This collection is open for research; access requires at least 24 hours advance notice.
Gift of Marjorie Campbell, 2001.
[Identification of Item], The John S. Campbell Papers, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, North Carolina.
North Carolina State University copyright to this collection. Individuals obtaining materials from the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Research Center are responsible for using the works in conformance with United States copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials.
John S. Campbell was born in London, England, on April 4, 1923. He attended Reading and Cambridge universities and completed graduate studies at Trinidad's Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in the West Indies and at Harvard University. He died on September 12, 2000.
Campbell's work carried him around the world. After serving in the British Royal Navy from 1943-1946, he worked as an agricultural officer in the Department of Agriculture in Nigeria from 1948-1950. He then crossed the Atlantic to become senior lecturer at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad in 1950, where he designed and supervised an agronomic research unit until 1961. Before leaving Trinidad, Campbell served as a land development officer at Tate and Lyle Sugar Corporation from 1961-1963, where he arranged for the cultivation of 5,000 acres of sugar cane and developed alternative commercial food crops to sugar cane. Campbell moved to Wilson, North Carolina, in 1963 to serve as vice president of the Imperial Tobacco Company. During his tenure at the company, Campbell supervised research and worked to expand the selection of tobacco varieties and improve cultivation methods. He retired in 1980 but continued his research, serving as a consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank on the international tobacco market.
Campbell also worked as an educator and volunteer in various locations. He served as an adjunct professor of crop science at NC State from 1974-1980, where he taught courses on the production of tropical food crops. His volunteer activities included serving as chairman of the Tobacco Quality Committee of the Tobacco Association (1967-1989), Director of the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation (1975-1980, 1982-1986, 1987-1991), and as chairman or member of numerous organizations in Wilson. Campbell also published widely, with more than sixty articles to his credit. His reports, however, were not limited to professional journals, as he frequently contributed to the popular press, radio, and television.
The Campbell collection includes research, writings, and other materials in the areas of John S. Campbell's two main interests: tropical agriculture and tobacco. Little material about Campbell's education has been preserved, although some material on his courses at the Harvard Business School are in the collection in the Education series. The Correspondence series includes letters from throughout his career that document his associations with other researchers and educators. In Writings, many articles on the tropical crops Campbell studied while working in Trinidad are included. After becoming a tobacco company executive, Campbell focused his writings on topics of interest in that field. Beginning in 1979, Campbell sent quarterly reports to his employers in England, detailing the legal, financial, and development status of tobacco and tobacco products in the United States.
Along with Campbell's writings is evidence of his meticulous research, including notes, his self-styled bibliography forms, and his notecards. These materials are collected in the Research series. Included in this series are the charts and notes Campbell kept related to his experimental research on tropical crops. As an educator, both in Trinidad and the United States, Campbell drew upon his research and notes to create lesson plans. These can be found in the Teaching series.
The Organizations series includes conference materials, publications, and other information related to the professional organizations to which Campbell belonged. The majority of these organizations focused on tobacco, although he also belonged to some horticultural and agricultural groups, especially during the early part of his career.
The collection is organized into seven major series. The Education series consists of a single folder, arranged chronologically. Correspondence is also arranged chronologically, with undated materials filed at the beginning of the series. The Writings are divided into two major subseries, Tropical Agriculture and Tobacco. The Tropical Agriculture materials were placed at the beginning of the series, because Campbell's career began in this area. Within these two series, subjects are arranged alphabetically. Research is divided into four major subseries: Tropical Agriculture, Tobacco, Bibliography, and Notecards. These are all arranged alphabetically by subject. The Teaching series, like the series before it, is divided into Tropical Agriculture and Tobacco subseries, with subjects within each subseries arranged alphabetically. The Teaching series also includes experiments conducted by Campbell's students, arranged alphabetically by topic. The Organizations series, is split between Tropical Agriculture and Tobacco and arranged alphabetically by the name of the group. The Reprints and Publications series has yet to be arranged.
The Education series includes information about Campbell's education at the Harvard Business School, as well as class reunion information .
This series contains Campbell's professional correspondence. There are many requests for slides and research articles. In addition, there is extensive correspondence regarding tobacco and the growing number of lawsuits in the 1990s.
The Writings series is comprised of two major subseries, Tropical Agriculture and Tobacco. The Tropical Agriculture subseries features articles and reports written by Campbell in the 1940s and 1950s. Most focus on a particular type of vegetable or aspect of tropical agriculture. The Tobacco subseries includes articles about cultivation and growth, as well as the quarterly reports Campbell sent to his British employer. These reports detail current advertising campaigns, research and development, and litigation regarding health and tobacco.
The Reseach Series is separated into four major subseries. The first two subseries, Tropical Agriculture and Tobacco, contain Campbell's many notes and collected reports on these subjects. The third subseries, Bibliography, features the detailed notes Campbell took for the sources used in his research. He designed his own form in which he recorded pertinent information. The last subseries, Notecards, contains notecards saved from Campbell's research. Throughout the Research series, items are arranged in alphabetical order by subject.
The Teaching series includes Campbell's notes, lesson plans for the classes he taught, both in the tropics and in North Carolina. The series is broken into three subseries: Tropical Agriculture, topics of which Campbell taught mostly during the 1940s and 1950s; Tobacco, a topic that Campbell taught in North Carolina; and Experiments, all of which were conducted during Campbell's tenure in the Caribbean.
Throughout his career, Campbell was a member of a variety of organizations, many of them relating to his professional interests. Within this series are minutes of meetings, conference bulletins, and newsletters for many of these organizations.