“These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things” by Olivia Santos

I make recent BDC employees responsible for doing at least some of the display case work a part of their training. It's a way for them to learn a specific part of the collection more thoroughly. I started the December "My Favorite Things" theme last year with Cassie Knoppel last year. Because I was impressed by Cassie's what and why choices, I decided that I'd continue the practice with my current BDC assistant to see what BDC materials she likes best so far. Thus this post is by Olivia Santos. My additional comments are a seasonal red below. -- Grace Cordial, 2 December 2022

As surprised as Grace seems to be that I haven’t run off yet, I have just passed my two-month mark of working here at the BDC (Yay!). December is one of those weird months where time starts to feel less real as our schedules change during the holidays, and I usually feel like I’m simultaneously crawling and running into the new year. As we pass Thanksgiving and transition into Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and all the other celebrations going on this month, a lot of people (myself included) start to think more about what we’re grateful for, as well as what we’re looking forward to in 2023. In line with this theme, the display case this month is dedicated to my favorite titles I have read from our collection in the past two months, hence The Sound of Music reference (and a personal shoutout to my old roommate who’s currently teaching in Austria, where most of the movie was filmed).

This month I tried by be a bit more methodical about how I organized the display case, considering the topic is so open-ended and the types of books I picked varied. Shelf 1 focused on my introduction to Beaufort’s history and the books I was reading to become more familiar with the origins of the town and surrounding areas so that I can better help researchers. With this in mind, I chose two books for Shelf 1: Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History by Michael C. Taylor (2005), and Rediscovering Dr. Henry Woodward’s Carolina Frontier 1665-1686 by Jeff Fulgham (2018).

Historic Beaufort County was the very first book I ever read from our collection, and was probably the most helpful to me in my education about Beaufort County. The photographs, pictures, and maps really help readers get a sense of what life was like for early Beaufort residents, with history spanning from the first people inhabiting this land 12,000 years ago to the modern age. Not only did this book give me better bearings in terms of where we are currently and where certain historical events were happening in and around us, but it also did so in a way that wasn’t hard to decipher or full of jargon. It jumpstarted my interest in reading about the history of early Beaufort, which followed in my reading of Rediscovering Dr. Henry Woodward’s Carolina Frontier. Historic Beaufort County is offered for checkout at a number of branches within our local library system, or for reading here at the BDC.

Since reading Historic Beaufort County, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about Beaufort’s history, whether that be through the programs we offer to the public or from materials in our stacks. And while I am starting to get a better grasp of the area and its history, further education is always helpful. I came across Rediscovering Dr. Henry Woodward’s Carolina Frontier via Grace while writing last month’s display post about Native American Heritage Month and the materials we offer about Native history. The book did not end up being included in the display case, but I finally got around to reading it recently and ended up enjoying it (more than I expected to, if I’m being honest).

In his book, Fulgham discusses young surgeon Dr. Henry Woodward’s role in the relations colonizers had with the Native population, as he was assigned by the Lords Proprietors in England to learn from and live with the Cusabo. A Native group living near Beaufort and along the coast of South Carolina during the height of European invasion, many who trace their roots to the Cusabo have since merged with the Creek or Catawba tribes of Georgia. Woodward’s role as an interpreter and ambassador for the Native people is highlighted in the book, discussing the importance of discourse and trade relations between the two groups, particularly in the face of other encroaching Native groups and the Spanish forces further south.

I ended up choosing this book for the case this month due to its conciseness, readability, and invaluable information. I enjoy history books as much as the next person, but I also don’t necessarily have the time to sit down and read the entirety of Dr. Rowland’s three book series on Beaufort’s history. No disrespect to Dr. Rowland of course, as his writings are probably our most used reference books in the collection, but even Grace says she hasn’t read the entirety of all three books. However, while I don’t always have time to comb through lengthier histories of Beaufort County as thoroughly as I would like to, I found Fulgham’s book a great opportunity to learn a lot about a short period of time at the very beginning of South Carolina’s history. His book is available for reading here at the BDC, or for checkout from a number of libraries within our consortium. Additionally, you can check out any of the three books Dr. Rowland wrote about the History of Beaufort County all over, including our own location downstairs and throughout the consortium. 

