Alex Daye and Maronite Patriarchate Letters 1921

Materials in this collection are in English and Arabic.

Alex Daye (As'ad al-Dayyeh) immigrated in 1889 from Tripoli, Lebanon. From the 1900s-1930s, he resided in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife, Farida (Ridda), and son, Louis. Alex was the proprietor of A. Daye & Co., a wholesale and retail store on Liberty Street which primarily sold ladies ready-to-wear clothes, novelties, and art goods along with dry goods and furnishings. The store also hosted a millinery.

Although Alex was the proprietor of A. Daye & Co., the business included Assad, Salim, and Chas Daye, presumed relatives. Salim immigrated in 1891 and his brother, Annis (also spelled as Annies and Anise), immigrated in 1896. Annies worked for A. Daye & Co. until the 1910s, when he opened a confectionary and fruit business on Liberty Street called The Sweet Shop. Around 1921, Alex was left with A. Daye & Co., the others having gone into candymaking, ice cream, and confectionary at various other businesses.

This collection contains letters sent from Alex Daye (Dayyeh) in North Carolina to the Maronite Patriarchate in Lebanon, dated May-June 1921. The letters were written in response to a call from the Maronite Patriarchate in Lebanon to enumerate Lebanese immigration around the world. Daye wrote about the immigrant communities in three North Carolina cities: Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Burlington. He includes names, place of origin, and date of immigration. 

Materials include scans of the original letters in Arabic as well as an English-language translations of the documents.

This collection is arranged in the order it was received.

The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.

[Identification of item], Alex Daye and Maronite Patriarchate Letters, KC 0003, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies Archive, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

Gifted to the Khayrallah Center by an unknown source, 2014 October (Accession No. 2014.007).

Finding aid created by Laura Lethers and Sarah Bernstein, 2023 October-November.