Bruce Cotten was the preeminent twentieth-century collector of North Caroliniana. A North Carolina native who left the state as a young man, he collected almost two thousand titles that represent the cultural heritage of the state as a way to reconnect himself to his family and birthplace. He left this collection, and an endowment to support it, to the University of North Carolina Library, where it has strengthened the North Carolina Collection.

Bruce Cotten was born in Wilson, North Carolina, the fifth child of Robert Randolph Cotten and Sallie Southall Cotten. Robert Randolph Cotten, a native of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, was a prominent businessman, planter, and civic leader in eastern North Carolina for more than sixty years. Sallie Swepson Sims Southall was a native of Amelia County, Virginia. She spent her early childhood in Petersburg, Virginia, but at thirteen she was sent to live with relatives in...