Graves, Louis, 1883-1965

Louis Graves (1883-1965) of Chapel Hill, N.C., was a writer, journalist, and founder of the Chapel Hill (N.C.) Weekly . Graves was born in Chapel Hill, N.C. to Ralph Henry Graves (died 1889), a professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, and Julia Charlotte Hooper Graves (1856-1944). He was educated in Chapel Hill at the schools of Miss Loula Herndon and J. W. Canada and attended the Bingham School in Asheville, N.C., 1898-1899. He entered the University of North Carolina in 1899 and graduated in 1902.

In December 1902, Louis Graves moved to New York. In March 1903, he beame a reporter for the New York Times, where he remained until August 1906. From 1906 to 1913, he worked for the publicity firm of Ivy L. Lee, which served a number of railroad companies. From 1913 to 1917 he worked for the New York City government, briefly as secretary to the President of the Borough of Manhattan, George McAneny (1869-1953), and then as secretary to the President of the Board of Aldermen, when McAneny was elected to that position in 1913. During his residence in New York, Graves was engaged in freelance writing, and beginning in 1908, he had numerous short stories and articles published in magazines and newspapers, including the Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, the Saturday Evening Post, and New York Times Magazine.

In the spring of 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Graves was commissioned a captain in the army; after training at Camp Jackson, S.C., he went with the 81st Division of the American Expeditionary Force to France. After the Armistice, he remained in Europe for one year with the Press Section, General Headquarters and the Army of Occupation in Coblenz on the Rhine. He was discharged in July 1919 and returned to the United States in December 1919. In 1920 and 1921, Graves was with Asia magazine where he published a biography of Willard Straight in serial form.

In 1921 Graves returned to Chapel Hill, where he married Mildred Moses (1892-1976), the daughter of Edward Pearson Moses (1857-1948) and Caroline Dosser Moses (1855-1901). The Graveses had no children of their own, though they helped to raise Mrs. Graves' nephew, Edward Kidder Graham Junior (1911-1976), who was orphaned in 1918, and her niece Allen Claywell Irvine, who was placed under her guardianship in 1937.

In the fall of 1921, Louis Graves became a professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina, a position he held until 1924. In March 1923, he established the Chapel Hill Weekly and served as its editor and owner until 1954, when he sold the paper to the Chapel Hill Publishing Company. Orville Campbell succeeded Graves as editor, but Graves himself was contributing editor from 1954 to 1960. After 1960, he wrote only occasionally for the Chapel Hill Weekly and other papers.

From the guide to the Louis and Mildred Graves Papers, 1814; 1876-1976, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)