The collection documents Susie Sharp's professional career and personal life through correspondence, subject files, speeches, and other material, chiefly 1920s-1990s. Subject files contain clippings, memoranda, and correspondence about judicial and personal matters. There are also speeches, chiefly on judicial topics, that Sharp delivered beginning in the 1950s; notebooks in which she defined legal terms and cited precedents; and memoranda, opinions and other materials related to cases she decided. Correspondence, speeches, and other materials document Sharp's 1974 campaign as Democratic Party candidate for the chief justiceship, and there are related letters from friends and associates after her election and her selection as one of twelve 1975 Time magazine Women of the Year. Some of the materials relate to William Haywood Bobbitt, whose retirement as chief justice made way for Sharp's election, and to professors, particularly Albert Coates, and students at the University of North Carolina School of Law and the North Carolina College for Women (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). Topics include judicial reform and procedures, particularly relating to discipline of judges; women in the judiciary; women lawyers; women's rights, including the Equal Rights Amendment; and prisoners' rights. Much of the personal correspondence is with Sharp family members and friends. The Additions of 2001 and 2005 chiefly contain materials similar to that of the original deposit. The Additions of April and August 2008 relate chiefly to family and private life, including correspondence between Susie Sharp and her siblings discussing trials and family affairs; postcards from various Sharp family members; a photograph of Sharp's father, James Merrit Sharp; scrapbooks compiled by Sharp's mother, Annie Britt Blackwell Sharp; clippings; a music lesson book; and sewing materials. The Addition of March 2009 includes newspaper clippings and scrapbooks that document Sharp's career and personal correspondence with family and friends, some of which is in Gregg shorthand. There are also family and professional photographs and photograph albums; calendars, diaries, notebooks, and other volumes that record professional and private affairs; and other materials, such as personal scrapbooks that reflect Sharp's interest in various lifestyle topics, clippings relating to the Klenner-Lynch murders, and papers of James Merritt Sharp that concern fundraising for the Near East College Association.
