Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of Charlton Gilmore Holland, Accession #3572, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was placed on loan to the Library by Charlton Gilmore Holland on October 11, 1950.

Biographical/Historical Information

Charlton Gilmore Holland (Jr.), a psychiatrist by profession, was born in Danville, Virginia on 1911 September 22. His parents were Charlton Gilmore Holland, Sr., and Lillian Alma Holland née Reid. He was married to Louise Fraser Beckwith, and together they had a son, Charlton Gilmore Holland III. Holland attended the Danville Militar Academy, and later the University of Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia Medical School in 1935. Holland then completed a residency in neuropsychiatry at Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, after which he completed training in and eventually became an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia’s Department of Psychiatry. After serving in US Army Medical Corps during World War II, Holland became Chief Psychiatrist for Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia, and later Chief Psychiatrist for Veterans’ Hospital in Fresno, California.

Upon the family’s return to Charlottesville from California, Holland began to devote his time to archeology, a passion he had desired to pursue when he was younger. Working with colleagues and various federal institutions (e.g.: Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service, etc.), Holland performed surveys and excavation across the Commonwealth of Virginia and worked on programs that supported the study and analysis of archeological findings. While Holland did not obtain a degree in the field of archeology, his active interest and engagement in archeological practices in Virginia led him to teach archaeology for ten years as a lecturer in the University of Virginia Departments of Sociology and Anthropology. He was identified in a 2024 NAGPRA program report as being one member of University of Virginia faculty to have removed the human remains representing, at minimum, five individuals from several archeological sites. Some collected objects were at one point turned over to the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. It is also important to note that C.G. Holland did receive help from private collectors, although his work focused on documenting his findings.

Reference list:

Clark, W. E., Norrisey, M. E., Reed, C., and Virginia Research Center for Archaeology (1978). A Preliminary Report on the 1977 Excavations of the Buzzard Rock Site. Williamsburg, VA: Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.

Chemists at UVA Probe Past: Relics Uncovering Virginia Indians’ Trade Routes (1974 November 28). Southwest Times, p. 13.

Department of the Interior National Park Service. (2024, November 14). Notice of Inventory Completion: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/11/14/2024-26454/notice-of-inventory-completion-university-of-virginia-charlottesville-va. Washington, D.C.: National Archives.

Hoffman, M. A., Cleland, J. H., Funk, T. C., Vernon, R. W., University of Virginia, and United States (1975). Shenandoah National Park as a Cultural Resource: An Evaluation of Past Archaeological Surveys and Work in the Shenandoah National Park. Charlottesville, VA: Laboratory of Archaeology, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Virginia.

Holland, C. G. (Charlton Gilmore) Jr., Speiden, S. D., Van Roijen, D., and Orange County Historical Society (Va.) (1982). The Rapidan Mound Revisited: A Test Excavation of a Prehistoric Burial Mound. Orange, VA: The Society.

Holland, C. G. (Charlton Gilmore) Jr. (1970). An Archeological Survey of Southwest Virginia. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press; [for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.].

Holland, C. G. (Charlton Gilmore), Jr. (III) (2019). Letters Home: A Psychiatrist in the South Pacific during World War II. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.

Legacy.com. (2006, April 16). Charlton Holland Obituary. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dailyprogress/name/charlton-holland-obituary?id=29459699. Charlottesville, VA: Daily Progress.

MacCord, H. A., and Buchanan, W. T. (1980). The Crab Orchard Site, Tazewell County, Virginia: Based on a Report Prepared for the Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation. Richmond, VA: Archeological Society of Virginia.

Scope and Content Information

The collection contains ca. 400 items, 1937-1958, concerning Charlton Gilmore Holland, who was a graduate medical student in Vienna, Austria, 1937, and in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a psychiatrist during World War II. In addition, he served as president of the Archaeological Society of Virginia and researched and wrote on pre-Columbian Indian pottery in Virginia. The collection contains correspondence of Holland with associates, friends, and family, and photographs and printed material.

Holland's letters home from Germany and Austria, 1937, describe his bicycle tour through Germany, Freiburg im Breisau, the Nuremberg Rally, a speech by Alfred Rosenberg, Vienna, and his medical studies at the University of Vienna.

The letters to Holland are primarily a series from Clifford Evans, Associate Curator, and Betty J. Meggers, Research Associate, of the Division of Archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. during the 1950's. Topics discussed include the opening of the Latin American Hall of the United States National Museum on Pan American Day, April 14, 1954; a manuscript on which they were collaborating during 1953; Evans' and Meggers' trip to Ecuador during 1955 (November 2, 1955) and plans for a trip in 1956 (June 19 & 26, September 13, 1956); and their archeological finds on the Rio Napo, Ecuador (December 20, 1956). Holland, as an archaeologist, was informed by the Smithsonian Institution of various archaeological artifacts that the museum received and other important information about the field of archaeology in general. There are also letters (November 28, December 4 & 11, 1956; January 2, 1957) from Douglas S. Byers, Director of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archeology, discussing Holland's manuscript, "Preceramic and Ceramic Culture Patterns in Northwest Virginia" [in #2876].

Topics in the letters from the 1950s relating to Holland’s archeological studies and activities include the Monacan Indian Nation and other Virginia Indian and Native American nations, Monacan Indian pottery and ceramics, and artifacts from other Native American lands. Other topics of interest include burial mounds and other kinds of burial sites, the Saponi and Souian languages, his colleagues’ archeological work in the Virginia region and in South America, and NAGPRA.

The photographs include a picture of a Thanksgiving Dinner, 1937, sponsored by the American Medical Association in Vienna. The printed material consists of German maps, guides to the city of Vienna and an invitation to the Thanksgiving Dinner that was sponsored by the American Medical Association of Vienna.