This collection is divided into eight series, with one further divided into subseries.

Series 1, Diaries, 1860, 1908-1963 inclusive

Series 2, Newspaper Columns, 1936-1963, photocopies

Series 3, Unpublished Writings

Subseries 1, Notebooks

Subseries 2, Manuscript, Unto These Hills

Subseries 3, Poetry, Prose, and Notes

Series 4, Correspondence, 1875-1993

Series 5, Photographs and Negatives

Series 6, Scrapbooks

Series 7, Artifacts, 1834, 1884 – 1959 and undated

Series 8, Newspaper clippings

The Marjorie McIver Barr O’Steen Family Collection consists of diaries, newspaper columns, unpublished writings, correspondence, photographs and negatives, scrapbooks, artifacts and newspaper clippings. The majority of material is from Marjorie McIver (Barr) O’Steen [M.O.B.] with some material from her husband, William T. O’Steen, and her daughter, Marjorie Barr (O’Steen) Webb.

The earliest diary is from M.O.B.’s maternal grandmother, Annie K. Williams circa 1860. The remaining diaries belong to M.O.B. beginning in 1908.

Photocopies were made of Marjorie (McIver) Barr O’Steen’s regular columns “Telling You” starting in 1936, “The Whatnot” and “Of This and That” published in The Greenville News. A majority if the scrapbooks also contain clippings of O’Steen’s columns, most undated and loose within.

Unpublished writings include O’Steen’s manuscript, “Unto These Hills” along with a letter from Margaret Mitchell in 1936 in response to O’Steen.

The correspondence begins in 1875 with letters between the Bridges, Barr and Speights extended families. There is a great deal of correspondence between Marjorie (McIver) Barr O’Steen and her father and her husband, as well as her daughter, especially when she attends college from 1933-1937. A 1939 letter from William T. O’Steen, who spent time in Germany, states his opinion that the Americans were painting a one-sided, negative portrait of Hitler and the German people. There is also correspondence to M.B.O.’s daughter on the death of her mother in 1964 and the death of her father in 1966. The collection also includes undated correspondence to M.B.O.’s father, husband, daughter and extended Webb family.

M.O.B. collected many newspaper clippings (photocopied) about various subjects and about family members, possibly for reference purposes. The Artifacts series contains some of the earliest documents; a photocopy of an 1834 letter from James B. Bonham [leader of the Texan forces at the Alamo in 1836] to Pendleton merchant John S. Lorton, asking him to sell his uniform pieces in his store; the July 1884 issue of The Delineator, and a 1936 reprint of the Proclamation of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s death from 1870. An 1865 Confederate discharge certificate for Greenville resident Silas Trowbridge and an 1863 letter about his service is also included. Material from O’Steen’s 1959 Europe Grand Tour and 1961 trip to Panama are also included.