Sallie Swepson Sims Southall Cotten (June 13, 1846 – May 4, 1929) was an American writer and clubwoman based in North Carolina. She helped to organize the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs. She was the organization's fifth president, and wrote the federation's anthem and a history of the federation.
Early life and education Cotten was born Sallie Swepson Sims Southall in Lawrenceville, Virginia, the daughter of Thomas J. Southall and Susanna Sims Southall. She was raised in the home of an uncle in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. She attended Wesleyan Female College (which closed during her time there, in the tumult of the American Civil War) and Greensboro Female College, graduating from the latter in 1863."Sallie Southall Cotten, 1863", Greensboro College.
Career In her mid-forties, Sallie Cotten accepted an appointment from governor Elias Carr to serve as one of North Carolina's managers at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. "I had never traveled much, and felt utterly unprepared," she confessed to the Charlotte Observer, "but I soon felt at home...and I found that the years of home duties had fitted me for the fields of larger service.""Sallie Southall Cotten (1846-1929): Ideal Woman of the New South" in Scotti Cohn, More than Petticoats: Remarkable North Carolina Women (Rowman & Littlefield 2012): 72. She decided to focus on books written by North Carolina women for her part of the exhibit, spent four months in Chicago, and received a medal for her contributions.William Stephenson, "How Sallie Southall Cotten Brought North Carolina to the Chicago World's Fair of 1893" North Carolina Historical Review 58(4)(October 1981): 364-383. As a result, she wrote the book The White Doe (1901), which begins with a history of America, and continues with the Indian legend of the white doe as poetry. This work and the travel involved led her to greater involvement with the women's club movement, and in 1902 she helped to organize the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs. She was the organization's fifth president (1912-1913), and wrote the federation's anthem.Margaret Supplee Smith, "Sallie Southall Cotten: Organized Womanhood Comes to North Carolina" in Michele Gillespie and Sally McMillen, eds., North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times (University of Georgia PRess 2014): 213-240.
She was one of the organizers of the National Congress of Mothers (later the National Parent-Teacher Association), and was an officer of the national organization from 1897 to 1906.Elizabeth H. Copeland, "Sallie Southall Cotten" in William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (University of North Carolina Press 1996).
In 1925 she published The History of the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, 1901-1925, with the opening line "What has been known as the Woman's Movement was a revolution — bloodless but not purposeless." Among her other publications were The White Doe (1901),Sallie Southall Cotten, The White Doe: The Fate of Virginia Dare (J. B. Lippincott 1901). an epic poem about Virginia Dare, which she often presented in public readings;Michael Harkin, "Performing Paradox: Narrative and the Lost Colony of Roanoke" in John Sutton Lutz, ed., Myth and Memory: Stories of Indigenous-European Contact (UBC Press 2011): 103-117. and What Aunt Dorcas Told Little Elsie (1923), a collection of "Negro folklore stories" which reflected the condescending racial attitudes of a nostalgic white Southerner in her time.Jonathan D. Sarris, "Biographical Summary of Sallie Southall Cotten (1846-1929)" East Carolina University Student Affairs.
Personal life Cotten was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She married Col. Robert Randolph Cotten in 1866. Her husband was a Confederate Army veteran.James Elliott Moore, "Robert Randolph Cotten" in William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (UNC Press 1996). The couple lived in Wilson, North Carolina, and later at "Cottendale," their 1000-acre plantation in Pitt County.Mrs. Al. Fairbrother, "Mrs. Robert R. Cotten" Sky-Land Magazine 1(11)(January 1915): 734-736. The couple had nine children together including Naval officer Lyman A. Cotten; three of their children died in childhood. She was widowed in 1928, and moved to Massachusetts, where she was welcomed as "the Julia Ward Howe of the South." She died there, in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1929, aged 83 years.
Her papers are archived in the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill.Sallie Southall Cotten Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There are dormitories named for Sallie Southall Cotten at University of North Carolina at GreensboroSallie Southall Cotten Residence Hall, UNC-Greensboro. and at East Carolina University.Franceine Perry, "Sallie Southall Cotten: A Voice for Women" Daily Times News (November 19, 1975): 70. via Newspapers.com There is a highway historical marker about Cotten in Pitt County, near the site of her former home."Sallie S. Cotten" marker, North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. The Junior Woman's Club of Raleigh offers a Sallie Southall Cotten Scholarship for North Carolina students.Sallie Southall Cotten Scholarship, Junior Woman's Club of Raleigh. During World War II, the Liberty ship SS Sallie S. Cotten was named after her.
A book-length biography, Sallie Southall Cotten: A Woman's Life in North Carolina, was published in 1987.William Stephenson, Sallie Southall Cotten: A Woman's Life in North Carolina (Pimlico Press 1987).
References
External links A portrait and profile of Sallie Southall Cotten at the East Carolina University Digital Collections website. Anastatia Sims, "Mother Cotten and Crazy Daisy: North Carolina Women at the Turn of the 20th Century", a lecture presented January 19, 2006 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.