John S. Campbell Papers 1936-2000

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,1943-1946, he worked as an agricultural officer in the Department of Agriculture in Nigeria, 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, 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, 1974-1980. 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.

Also included in the collection are many reprints and publications and some photographs and slides.

The collection is organized into 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, the Photographs and Slides, and other miscellaneous papers have yet to be arranged.

North Carolina State University does not own copyright to this collection. Individuals obtaining materials from the NC State University 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.

This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.

[Identification of item], John S. Campbell Papers, MC 00298, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Gift of Marjorie Campbell, 2001 (Accesssion no. 2001-0005).