Finding Aids >> MUM00001

This collection is stored at an off-site facility. Researchers interested in using this collection must contact Archives and Special Collections at least two business days in advance of their planned visit.

Thomas Gerstle Abernethy was born on 16 May 1903 in Eupora, Webster County, Mississippi. He attended the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and the University of Mississippi Law School. He graduated from the law school of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1924. Abernethy began practicing law in his hometown the following year, and he served as mayor of Eupora from 1927 to 1929. He opened another law practice after moving to Okolona in 1929. From 1936 to 1942, Abernethy was the district attorney for the third judicial district of Mississippi.

In 1942, Abernethy won election as a Democrat from the northeastern fourth district of Mississippi to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1943-1944, he chaired the Committee on Elections No. 1 which judges the elections, returns, and qualifications of House members and deals with contested elections.

The only serious reelection contest Abernethy faced occurred in 1952 after Mississippi underwent reapportionment following the loss of a congressional seat. Abernethy successfully campaigned against fellow Democratic colleague John Rankin (in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1920) to win the seat for the first district which encompassed the central portions of the state from the Delta counties along the Mississippi River to the hill counties along the Alabama border.

Abernethy served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1948, 1956, and 1960. In 1972, he announced his decision not to run for reelection. When Abernethy retired on 3 January 1973, he had the third highest seniority on the Agriculture Committee, chaired its Cotton Subcommittee, and served on its Department Operations Subcommittee. Tom Abernethy, Jr. once explained that his father was "tied into the farming community of Mississippi...If he had not cared so much about those issues, Dad probably would have been chairman of a committee long before he left Congress. But he wanted to stay on the Agriculture Committee. He wanted to be the farmers' representative. He loved the farmer." His former colleague, G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery called Abernethy "a crusader in the development of agriculture programs in Congress." Abernethy also attained the second highest ranking on the District of Columbia Committee which governs the capitol city. He served on its Business, Commerce and Fiscal Affairs Subcommittee, and chaired its Education Subcommittee as well as its Judiciary Subcommittee.

A conservative Democrat during his political career, Abernethy increasingly endorsed and voted for Republicans after his retirement. He died of heart failure in a Jackson, Mississippi nursing home on 11 June 1998. In a tribute on the floor of the U.S. Senate the following day, Thad Cochran lauded Abernethy as "a close friend and an advisor...I always found his advice and counsel very valuable and helpful."

Abernethy was a Methodist and a member of the Freemasons, the Shriners, the Exchange Club, and the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He married the former Alice Margaret Lamb on 5 July 1936. All three of their children graduated from the University of Mississippi: Gail Abernethy Doty (Class of 1961), Tom Abernethy, Jr. (Class of 1964, Law School 1970), and Kay Abernethy Martin (Class of 1967).

In 1962, Abernethy received the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation's award for "outstanding and meritorious service to agriculture." In 1964, the Disabled American Veterans presented him with the National Commander's Award for "his long years of dedicated service in behalf of America's war disabled veterans." In a 1974 letter, however, Abernethy claimed that the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway would "undoubtedly to be my greatest service to Northeast Mississippi and the mid-south area." A federal building in Aberdeen, Mississippi is named after the former congressman.

The Thomas G. Abernethy collection contains files in 454 boxes from the thirty years of Abernethy's tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943 to 1973. These papers document military service academy appointments, patronage appointments, constituent case work, constituent requests, invitations, legislative files, committee files, subject files, political & campaign files, and public relations files. A 2007 accretion added scrapbooks, framed items, books, memorabilia, and photographs to the collection.

The original inventory made little effort to physically arrange the various file series in any coherent manner. Instead, curators preserved the integrity of Abernethy's original files and filing system. Their inventory indicates that periodically the congressional office would box and store entire series of "retired files," and at times the office staff would institute a new method of sorting and labeling files. For example, from 1943 to 1962 the staff sorted letters into "General Correspondence" files arranged alphabetically by the name of the correspondent. In 1963, the staff began to insert general correspondence into subject files. In addition to these inherent inconsistencies, early curators made no attempt to sequentially arrange the different types of files. Hence, one finds a run of 1950s Agriculture Committee files starting around Box 365 while several from the 1960s appear much earlier around Box 270. In an effort to provide researchers a more logical inventory without altering the physical location of any file or boxes, a second version of the inventory was created which groups together folders of like content. The box totals and descriptions that follow rely on the artificial, intellectual arrangement of this second, newer inventory.

Eight boxes contain files on military academy appointments. Files relating to academy appointments are listed by the name of the individual and the specific academy. In most cases, these file headings also include a date. In correspondence with the university, Abernethy noted the absence of the first twelve years of his academy appointment files and expressed belief that either the government storage facility in Arlington or his own staff had misplaced these boxes.

The sixty-two boxes in the Agriculture File Series comprise Abernethy's personal Agriculture Committee files, subject files on various agricultural topics, and legislation files. The Fertilizer & Farm Machinery Subcommittee, the Cotton Subcommittee, and the records of Mississippi watershed programs are represented in the Agricultural File Series. However, researchers interested in agricultural topics should also examine the separate file series on Government Agencies, Subject Files, and Legislation

Twelve boxes contain folders specifically on Civil Rights, but civil rights and race relations material appears throughout the collection and especially in the Legislation and Subject file series.

