Alice Willson Broughton

Alice Harper Willson Broughton (July 13, 1889 – August 15, 1980) was an American civic leader who served as the First Lady of North Carolina from 1941 to 1945 as the wife of Governor J. Melville Broughton. She and her husband were the first governor and first lady from Wake County to live in the North Carolina Executive Mansion. During World War II she was active in the war effort, promoting victory gardens across the state and establishing one at the governor's mansion, christening liberty ships including the SS Zebulon B. Vance and the SS Donald W. Bain, and donating rubber to the armed forces.

In 1943 Broughton was photographed alongside her daughter for the November issue of Vogue, wearing a couture cotton gown designed by Hattie Carnegie, to show support for North Carolina's cotton textile industry. She oversaw renovations at the governor's mansion, including the addition of a service elevator. She commissioned an official silver service for the mansion, engraved with historic symbols of North Carolina. A patron of the arts, Broughton helped establish the North Carolina Symphony and the North Carolina Museum of Art, and served as a board member for the North Carolina Art Society. After her husband died while serving as a U.S. senator in Washington, D.C., she retired to Raleigh and was active in various historical societies, charities, and arts organizations including the Daughters of the American Revolution and Raleigh Little Theatre.

Early life Broughton was born Alice Harper Willson in Raleigh, North Carolina on July 13, 1889, to William W. Willson and Alice Partin Willson. Her father was the Raleigh City Clerk and Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Masons of North Carolina. The photoshoot was a cooperation between the National Cotton Council of America and the Cotton-Textile Institute. Accompanied by a reporter and a photographer from the Raleigh Times, Broughton attempted to donate the rubber to the collection center.

Philanthropy and political activism In 1950 Broughton was appointed to the Tryon Palace Commission. She served on the North Carolina Democratic Executive Committee, the North Carolina Prison Advisory Council, and the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees. At the time, her husband was working as an attorney, having graduated from Harvard Law School, and she was working in newspaper circulation for a local paper.

In the summer of 1946 Broughton and her husband visited Inglis Fletcher at Bandon Plantation in Chowan County after attending a production of The Lost Colony in Manteo. A funeral service was held at Edenton Street United Methodist Church, after which she was buried in Montlawn Memorial Park next to her husband.