Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Papers of Louis   I. Jaffé  , Accession #9924-e, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This addition to the Jaffé   collection was given to the Library by Mrs. Louis   I. Jaffé   on 23 November 1977.

Biographical/Historical Information

Louis   I. Jaffé   was born in Detroit, Michigan, February 22, 1888, the son of Phillip and Lotta Maria (Kahn) Jaffé  . When Jaffé   was twelve years old, his family moved to Durham, North Carolina, and he graduated from high school there in 1907. In 1911, he received an A.B. degree from Trinity College (now Duke University).

While a student at Trinity, Jaffé   edited The Chronicle, a campus weekly, and was associate editor of The Archive, a college monthly. After graduation, he joined the staff of the Durham Sun, but left a short time later to become a reporter and assistant city editor for the Richmond Times- Dispatch .

In 1917, Jaffé   was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery Section, Officer's Reserve Corps of the United States Army. He was re-commissioned in the Aviation Section 1918, and again in 1919 with the Service of Supply. He was honorably discharged in France, March 29, 1919, and was commissioned as Inspector in the American National Red Cross with rank of Captain. He served on the Red Cross Commission to the Balkans from April to July, 1919, and was director of the Red Cross News Service in Paris from July to October, 1919. He was made a Chevalier of the State of Roumania, and honor bestowed in recognition of his work there with the Red Cross Commission.

After the war, Jaffé   went to Norfolk to become editor of the Virginian-Pilot, a position he held from 1919 until his death in 1950. He was prominent among Virginia liberal journalists and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929 for an editorial deploring a lynching which took place in Houston, Texas, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

In one of his last editorials, dated February 25, 1950, concerning the "mercy killing" of the Boothe bill for desegregation of Virginia public transportation he wrote: "The Virginia Democratic organization makes haste slowly in the field of social-political reform...It is still too uneasy about the impact of de-segregation on common carries to give the proposal anything like an official blessing. That will come later-after a longer look at this highly desirable reform, and possibly after another shove or two from the Supreme Court of the United States."

Scope and Content

This addition to the Louis   I. Jaffé   Papers, 1917-1949, consists of ca. 830 items, Jaffé's   correspondence files "H" through "L." The correspondents include J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph P. Kennedy, Mary Sinton Lewis Leitch, Walter Lippmann, and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The other correspondents are mainly newspaper editors and writers; state and national government officials; local merchants, lawyers and clergy; and literary writers and editors. This correspondence contains discussion of a wide variety of topics such as politics, journalism, literature, religion in the schools, and local development and political issues.

The correspondence between Jaffé   and Mary Sinton Lewis Leitch consists of 137 items, and is the largest exchange in this section of Jaffé's   papers. The letters primarily concern Mrs. Leitch's writing of poetry and literary reviews for the Virginian-Pilot.

Arrangement

The correspondence is arranged alphabetically. Each letter, "H" through "L," has one or two general folders, followed by individual folders for the more prominent correspondents. The material within the general folders is arranged alphabetically, and chronologically therein. The material within the individual folders follows a chronological arrangement.