbus County, North Carolina, Public Schools. After the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1951, where he served for two years. He then transferred from Wake Forest University to the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he received his B.A. in history in 1957. For five years Suggs taught history in the Charlotte, North Carolina, City Schools. While teaching he attended Northwestern University from 1959-1960, on a John Hay Whitney Fellowship in the Humanities.

In 1964, Suggs earned his Ph.D. from University of Colorado-Boulder, and accepted a professor position at Southeast Missouri State University. During his career at Southeast, he received a National Endowment of the Humanities Resident Fellowship in 1980 and attended Brown University for study in the “new labor history.” He later participated in the Missouri London program, where he taught British Constitutional History and the American Revolution from the English perspective. He authored many articles, book reviews, and books including Colorado’s War on Militant Unionism and Union Busting in the Tri-State. Suggs is an avid researcher and writer who continues to write after his retirement in 1995.

Extent

8.5 Linear Feet

1 Reels

1 map folders

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Materials collected by Dr. George Suggs, a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University from 1964 to 1995, relating to his professional research, published papers, and lectures on subjects, such as American labor history and American constitutional history. Materials include clippings, notes, manuscripts, letters, photographs, and microfilm.