The Archie and Vallie Henderson Photograph Collection is arranged in eight series based on topical grouping: Cemeteries; HANDS; Miscellaneous; Oakwood Garden Club; Raleigh (with subseries Buildings, Fayetteville Street Mall Construction, Street Scenes, and Traffic); Automobile Accidents; Homes in Oakwood; and Home Movies

Available for research.

Copyright is retained by the authors of these materials, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law (Title 17 US Code). Individual researchers are responsible for using these materials in conformance with copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials.

Processed by North Carolina State University student intern Ken Dasher, 2009

Encoded by Kim Andersen Cumber, 2009

Vallie Lewis Henderson was born in 1907 in Raleigh, NC. She graduated high school in 1924 and worked as a bookkeeper for a dental office for 60 years. In 1935 she moved to Raleigh's Oakwood neighborhood. She married Archie Forbes Henderson in 1938 at her Oakwood home. In 1950 she helped found the Oakwood Garden Club with the purpose of beautifying the neighborhood. The Oakwood Garden Club was instrumental in having the Oakwood neighborhood named Raleigh's first historic district in 1974, which halted proposed urban renewal efforts in the area such as a proposed freeway and the demolition of many homes. The saving of Oakwood effectively preserved the last remaining intact Victorian neighborhood in the state of North Carolina.

Vallie became active in the HANDS (Home And Neighborhood Development Sponsors, part of the Keep America Beautiful program of the Sears Roebuck Foundation) around the same time. Through HANDS, the Hendersons brought together community organizations and other garden clubs in beautification and conservation efforts. In 1989 Keep America Beautiful awarded Vallie Henderson the Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson Award for promoting a cleaner, greener, neighborhood.

Archie Forbes Henderson died 23 February 1989, and Vallie Lewis Henderson died 21 December 1998. They are buried next to each other in Oakwood Cemetery.

[Identification of item], PhC.145, Archie and Vallie Henderson Photograph Collection, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC, USA.

The collection was donated 24 july 2009 by Mr. William (Bill) Hutchins of Raleigh, NC, longtime Oakwood resident and close friend of the Hendersons.

This collection consists primarily of negatives and some prints taken by Vallie Henderson in the late 1960's and 1970's of homes and yards in the Oakwood neighborhood in Raleigh, NC, and of activities of Raleigh's HANDS organization (Home And Neighborhood Development Sponsors, part of the Keep America Beautiful program of the Sears Roebuck Foundation) and the Oakwood Garden Club. A smaller group of negatives depict autombile accidents in the Raleigh area in the 1940's and were most likely shot by Archie Henderson. There is also a small group of home movies taken by the Hendersons on various trips and vacations in the 1940's.