This series consists of articles, booklets, clippings, photographs, programs, and photocopies of booklets, correspondence, newspaper clippings, invitations, press releases, and speeches all mounted in scrapbooks.

The volumes and microfilm in this series cover the period 1821-1972, with the bulk of the material documenting the career of James F. Byrnes from 1932-1954. The Stuttgart, Southern Governors’ Conference, and The State Magazine volumes were not filmed.

The volumes and microfilm are in chronological order.

The scrapbooks contain material—mainly newspaper clippings—that trace Byrnes’ life and career. They also contain information about his wife, Maude Busch Byrnes. Topics covered in the scrapbooks include civil rights, the Depression, the 1936, 1944, and 1952 Presidential elections (especially Byrnes’ prospects as a potential vice-presidential nominee in 1944), the 1950 South Carolina gubernatorial election, World War II and Byrnes’ role as an economic “czar,” the peace conferences and post-war international relations, and national and state politics in general.

There are also some single subject or media scrapbooks. One contains copies of The State Magazine from January 2-June 5, 1949 and January 14, 1951. The May 22, 1949 issue in the scrapbook has an article on the Byrnes’ at home entitled “James F. Byrnes, R.F.D.” by John A. Montgomery and the January 14, 1951 issue has short column on Byrnes entitled “The New Governor.” Another scrapbook covers the 20th Annual Southern Governors’ Conference of November 1954 which was held in Boca Raton, Florida. It has four pages of photographs of clippings taken from Florida newspaper articles during the Conference. Other photographs in the scrapbook document activities during the Conference such as meetings, dinners, and a press conference.

There is a scrapbook that purports to contain photographs of Byrnes’ visit to Stuttgart in September 1946. However, only one photograph may have been taken in Stuttgart; the others were taken in Berchtesgaden (specifically, Hitler’s Eagles Nest), Murnau, and Munich in Bavaria. The scrapbook also includes copy of The Bavarian, Volume 2, Number 37 (September 13, 1946), a newspaper published in Munich for the U.S. Military Government in Bavaria. Individuals shown in the photographs include Byrnes, Maude Byrnes, Senators Thomas Connally and Arthur Vandenberg, Hazel Vandenberg, and Byrnes’ administrative assistant Cassie Connor.

Also in this series is a set of seven scrapbooks compiled between 1936 and 1948 for Byrnes by Ruth Earle Jones and Ernest E. Jones of Salley, SC. The volumes document the period 1936-1946 through articles and clippings and while mainly about Byrnes they also include national and international events happening during period. Among the clippings are copies of newspaper columns (“Salley” and “Small Town”) done by Ruth Jones. Each volume has commentary written in it, most of it by Ruth Jones but a little by Earle Jones; much of it is in verse but that in the 1944 volume takes the form of faux letters to “Mom.” There are also clippings and photographs concerning Jones family, especially in the 1944 volume.

Finally there is a scrapbook created in May 1972 by the staff of Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries; one copy was sent to State Archives and another was to be buried in a time capsule/vault near the Byrnes statue on the South Carolina State House grounds. It contains photocopies of booklets, correspondence, newspaper clippings, invitations, press releases, and speeches and copies of articles, photos, and programs taken from the Byrnes Papers which document his life from 1892-1972.