Dates: 1873-1921. 

Biography:

Carroll Kendrick

Carroll Kendrick was born in Hardin County, Tennessee, on May 24, 1852. He was the son of Allen and Nancy Rose Kendrick. Carroll Kendrick, who received a medical degree from the University of Louisville in 1873, served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1884 to 1886. He served in the Mississippi Senate from 1890 to 1900, was reelected in 1903 and 1911, and served from 1916 to 1920. Kendrick also served as president of the Mississippi Medical Association in 1898, president of the Mississippi Department of Public Health in 1890, and vice president of the Association of Medical Officers of the Army and Navy of the Confederacy. He also served as acting governor of Mississippi for a week in December of 1919.

Kendrick married Gayle Adams in 1882, and she died in 1901. He married his second wife, Mary McAnulty, in 1905. Kendrick died from heart failure on February 17, 1923.

In addition to his political career, Kendrick was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. He claimed to have the only extant photograph of the KKK in full regalia, an oil painting of which he donated to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1916. The painting is now in the Mississippi State Historical Museum.

 

Scope and Content Note:

Carroll Kendrick kept twenty-three scrapbooks that contain material ranging from letters from notable people to poems and anecdotes clipped from newspapers. They also contain articles written by Kendrick, including open letters to his constituency and poems. Of particular interest are clippings related to Kendricks involvement in the Ku Klux Klan, several of which detail Kendricks experiences as a member of the "Invisible Empire."

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Scrapbooks (Ku Klux Klan). 1873-1919. 7 bound volumes. 
These seven scrapbook volumes contain articles by Kendrick and others that he clipped from newspapers and pasted in books and ledgers. Although the Ku Klux Klan is not the sole focus of these scrapbooks, each one contains material relevant to the KKK. Of particular interest are articles written by Kendrick entitled "Reflections on the Ku Klux Klan by Senator C. Kendrick" and "The Inside Story of the Ku Klux Klan." The scrapbooks also contain copies of a picture of Kendrick and J. S. McHall with an inset photo of Kendrick and McHall in full KKK uniform.

Box 1 
Volume 1: 1873-1909 
Volume 2: 1896-1916

Box 2 
Volume 3: 1913-1919 
Volume 4: 1914-1916 
Volume 5: 1914-1919 
Volume 7: n.d.

Box 3 
Volume 6: n.d.

Series 2: Scrapbooks (Original Correspondence). 1874-1917. 2 bound volumes. 
These two scrapbook volumes contain letters received from prominent Mississippians that Kendrick pasted into his scrapbooks. Correspondence from the following people is included: James K. Vardaman, Theodore G. Bilbo, and Dunbar Rowland. The second scrapbook volume contains original cartoons drawn by Senator Archibald S. Yarbrough of Como, Mississippi, as well as correspondence from Dunbar Rowland.

Box 4 
Volume 8: 1874-1916 
Volume 9: 1912-1917

Series 3: Scrapbooks (Miscellaneous). 1876-1921. 14 bound volumes. 
The fourteen miscellaneous scrapbooks contain clippings whose sole unifying feature is the fact that they were kept by Kendrick. Included are serial pieces with titles such as "Little Causes of Big Wars," "The Love Stories of Great Americans," "Stories of Stories," and "Fifty Dates to be Remembered." Articles by Dorothy Dix, "the worlds highest paid woman writer," fill two of the volumes, and one scrapbook contains only material concerning World War I. The remainder of this series consists of articles about medical oddities, jokes, poems, and news items.

Box 5 
Volume 11: 1878-1904 
Volume 12: 1879-1894 
Volume 17: ca. 1899

Box 6 
Volume 10: 1876-1880 
Volume 13: 1879-1919 
Volume 14: 1881-1919 
Volume 18: 1905

Box 7 
Volume 15: 1883 
Volume 16: 1894 
Volume 19: 1914 
Volume 20: 1916 
Volume 21: ca. 1917-1919 
Volume 22: 1918-1921 
Volume 23: 1920-1921