Lee Slater Overman, lawyer, legislator, and U.S. senator, was born in Salisbury, N.C., where he opened a law office and served as president of the Salisbury Savings Bank. In 1878, he married Mary Paxton Merrimon, and they had three daughtrs. In 1882, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and was reelected four times, serving as speaker of the House for the 1893 session. In 1914, Overman became the first U.S. senator from North Carolina to be elected by popular vote, having been previously appointed to the seat by the state legislature in 1902 and again in 1909.Despite his political conservatism, Overman supported most of the Federal Reserve Act, the income tax law, and federal assistance to farmers. He wrote and sponsored the Overman Act of 1918, which gave the president extraordinary powers to coordinate government agencies in wartime. However, Overman stood firm in his conservatism as a leader of southern resistance to woman suffrage. Overman served almost 28 years on Capitol Hill. Correspondence of Overman with his constituents and with North Carolina and national leaders. Letters reflect a broad spectrum of the interests and opinions of Overman's constituents in regard to the federal government and relate to many of the major issues of the 1920s, including pensions for World War I veterans, the proposed sale of the Muscle Shoals facility, farm legislation, prohibition, foreign relations, race relations, immigration restrictions, and the bitter fight among North Carolina Democrats during the 1928 presidential campaign.The collection covers only the latter part of Overman's long political career, and there is a gap in the papers from November 1921 to May 1924. For earlier material see the papers of Edwin Clarke Gregory, Overman's son-in-law, at Duke University Library.
