The collection contains the personal papers of Robert F. Campbell primarily documenting his career as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Asheville, N.C. from 1892 to 1946 and, to a lesser extent, his research and writing on social issues, particularly race in the South and the people of Appalachia. The papers are comprised of correspondence; numerous sermon notes, outlines, and drafts; printed sermons; scrapbooks; clipping files on various social, cultural, and religious issues, especially from the period 1890 to 1920; student notebooks Campbell kept when he was a student at Washington and Lee and Union Seminary; correspondence, speeches, and abstracts of minutes relating to the organization of the Synod of Appalachia from 1914 to 1915; and correspondence pertaining to PCUS home missions and church union from 1900 to 1940. Also included is correspondence pertaining to the Historical Foundation at Montreat and the Ruffner family from 1898 to 1942. Campbell inherited the Ruffner papers of Henry Ruffner and William Henry Ruffner through his first wife, Sarah Ruffner, and donated them to the Historical Foundation in 1928. Other items include reports to the pastor from the Women of First Presbyterian Church, Asheville, 1914-1916; a map of Mountain Mission Schools, circa 1915; and a County and Railroad map of Virginia and West Virginia, undated. The accession register of the Presbyterian Archive indicates the papers were a gift of Robert F. Campbell, donated in 1940; the scrapbooks were donated by his wife in 1952. The incoming correspondence in Box 1 was removed from two deteriorating box files and foldered; the original order of two alphabetically arranged series was maintained.
