Clemson University Libraries Special Collections
Marilyn W. Thompson Papers
Mss.0341
A register of her papers, 1948-1985
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- Clemson University Libraries Special Collections
- Creator
- Thompson, Marilyn W.
- Title
- Marilyn W. Thompson Papers
- ID
- Mss.0341
- Date [inclusive]
- 1948-1985
- Extent
- 1.25 cubic feet
- Language
- English
- Abstract
- This collection contains research materials collected by Marilyn W. Thompson for a book she co-wrote with author Jack Bass entitled Ol’ Strom: An Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond.
Preferred Citation
When citing materials from manuscript collections and the University Archives, use the following format: Identification of the item, folder and box number, title of the collection, Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries, Clemson, South Carolina.
Biographical Note
Marilyn Thompson was born in Salisbury, NC in 1952. She was a 1974 graduate of Clemson University where she received a BA in English. Her initial aim was to become a teacher, but after working with the Clemson student newspaper The Tiger, she found journalism to be her calling.
After graduation she worked at the Columbia Record in Columbia, South Carolina as a governmental affairs and investigative reporter where she earned South Carolina Journalist of the Year honors. In 1982 she was named a Congressional Fellow by the American Political Science Association.
From 1982-1986 she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. In 1986 she moved to the New York Daily News as a general assignment reporter. In 1987 she was promoted to Assistant City Editor for Investigations before being transferred in 1988 to the Washington Bureau in order to cover the Justice Department. While there, she helped break a government corruption story that later would become the book Feeding the Beast: How Wedtech Became the Most Corrupt Little Company in America. Following this time period, she was for two years Executive Editor and VP of the Lexington Herald-Ledger in Lexington, Kentucky.
She joined the Washington Post in 1990, where she spent fourteen years as Metropolitan Projects Editor, National Desk as Deputy National Editor for Domestic Coverage, Investigations Editor, and Assistant Managing Editor of the Investigative Team (a group which twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service). In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, she wrote The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed.
In 2003, she helped break the story regarding Strom Thurmond’s mixed-race daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams. This and other issues were brought to light in a book she co-wrote with author Jack Bass entitled Ol’ Strom: An Unauthorized Biography. In recent years she has worked with the Washington Bureaus of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, has been involved with the Investigative Reporters & Editors group, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and has been a Ferris Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.
Scope and Contents
This collection contains audio cassettes, research note cards, manuscript chapter drafts, news clippings, photographs, magazine articles, brochures, miscellaneous research notes, speeches, and congressional reports. The materials were gathered by Marilyn W. Thompson for a book she co-wrote with author Jack Bass entitled Ol’ Strom: An Unauthorized Biography.
The files deal specifically with the life and career of Strom Thurmond and have been arranged alphabetically according to the following subject headings: Audio Cassettes, Death Penalty, Early Years, Edgefield, SC, Favors & Constituents, Judgeship, Interviewee List, Miscellaneous Articles, News Clippings, Photographs, Race, South Carolina Governor, South Carolina State Senate, States Rights, Switch to the GOP, Teacher, Thurmond (Jean Crouch), Thurmond (William J.), United States Senate, United States Senate – Campaign, United States Senate – Civil Rights, and Washington-Williams (Essie Mae).
There are three oversized items. Two are advertising supplements that were placed as newspaper inserts by the Re-Elect Thurmond Committee. One is a newspaper article that is critical of Thurmond.
Arrangement
This collection is organized alphabetically into twenty three subjects, as follows: Audio Cassettes, Death Penalty, Early Years, Edgefield, SC, Favors & Constituents, Judgeship, Interviewee List, Miscellaneous Articles, News Clippings, Photographs, Race, South Carolina Governor, South Carolina State Senate, States Rights, Switch to the GOP, Teacher, Thurmond (Jean Crouch), Thurmond (William J.), United States Senate, United States Senate – Campaign, United States Senate – Civil Rights, and Washington-Williams (Essie Mae).
Administrative Information
Publication Information
Clemson University Libraries Special Collections
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
Acquired from Marilyn W. Thompson in accessions 98-177 and 99-20.