Shelf 2 holds what were probably my favorite books that I have read from the BDC’s collection thus far: The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce (2013) and Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting that Launched the War on Drugs by Jason Ryan (2011).

I first stumbled upon The Other Mother as a result of an assignment from Grace to go through one of our archival collections to review a BDC finding aid. For those of you that don’t know (and because I didn’t know before I started working here), a finding aid is basically a list of everything we have within a specific collection, where it is, and what’s in it. (A more detailed explanation is included in a Connections post about the Reeves-Stuart Papers.)  Grace wanted me to go through the Byrne Miller Papers, a collection of ten boxes from renowned dancer and studio owner of the same name to make sure that the Finding Aid matched the arrangement of the contents in anticipation of posting it to the BDC's Links, Lists, and Finding Aids WordPress blog.  A New York native and Beaufort transplant, Miller (1909-2001) got her start in dance on the burlesque stage in the 1930’s, which led to a lifelong passion of dancing and teaching dance in New York, New Mexico, and finally Beaufort, South Carolina, where she remains a local legend to this day.

The boxes of photographs, diaries, auditions tapes, press kits, scrapbooks, and personal papers of Byrne Miller were all donated by the executor of her estate, Lisa Lepionka, one of Miller’s many ‘collected-daughters’ that author Teresa frequently mentions in her book.

After combing through the organized chaos of this collection, I felt somehow closer to this famous figure without still really knowing much about her. Her diaries tell of the struggles she experienced with her husband’s illness, the photographs tell the story of her teaching all across the US, and I even found her younger daughter Jane’s death certificate. Before this I didn’t even know she had children. In the box of photographs, I found a folder of photos that Bruce used for her book, which led me to looking up the book in our online catalog and becoming more curious. I pulled it from our back shelves and read all 400-ish pages in about a week, making me feel not only more interested in the drama-filled life of Byrne Miller, but also Teresa’s life and the struggles she has overcome.

One of the cooler parts of this book for me was the proximity of everything. Bruce mentions areas in and around Beaufort that even I recognized as a non-native. She also talks about our library and her research she did here in the 1990’s, and she still lives fairly close. This book felt truly local to me, despite the fact that much of its content takes place elsewhere. There are a number of copies of Bruce’s book available for checkout throughout the SCLENDS consortium.

Jackpot, on the other hand, sets a very different tone in comparison to The Other Mother. Filled with action, drama, and intrigue, Jason Ryan’s book tells the story of the drug investigation that ended the reign of ‘gentlemen smugglers’ in South Carolina, named for their distaste for weapons and violence. This book discusses the kingpins of the smuggling operations taking place in South Carolina in the 1980’s, a time known as the golden age of marijuana trafficking in the state.

I first came across this book while organizing a vertical file titled ‘Operation Jackpot’ in the back. The articles in the file mentioned drug smuggling and I was surprised to read how close to home and how recently this all occurred. As with The Other Mother, I became curious and went to the catalog to see what other resources we had on the subject. What I came across was Jason Ryan’s book, which is available for checkout all throughout the SCLENDS consortium.

I ended choosing this book to read out of random curiosity, and I afterward found out about the program we are hosting next year with Jason Ryan about Jackpot. On May 2nd of 2023, Mr. Ryan will be at the Beaufort Branch of the Beaufort County Library to give a talk about his book as part of the BDC’s speaker series, which is one event of many that we do in collaboration with the Beaufort History Museum. Registration for his book talk opens April 18, 2023 on the Beaufort History Museum’s website, so keep an eye out!

Shelf 3 became an ode to Black stories and culture throughout South Carolina, albeit unintentionally at first. Shelf 3 hosts three books: A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers by Susie King Taylor (1902), Before and After Freedom: Lowcountry Folklore and Narratives by Nancy Rhyne (2005), and Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies by Faith Mitchell (1999).

A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs was a book I came across while preparing for October’s display case on the Civil War. While the book did not end up being used for the display, I decided to go back and read through it more thoroughly last month. Telling the life and times of Susie King Taylor during the Civil War in South Carolina, she recounts the tales of her time as a nurse with the 33rd US Colored Troops, a Union army unit stationed in Port Royal. She speaks fondly of ‘her boys’ and her life before and during the war, as well as her interactions with well known historical figures such as Clara Barton and Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

This book paints the struggles of the war vividly, not only among the soldiers but among the common people as well, especially Black folks. Susie King Taylor’s memoirs became the first to be published by a Black woman, and she was also the first Black nurse during the American Civil War. She is an inspiration for women everywhere, as well as Black freedom and institutional change within the old system, which is why I chose to feature her book.

