Noye H. Nesbit Papers
Collection
Identifier: MS107
This collection contains memorabilia and a photocopy of a scrapbook dating mainly from Noye Nesbit's time as a student at Georgia Tech. The memorabilia relates mostly to the Tech football team; the photocopy of the scrapbook contains photographs, newspaper clippings, programs, and a poem documenting Nesbit's life as a Tech student and as a soldier in World War I.
(1 oversize box)
None.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
1.5 Linear Feet
This collection contains memorabilia and a scrapbook dating mainly from Noye Nesbit's time as a student at Georgia Tech. The memorabilia relates mostly to the Tech football team, particularly the 1916 season: It includes a banquet program, newspaper clippings, and scrapbook pages, as well as a postcard from the 1914 season and a 1921 football program. The most significant item in the collection is the photocopy of a "memory book" that Nesbit apparently created during the time he was a Tech student and while he was a soldier in World War I. In addition to photographs, this scrapbook includes a section of signatures of friends at Tech, excerpts from the twenty-fifth anniversary book "A Quarter Century of Progress," newspaper clippings, a program from the Commencement Carnival in June 1915, and a poem titled "Your Flag and My Flag" by Wilbur D. Nesbit, possibly a relative of Nesbit's. Photographs of friends at Tech, dormitory life, and buildings on campus (including the construction of the power plant) provide rich documentation of campus life during the period of about 1913 to 1917. In addition, several pages of wartime photos, some of them from Nesbit's time in France, document his life in the Army. Commentary that is contemporary with the scrapbook is enriched by commentary and content that Nesbit added in the 1970s.
The visual materials in this collection will be more fully described in the finding aid for VAM107.
Noye Harland Nesbit (1894-1989), a member of the Class of 1917 at the Georgia School of Technology and a resident of Norcross (Georgia) for most of his life, worked for the Gwinnett County Water System during his professional career.
Nesbit was born in Norcross, Georgia on 7 December 1894 to Frank Beauregard Nesbit and Frances Emily Lankford. The Nesbit family had been residents of Norcross for several generations prior to Noye Nesbit's birth. After his high school years at Norcross High School, Nesbit attended the Georgia School of Technology, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1917. During his time at Tech, he played class football and scrub football, belonged to the Tech Bible class, and participated in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Mason's Club.
Shortly after graduation, Nesbit joined the Fifth Company of the U. S. Army and was stationed in France for a few months. He married the former Ruth Rainey (1892-1974), who also came from an old Norcross family, in Norcross in October 1917. After the end of World War I, Nesbit eventually returned to Norcross, where he worked for the Gwinnett County Water System. He and his wife raised two children, Kirk (1922-2007), who also graduated from Georgia Tech, and Penelope.
Nesbit died on 7 September 1989 at the age of 94.
Sources: Ancestry Library Edition, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945), Blue Print 1917.
A print copy of this finding aid is available in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
Donation for the Centennial Celebration; accession number 1998.1001.
The visual materials in this collection will be processed separately as VAM107.
(1 oversize box)
Christine de Catanzaro processed these papers in June 2012.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository