Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use

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Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [identification of item], [box], [folder], John W. Norwood Letter to Francis T. Stribling, 1851, Ms2023-038, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

Source of Acquisition

The John W. Norwood Letter to Francis T. Sribling was purchased by Special Collections and University Archives in January 2018.

Processing Information

The processing, arrangement, and description of the John W. Norwood Letter to Francis T. Stribling was completed in June 2023.

Biographical Note

John Wall Norwood (1803-1885) was an attorney and member of the North Carolina General Assembly. During the American Civil War he acted as a superintendent of relief for families of Orange County, North Carolina. After the war, Norwood joined with others in an effort to suppress the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Norwood died at Poplar Hill at age eighty-two.

External source:

"Norwood, John Wall", ncpedia.org, https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/norwood-john-wall , accessed on June 5, 2023.

Scope and Content

The John W. Norwood Letter to Francis Stribling, the superintendent of the Virginia Western State Lunatic Asylum, discusses the mental health of Norwood's wife and seeks advice on how to help her. The letter outlines the psychological effects of enslaving human beings upon an enslaver with fragile mental health. The fear of the people she enslaved was apparently driving her mad, and she feared not only the violence of an uprising, but the letter hints at her fear of being poisoned as well.

Related Material

See the Western Lunatic Asylum [Staunton, Virginia] Collection, Ms2016-021, also at the Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• African Americans -- History
• Letters
• Local/Regional History and Appalachian South
• Slavery -- United States
• Western Lunatic Asylum (Va.)

Rights Statement for Archival Description

The guide to the John W. Norwood Letter to Francis T. Stribling by Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, is licensed under a CC0 ( https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ ).