Mary Virginia Harrison Russell Collection
Scope and Content
The Mary Virginia Harrison Russell Collection consists of seventeen cubic feet of material.This collection encompasses the life of Mary Virginia Harrison Russell. The collection also details, in part, the lives of Augusta "Gussie" Mae Bloodworth Harrison and Benjamin Harrison. This collection initially consisted of thirty-eight boxes and spans close to 8 decades with a large concentration of materials related to the 1940s and 1950s.
Box 1 is one cubic foot and contains letters written by:
Benjamin Harrison to Gussie Harrison
Benjamin Harrison to Mary Virginia
Gussie to Mary Virginia
Mary Virginia to Benjamin Harrison
Mary Virginia to Gussie Harrison
The Harrisons to other people
These letters give insight into the intimate relationships within the Harrison family. The letters from Mary Virginia highlight her experiences while she was living in Washington, D.C.
Box 2 is one cubic foot and contains letters written to Benjamin and Gussie Harrison. Letters from Carl Vinson, Flannery O'Connor, Regina O'Connor and Tillie Anne Kidd are included in Box 2.
Boxes 3 to 5 consist of three cubic feet and contain letters written to Mary Virginia Harrison Russell from the 1930s to the 1970s. Included in these boxes are the letters she received from several male suitors such as Michael J. Penney, Clayton Wilkes, Joseph Hunter Bone, and Walter Dean Innis. There are also letters from her first husband, John Allison Mills. These boxes include letters she received from Flannery O'Connor, a close friend of the Harrison family and E.K. "Betty" Hearn whose letters span from 1949 to 1979, with the bulk of the Hearn letters from the 1950s.
Box 6 is one cubic foot. This box is entitled "Personal Records" of the Harrison Family. Included in this box are tax records, medical records, life insurance policies, personnel files, identification cards, confirmation records, telephone bills, divorce records, and estate records regarding Mary Virginia Harrison Russell.
Box 7 is one cubic foot and is entitled "Educational Records", and includes notebooks from Mary Virginia Harrison Russell's years while in the Grammar School Department of Georgia Military College(GMC) and at Georgia State College for Women. These notebooks offer information into her course of study while at GMC and GSCW. Her report cards from Peabody High School and GSCW are also in this box. Several GSCW publications such as the Corinthian, Columns, Bulletin, Catalogs as well as information related to various GSCW organizations are enclosed in this box.
Box 8 is one cubic foot. There are religious publications, Daughters of the American Revolution Yearbooks, and documents related to Milledgeville and Vidalia social and historic organizations.
Box 9 is one cubic foot and contains records concerning the companies initially owned by Roy Russell, Sr., Mary Virginia Harrison Russell's second husband. There are also several records pertaining to Roy Russell, Jr., her step son.
Box 10 is one cubic foot and contains travel booklets from places located within and outside the United States, programs concerts and plays, various magazines such as the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, The Log, Women's Day and the New Yorker as well as a selection of newspaper clippings.
Box 11 is one cubic foot and contains calendars and address book from the mid 1930s to the early 1980s.
Box 12 is one cubic foot and contains record books dating from 1884 to 1968.
Boxes 13 and 14 consist of one and one-third cubic feet and contain photographs of the Harrison family as well as their friends.
Boxes 15, 16, 17, and 18 consist of four cubic feet and contain scrapbooks which include photographs, letters, and newspaper/magazine clippings related to the Harrison family. Specifically related to Georgia College & State University history is a scrap book owned by Gussie Harrison which highlighted her life as a student at Georgia Normal & Industrial College.
Box 19 is approximately one-third cubic feet and includes greeting and sympathy cards as well as unaddressed postcards. The sympathy cards were sent to the Harrison family after the death of Benjamin Harrison.
Box 20 is approximately one-third cubic feet and includes the collection finding as well as inventories of books and phonographic record and will include and any additional outside information relating to the Harrison family.
