John Spencer Bassett Papers

John Spencer Bassett was born in 1867 in Tarboro, NC, to Mary Jane Wilson and Richard Baxter Bassett, a builder and abolitionist. After graduating high school, pneumonia forced him to take a two year break before entering the Davis Military Academy in 1885. In 1888, Bassett graduated from Trinity College (now Duke University) and took a deanship there before leaving to become a history fellow at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in American History at Johns Hopkins in 1894 after completing his dissertation titled The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, 1663-1729. In 1892, Bassett married Jessie Lewellin, an elementary school principal. Together, they had four children, two who survived to adulthood: Richard Horace and Margaret Byrd.

Bassett returned to Trinity College for the next twelve years. Building upon the work of his predecessor, Bassett actively supported the Trinity College Historical Society for the study of southern history. Believing that everyone could collect, if not write, he worked towards acquiring a body of materials for historical research. Students, administrators, and alumni donated Confederate money, American Indian relics, travel souvenirs, and political memorabilia as well as volumes of books, pamphlets, religious and secular newspapers, maps, and manuscripts.

In 1902, Bassett founded and edited the South Atlantic Quarterly, a publication devoted to "the literary, historical, and social development of the South". In 1903, Bassett became the center of a controversy when he wrote "Stirring Up the Fires of Race Antipathy", an article in which he declared Booker T. Washington "to be the greatest man to be born in the South after Robert E. Lee". In response to a barrage of calls for his immediate dismissal, Bassett handed in his resignation from his professorship at Trinity. Surprisingly, the college refused to accept his resignation and the controversy became known as The Bassett Affair of 1903. It is regularly recounted as an exemplar of academic freedom. In 1906, Bassett left Trinity to begin teaching at Smith College as a Professor of American History. While he was teaching at Smith, Basset held several extracurricular positions in various organizations including: Old Letters Club, Library Fund, Smith College Studies in History and the Sydenham Parsons Foundation History Department.

Bassett became Secretary of the American Historical Association in 1919; he controversially supported the decision that school textbooks should be impartial and not emphasize the heroism of famous individuals. Bassett carried this idea into his own work as a writer and teacher, and he became known in the field for his objective approach to historical figures, his dedication to research and his emphasis on preserving primary documents. In 1920 he served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee advisory group, an event which led to the reelection of Woodrow Wilson. The committee focused most of its efforts on increasing public support for the League of Nations and Women's Suffrage. Bassett sought to influence public opinion by soliciting and publishing articles written by prominent individuals in support of these charges.

Even his death in 1928 was surrounded by controversy. After being hit and killed by a streetcar in Washington D.C., the police failed to contact his family until several days after the incident, prompting an inquiry in the Washington police department.

The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, 1663-1729; The Regulators of North Carolina, 1765, 1771

1894

Suffrage in the State of North Carolina, 1776-1861

1895

Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina

1896

Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina

1898

Slavery in the State of North Carolina

1899

The Writings of Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, Esqr.

1901

"Stirring Up the Fires of Race Antipathy"

1903

The Federalist System, 1789-1801

1906

Life of Andrew Jackson

1911

A Short History of the United States

1913

The Plain Story of American History

1916

The Middle Group of American Historians, Correspondence of George Bancroft and Jared Sparks, 1823-1832

1917

The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

1918

Our War With Germany: A History

1919

Letters of Francis Parkman to Pierre Margry

1922

The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters

1925

Expansion and Reform, 1889-1926

1926

Correspondence of Andrew Jackson

1926

Makers of A New Nation, The League of Nations: A Chapter in World Politics

1928