Processing Information note
Processed by Carl Redd, Project Archivist in 2010.
Controlled Access Headings
Geographic Name(s)
- South Carolina--Governors
- Southern States--Race relations.
Personal Name(s)
- Thurmond, Strom, 1902-2003
Subject(s)
- Civil rights--South Carolina.
- Civil rights--United States--History
- States' rights (American politics)
Collection Inventory
| Box | Folder | ||
|
Audio Cassettes: DeQuincey Newman, Woodrow Lewis, & L. Marion Gressette, 1981 [two audio cassettes] |
1 | 1 | |
|
|
|||
|
Death Penalty, 1981, no date [articles, clippings, reports] |
1 | 2 | |
|
|
|||
|
Early Years, no date [chapter drafts for manuscript, notecards] |
1 | 3 | |
|
|
|||
|
Edgefield, South Carolina, no date [articles, brochures, pamphlets, research notes] |
1 | 4 | |
|
|
|||
|
Favors & Constituents, no date [note cards, research notes] |
1 | 5 | |
|
|
|||
|
Judgeship, no date [notecards] |
1 | 6 | |
|
|
|||
|
Interviewee List, no date [contacts] |
1 | 7 | |
|
|
|||
|
Miscellaneous Articles, 1960s-1980s |
1 | 8 | |
|
|
|||
|
News Clippings, 1950s-1980s |
1 | 9 | |
|
|
|||
|
Photographs [five black & white photographs depicting Strom Thurmond] |
1 | 10 | |
|
|
|||
|
Race, 1954, no date [chapter drafts for manuscript, news clippings, note cards] |
1 | 11 | |
|
|
|||
|
South Carolina Governor, 1947, no date [chapter drafts for manuscript, news clippings, note cards] |
2 | 1 | |
|
|
|||
|
South Carolina State Senate, no date [note cards] |
2 | 2 | |
|
|
|||
|
States Rights, 1948-1956 [note cards, transcripts of Thurmond speeches on the subject] |
2 | 3 | |
|
|
|||
|
Switch to the GOP, 1960-1964 [chapter drafts for manuscript, congressional record (1960s), note cards] |
2 | 4 | |
|
|
|||
|
Teacher, no date [note cards] |
2 | 5 | |
|
|
|||
|
Thurmond, Jean Crouch, 1960, no date [chapter drafts of manuscript, congressional record (mention of her death), news clippings, note cards] |
2 | 6 | |
|
|
|||
|
Thurmond, Nancy M., 1968-1982 [news clippings] |
2 | 7 | |
|
|
|||
|
Thurmond, William J., no date [note cards] |
2 | 8 | |
|
|
|||
|
United States Senate, 1965-1982, no date [brochure, congressional record, note cards,] |
2 | 9 | |
|
|
|||
|
United States Senate - Campaign, 1950 [chapter drafts for manuscript, news clippings, note cards] |
3 | 1 | |
|
|
|||
|
United States Senate - Civil Rights, 1959-1967 [congressional record, miscellaneous articles] |
3 | 2 | |
|
|
|||
|
Washington-Williams, Essie Mae, 1947-1972 |
3 | 3 | |
|
|
|||
| Oversize | |||
|
“Strom Thurmond”, circa 1970s (?) [Political advertising supplement to: Anderson Independent, Charleston News & Courier, Columbia State, Florence Morning News, Greenville News, Orangeburg Times, Spartanburg Herald. Paid for by the Re-Elect Thurmond Committee. Billy Williams, Campaign Director] |
1 | ||
|
|
|||
|
"The Thurmond Story" Re-Elect South Carolina’s Statesman U.S. Senator on November 8, 1966, 1966 [Political advertising supplement – paid for by the Re-Elect Thurmond Committee, W.C. Plowden, Chairman] |
1 | ||
|
|
|||
|
“Thurmond Unqualified – Senator Thurmond Is Unprincipled With Colored Offspring While Parading As A Devout Segregationist”, 1972 [The Edgefield Advertiser – October 11, 1972] |
1 | ||
|
|
|||