Charles Johnson Faulk Papers

The Charles Johnson Faulk papers contain the personal and business correspondence of the former executive editor of the Vicksburg Evening Post. There are also the research files Faulk compiled for his column ‘Neighborly Yours’, and a group of manuscripts and notes for various articles, short stories and the unpublished books ‘Dateline Vicksburg’ and ‘Phoenix’. The collection also includes copies of his ‘Neighborly Yours’ columns and a number of published articles and short stories. A group of audio cassette tapes feature recordings of interviews he conducted for his column. A large number of photographs, either taken by Faulk during his career or collected by him, are included in the collection. Among the prints and contact prints, there are a small number of negatives and transparencies, along with some glass plate negatives.

Series one, Personal, contains correspondence Faulk conducted with his family and friends along with other letters unrelated to his newspaper work. There are items concerning his wife and immediate family, as well as some financial documents. Faulk’s interest in his family history is reflected in a folder of genealogical material. There are also two folders concerning Faulk’s former colleague V. Blaine Russell and Russell’s son Stephen, both of whom Faulk helped after they were found to be incapable of looking after themselves.

The second series, Business, mostly encompasses material gathered in Faulk’s newspaper work. This includes correspondence about stories in the paper, notes for stories and his column ‘Neighborly Yours’, and 26 tapes of interviews he conducted between 1980 and 1989. There are an extensive number of files of research materials Faulk compiled for use in his writing. Copies of the newspaper which won Faulk and his staff the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 are included along with a report compiled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the 1953 Vicksburg tornado which features Faulk’s photographs. Folder 39 of Box 1 includes copies of photographs Faulk took of recaptured convicts in 1940 which he offered for sale, while Folder 42 is a wartime newsletter produced by the newspaper staff in 1943.

In series three, Writings, manuscripts of articles, short stories and books written by Faulk can be found. He wrote a large number of articles and short stories for his own newspaper and for submission to other publications between 1937 and 1984, and there is some correspondence related to them in Folder 74 of Box 2. Faulk completed the manuscript of an autobiographical book titled “Dateline Vicksburg” around 1981 but was unable to secure a publisher. Three complete drafts of the manuscript are included as well as correspondence with potential publishers. Though disappointed not to have his first book accepted, Faulk began work on a novel titled “Phoenix” about 1985 but he did not complete it. An outline and the draft of the first two chapters and a fragment of the third are included. The earlier manuscripts are typewritten but much of the later writing is done on computer and the manuscripts are in the form of printouts. Faulk wrote some biographical pieces on his wife, parents and grandfather, and kept a diary between November 1985 and May 1989.

Series four, Publications, includes copies of articles and short stories written by Faulk, including all his ‘Neighborly Yours’ columns from 1984 to 1990. There are also some articles written about Faulk and the transcript of an interview conducted with him in 1988 concerning his time with the Mississippi State Highway Department. A map and two publications feature his photographs, including the catalog of an exhibition of mid-south photographers in Memphis where his work was shown in 1981. Other publications reference his interest in local history and travel. Folder 21 of Box 4 contains some books on vocabulary formerly owned by V. Blaine Russell. Faulk collected copies and pages of newspapers dating back to 1896 and these are also included in the series, as well as a small number of prints.

The largest series is Series 5, Photographs. Faulk took many of his own photographs for his newspaper stories and columns. He collected photographs too and the series includes prints by older Vicksburg photographers J. B. Unglaub and J. Mack Moore. Faulk also obtained nine Moore glass plate negatives. A historic print of note is a circa 1864 photograph of the steamboat ‘Baltic’ of the Mississippi Marine Brigade moored at Vicksburg. The photograph collection—black and white prints predominantly—document in the main the people of Vicksburg and Warren County and their environment from the late 1930s to the 1980s. There are relatively few negatives in the series but a large number of contact prints give a good indication of the range of Faulk’s photographic activities. A smaller group of color prints and negatives are mainly family snapshots and travel photographs from 1979 to 1989. The series also contains a few slides and 13 metal printing plates of photographs taken in the 1940s.