Thirty-seven boxes comprise the Constituent Services File Series which includes patronage appointments and other attempts to find employment for Mississippi residents, requests for government publications and flags, information on visitors to the congressional office, and case files. Patronage employment also appears throughout the separate Post Office File Series because for many decades, congressmen could appoint party faithful to the postmaster and other postal positions within their district (if their party occupied the White House). Thus, researchers interested in patronage should also examine the separate Post Office File Series. Case files document the efforts of Abernethy's congressional office to mediate between individuals and various branches of the federal and state government on everything from problems with pensions and Medicare to requests for military service records of Revolutionary War ancestors held in the National Archives. Correspondence regarding both case files and employment assistance also appear throughout the Government Agency File Series.

District of Columbia Committee files fill sixteen boxes in a separate file series, but bills related to the District of Columbia also appear in the Legislation File Series.

From 1943 to 1954, the Abernethy congressional office maintained a file series labeled "Drainage, Flood Control, Land Acquisition Claims, Camp Shelby" which consists of three boxes. From 1968 to 1972, watershed projects were filed in the Agriculture File Series and the Subject File Series. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and Tombigbee River Flood Control comprise a separate file series.

The fourteen boxes of General Correspondence contain letters typically filed alphabetically by the name of the correspondent and the content may range from personal to constituent service. The files run from 1943 to 1954, 1955 to 1960, and 1961-1962. After 1962, the alphabetical correspondence files became intertwined with the Subject Files.

The Government Agency File Series, consisting of eighty-eight boxes, includes correspondence and documents regarding both federal and Mississippi government agencies. These include not only correspondence between congressman and agency on legislative and administrative matters, but also constituent case files and employment endorsements. At times, the staff filed such documents by the name of the government agency involved; at other times, by subject. Material related to various government agencies also appear throughout the entire collection and particularly in the Subject File Series.

Twelve boxes in the Invitations File Series contain requests for Abernethy to attend events or address groups at social functions. No separate folder for invitations exists after 1966.

At times, the files in the Legislative File Series are labeled by bill number followed by a brief description and year; at other times the folder supplies only the subject and year. Some of the boxes and folders bear titles that specifically mention Abernethy's authorship/sponsorship of the bill. The entire file series consists of 106 boxes.

The Natchez Trace Parkway File Series consists of two boxes containing files on that subject dating to 1969. Other folders on the Natchez Trace appear in the Government Agency, Subject, and Legislative file series.

The Politics & Campaign File Series contains thirty boxes of files on all nine of Abernethy's congressional election contests, including the 1952 battle with John E. Rankin over the first congressional district following the state's reapportionment. It also houses four boxes on the "Mississippi Election Contest, 1965-1966" when congressional allies of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party contested the legality of the entire Mississippi delegation on the grounds of deliberate disfranchisement of half the state's population. Eventually, passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act caused the House Subcommittee on Elections to dismiss these contests as moot. The inventory provides item-level descriptions for each of these four boxes specifically concerned with this dispute over the 1964 election. As Abernethy had no opposition in the 1968 and 1970 campaigns, and he announced his retirement in 1972, there are only a few boxes that postdate 1966.

The Post Office File Series (forty-nine boxes) consists mainly of files labeled by Mississippi locale, although a few subject files appear. Many of the files concern patronage appointments to various postal positions in Abernethy's district, but documents regarding other postal topics also appear, such as the discontinuation of some rural community post offices, matters related to post office buildings, stamps, and postal policies as well as local and national postal service.

The four boxes in the Public Relations File Series hold copies of Abernethy's newsletters from 1943 to 1966 as well as scattered press releases and speeches from throughout his tenure.

The Subject File Series (seventy-three folders) are on federal, state, and local topics, including government agencies and programs as well as Mississippi public works projects. Five boxes consist solely of files on Abernethy's 1967 speech on race riots. Most of this content is correspondence the congressman received in reaction to his oratory, and these files are organized alphabetically by state and country. Three boxes concentrate material on communism, and four boxes are labeled "World War II Subjects, 1943-1961."

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway & Tombigbee River Flood Control File Series consists of seven boxes documenting Abernethy's efforts on that project.

The three boxes in the Trips File Series only contain files related to Abernethy's 1970 trip to Africa and Surinam. Other trip files appear in the Agriculture and Legislative file series.

The four boxes in the Voting Records File Series have files on Abernethy's voting ratings from outside sources as well as books documenting the congressman's individual voting record in the House from 1943 through 1972.

In addition to the 454 boxes of files listed on the inventory, the Thomas G. Abernethy Collection also includes thirty-eight steel drawers of index cards. In a letter to the university, Abernethy explained their creation in the following manner: "A card was made up for every person (we missed a few and skipped a few) who communicated with us over our thirty years. Entries were made on the card of such communications as were received from each writer, what he wrote about, the date, etc." The cards are arranged alphabetically by name. The 2007 accretion has four boxes of scrapbooks with clippings dated from 1943 through 1972, framed items, one box of photographs & miscellaneous documents, and two boxes of memorabilia.

Open.

This collection is stored at an off-site facility. Researchers interested in using this collection must contact Archives and Special Collectionsat least two business days in advance of their planned visit.

phone: (662) 915-7408

e-mail: archive@olemiss.edu

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use", that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

---

---

---

Source of Collection

Processing Information

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---