Finding Aids >> MUM00082

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.

Ross Alexander Collins was born in Collinsville in Lauderdale County, Mississippi on 25 April 1880. He attended the public schools in Meridian and the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College in Starkville, Mississippi. In 1900, Collins graduated from the University of Kentucky at Lexington. One year after completing the law program at the University of Mississippi in 1901, he passed the state bar and opened a law practice in Meridian. Collins married Alfreda Grant of Meridian in 1904, and they had two children.

A Democrat, Collins served as the state's attorney general from 1912 to 1920. A biographical sketch from that period described Collins as "very active in enforcing the anti-trust laws, has always labored for the cause of Prohibition, and all measures that affect the good of the State." An unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1919, the fifth district of Mississippi elected the Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives where he served from 1921 to 1935. In 1934, Collins ran an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senator against Theodore G. Bilbo. Collins returned to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937 and remained until 1943. In 1941, he lost another senate race (this time to Wall Doxey), and he failed to gain the Democratic Party's nomination for that post in 1942 (James O. Eastland eventually won that race).

Collins became chairman of the House Subcommittee for War Department Appropriations and advocated greater funding for air power and weaponry mechanization rather than reliance on troop strength -- an agenda at odds with many military leaders at the time. He generally receives credit for passage of legislation that funded development of the Flying Fortress B-17 bomber. Although mild-mannered, Collins was a master of political satire. Of his battle with the War Department, Collins once stated "We couldn't get any money for research and prototypes, so I kept scratching around for loose funds. We found eight or 10 million dollars, most of it allocated for hay and fodder for Army mules. And we detoured that to the mechanization of the Army. Isn't that something? Hay and fodder."

A Presbyterian, Collins was also a member of the Freemasons, the Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows, and Woodmen of the World. After completing his last term in the House of Representatives, Collins resumed his law practice. He campaigned unsuccessfully for Bilbo's senate seat in 1946, and four years later he lost his challenge for the seat of U.S. Representative Arthur Winstead. After his first wife died in the late 1950s, Collins married Lura Harrison, his secretary for twenty-seven years. She died in February of 1968. The former congressman died on 14 July 1968, and his grave is in Meridian's Magnolia Cemetery. Collins was survived by his daughter, Jane Corwin of Littleton, CO, and his son, Melville Collins of Washington, DC. Meridian named a vocational school and a stadium after the former politician.

The Ross A. Collins Collection consists of two boxes. Box 1 primarily contains copies of correspondence regarding Collins' role in the 1930 Library of Congress purchase of the Vollbehr Collection of Incunabula. Collins sponsored the legislation necessary for the $1,500,000 payment to German book dealer Otto Heinrich Friedrich Vollbehr for 3,000 books printed before 1500. Box 2 contains a scrapbook maintained by Collins that includes numerous inscribed photographs of presidents, congressmen, administrators, military men, businessmen, and inventors.

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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.

phone: (662) 915-7408

e-mail: archive@olemiss.edu

Users of the collections must fill out completely and abide by the conditions of the University of Mississippi Archives and Special Collections Researcher Registration Form.

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Ross A. Collins. Alaska: Speech of Hon. Ross A. Collins of Mississippi in the House of Representatives, June 29, 1942 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942). Call number: F909 C65 1942.

____________. Congress Has Consistently Favored Increased Appropriations for National Defense: Speech of Hon. Ross A. Collins (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942). Call number: UA23.6 C65 1942.

____________. The Acropolis of America: An Address before the House of Representatives, April 4, 1940, by Ross Collins (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, [1940]). Call number: Z732 D62 C7.

____________. The Vollbehr Collection of Incunabula: Speech of Ross A. Collins of Mississippi in the House of Representatives, Friday, February 7, 1930 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1930). Call number: Z241 C6 V6

Edward L. Stone. The Great Gutenberg Bible (Roanoke, VA: Press of the Stone Printing and Manufacturing Company, 1930). Note: Forward by Ross A. Collins. Call number: Z241 G9.

James O. Eastland Collection, File Series 1, Subseries 19, Box 7, Folders 7-15 & 7-16 contain material related to the 1942 campaign race for the U.S. Senate seat between Collins and Wall Doxey.

The Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress holds the papers of Ross A. Collins. Largely documenting his congressional years, the sixty-seven containers of material date from 1880 to 1968.

Material related to Collins appears in the Theodore G. Bilbo Papers at the William David McCain Library and Archives at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Correspondence with Collins appears in the William Hoynes Papers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

A collection entitled the "Vollbehr Collection of Incunabula: Information Related to Its Purchase by the Library of Congress" is at the Grolier Club in New York, NY. Collins sponsored the 1930 legislation permitting the Library of Congress to purchase the collection of 3,000 books printed before 1500 for $1,500,000 from Otto Heinrich Friedrich Vollbehr. This Grolier Club collection (one box) includes correspondence from Collins.

The Elisabeth Gilman Papers at Johns Hopkins University contains articles and speeches by Collins.

Material related to Collins is present in the Records of the Committee on Militarism in Education, 1925-1940, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Scholarly Resources microfilm edition.

Ross A. Collins donated the collection to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Leigh McWhite, Political Papers Archivist, revised the finding aid in 2006.

Associated Press. "Political Legend Dead at 88" Jackson Daily News (15 July 1968): A20.

Ross A. Collins. "Do We Want a Mass Army" Reader's Digest 38 (June 1941): 1-9.

____________. "Wanted for the American Army: Youthful Leadership and Promotion by Merit" Reader's Digest 38 (July 1941): 12-17.

Congressional Biographical Directory at http://bioguide.congress.gov.

"Ex-Congressman Collins Dies in Meridian at 88" Jackson Clarion Ledger (15 July 1968): 1 & 18.

Sam Dawson McDonald. "The Civil Thorn: Congressman Ross Collins and the American Military, 1921-1943" (M.A. Thesis; University of Southern Mississippi, 1995).

William J. Tehan, III. "Douglas MacArthur -- An Administrative Biography," (Ph.D. dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2002), pp. 175 & 191.