I don’t exactly remember how I came across Before and After Freedom, but the book had me hooked from the get-go. The product of a five-year project by the Works Progress Administration, this book began in the 1930’s by documenting the oral history and folklore of formerly enslaved individuals and their descendants in South Carolina. From myths and legends to stories of the struggles for survival during the time of slavery, this book paints the triumphs and tribulations of Black folks, as the book says, before and after their liberation. I found this book particularly intriguing because it doesn’t only talk about the struggle of Black folks during this time, but also celebrates culture and tradition via the retelling of folklore and oral history. (If you want to read the original typed slave narratives collected during the Depression, the Library of Congress has got you covered. Those done in South Carolina are in volume 14.) 

Hoodoo Medicine was an easy choice for me to include this month on the display. Between my public health and anthropology classes in college, I learned a bit about the practice of herbal remedies and ethnomedicine across various cultures. After checking out our Wordpress page on the topic and other forms of medicine in the 1800’s, I came across Faith Mitchell’s book and became fascinated with all the drawings, descriptions, and cultural significance of the various plants and poultices used by the Gullah people. This book is a documentation of an almost lost tradition and tells the story of Black tenacity in the face of adversity, as African people who were forcefully brought to the US were able to adapt and keep their traditions alive despite the different flora and fauna they found here. Overall, all three of these books stood out to me for their celebration of Black voices and stories, as well as highlighting the cultural traditions and storytelling of those formerly enslaved and their descendants. Outside of the BDC, there are circulating copies of all three books on shelf 3 available for checkout within the whole SCLENDS consortium.

As I was coming up with my list of favorite books for this month, I realized I chose two with fairly similar themes, and figured I should display them together. The Official Guide to the Historic Houses, Churches and Other Points of Interest of Beaufort, South Carolina published by the Historic Beaufort Foundation (2014) and The Green Book of South Carolina: A Guide to African American Cultural Sites by Joshua Parks (2022) are both photobooks for the interested traveler that describe some of the sites and history that dot our county’s landscape. Both are displayed on Shelf 4.

The Green Book is one of our new (or new to us) additions at the BDC as of October this year. Divided by the Upstate, the Midlands, and the Lowcountry, this collaborative project by Hub City Press, the WeGOJA Foundation, and the International African American Museum highlights various historical sites throughout South Carolina relating to Black history. Many sites in and around Beaufort are mentioned, including the Penn Center and the Reconstruction Era National Historic Park, the BDC’s next-door neighbor.

I chose The Green Book and The Historic Beaufort Foundation Guide to Historic Homes and Places because of the modern lens they take on history. The Green Book obviously talks about the past in relation to Black history, but it also maps out all these sites throughout the state, showing the reach of Black history and culture locally, which also translates to the rest of the country. I thought both books were helpful in relating past people and places to modern locations, such as with the houses featured in the Guide to Historic Homes and Places. Many of the houses are shown as they look today, with descriptions of when they were built, who originally owned the homes or land, and what the places were used for throughout time. I pass many of these houses either on my way to work or just wandering around town, so I thought it was interesting to read how they all came about. Grace says house museums and tours of occupied homes feel a little too intrusive for her taste, (to which I do say: Each to her own and Live and let live) but I myself am a self-proclaimed nosy person, and genuinely enjoyed learning about the homes and the people who owned them through time. I was also surprised to see that a few are still standing despite being built before the Civil War. Both books are available throughout the consortium for checkout.

If you’re interested in reading any of the books I’ve talked about, feel free to stop by one of our local branches to checkout a copy, or make an appointment to read it here at the BDC. 

Also, please note that with the upcoming holidays, all Beaufort County offices and buildings will be closed Friday December 23rd through Tuesday December 27th and again on Monday, January 2, 2023 because New Year's Day just so happens to fall on a Sunday this time. 

Happy holidays to everyone, and we hope to see you soon!