Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of Louis I. Jaffé, Accession #9924-j, 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 May 18, 1983.

Biographical/Historical Information

Louis Isaac 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, 1919 (1922-1949) 1972, ca. 467 items (1 box), consists of Jaffé's correspondence files for "W" through "Z." Some of the major correspondents include: U.S. Congressman Lindsay C. Warren; Virginia Lieutenant Governor Junius E. West; James Southall Wilson, Editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review at the University; and Norfolk Mayor Joseph D. Wood. Also Filed here are letters from: J.J. Lankes (to Jaffé re Charles Harris Whitaker); John Calvin Metcalf, Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English Literature at the University (to Leon R. Whipple); and Campbell Bascom Slemp, secretary to the President (White House file). The other correspondents are mainly national, state, and local newspaper editors and writers; Norfolk and Virginia government officials; local merchants and businessmen; educators and clergymen; and Virginia writers.

Topics of special interest include the proposed Constitutional Convention, 1922-1923 session; a post-war letter from France; the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize to Jaffé; racial conflicts; and Virginia history. Prominent persons mentioned include: Edwin A. Alderman; Stringfellow Barr; Robert Frost; Ellen Glasgow; Dumas Malone; K. Foster Murray; Eugene O'Neill; and Gertrude Stein.

An extensive description of the contents of this collection was prepared by Mrs. Louis I. Jaffé, and can be found in the control folder.

Arrangement

The correspondence is arranged in alphabetical order. "W," "Y," and "Z" have one or two general folders, followed by individual folders for the more prominent or prolific correspondents. Within the general folders, the material is arranged alphabetically. Within the individual folders, the material is arranged chronologically.