Clemson libraries receives George Washington Carver letters and photographs

Published: February 7, 2011

President Jim Barker inspects letters from George Washington Carver to Clemson Cadet Kelly Traynham as well as photographs taken during Traynham’s 1933 visit to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. With Barker are, from left, Jerry Reel, university historian, Michael Kohl, head of special collections, and Steven Maclin, a senior English major from Charleston who is a student worker in special collections and a member of the Clemson Black Student Union. image by: Clemson University

By Alex Urban

CLEMSON — Clemson University's libraries special collections department received three handwritten letters of correspondence dated 1934 between celebrated crop scientist George Washington Carver and former Clemson cadet Kelly E. Traynham.

The letters also included several photographs of Carver with Traynham and Carver with Traynham's chemistry instructor, Wallace Friday. The letters and photographs were given to special collections as a gift from Elizabeth Traynham, Kelly Traynham's widow.

Carver wrote the letters to thank Traynham, another Clemson cadet named Carrol Chipley and their instructor, Friday, for visiting his research laboratory at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Carver is best known for his research on expanded uses for Southern crops, such as the sweet potato and peanut.

The letters are personal in nature and in them Carver implores Traynham to develop his mind and also thanks him for visiting his laboratory.

Traynham graduated from Clemson in 1934 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and went on to become an executive for J.P. Stevens after serving in World War II. He was active in civic and educational organizations until he died on Oct. 13, 2005.

"The fact that you would have an instructor at Clemson take some cadets to see George Washington Carver is interesting… it was not the norm, but it says a lot about the institution," said Michael Kohl, head of special collections.

The letters mark the second connection between Carver and Clemson. More than 10 years earlier, on Nov. 20, 1923, Carver was the first African-American to speak at Clemson. He addressed Clemson cadets in a packed house in the old Clemson Memorial Chapel.

Mary Burr and her daughter, family friends of the Traynhams, were instrumental in bringing the letters and photographs to Clemson.

"The letters and photographs document a history of Clemson you would have no way of knowing otherwise," Kohl said.

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