Re-cap of Facebook Posts, January 22 - February 15, 2024

Honestly, most of the BDC's  Facebook posts during this particular period related to our local history programs: Sea Island Cotton; Shrimping Industry; Yamasee Indians; the Battle of Beaufort; and my outing as the Books Sandwiched In series speaker on February 5th. [The recording is here.] Thus the pickings are pretty slim. I posted a lot of photos of these events taken by Jalen or Cassi or me to the BDC's page. You should be able to see the images of the events even without a Facebook account. 

"Uniquely BDC" posts: 

January 22 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" relates to our cotton program last week. "Port Royal, South Carolina, served as the base of operations for many northern cotton-growing companies. The syndicate for which Edward S. Philbrick was the agent was the largest of these, controlling some 8000 acres of Sea Island cotton land." The quote comes from New Masters: Northern Planters during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Lawrence N. Powell (Yale University Press, 1980), p. 15. The only copy of this title in the SCLENDS consortium is found in our Research Room. Make an appointment (843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net) to come learn more about the Sea Island cotton industry during the Federal occupation, 1861 - 1878.

January 29 - "Uniquely BDC:" Materials Monday - I put SC PRINT 76 in the pre-program looping slideshow before the start of the local history program about shrimping at Bluffton Branch last week. Can you spot the folks shrimping? (Truth: I hadn't noticed them until Woody Collins pointed them out to me a few years ago.) We are the only library in the SCLENDS consortium who have this item listed in the catalog.

February 5 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" I'll be over at the Friends of the Beaufort Library's Books Sandwiched In at Noon reviewing Caroline Grego's Hurricane Jim Crow (2023). Accordingly, today's highlight is our "Beaufort Hurricane of 1893" digital collection.

February 12 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" The Storm Swept Coast of South Carolina pamphlet is one of the key resources for personal accounts about the Hurricane of 1893. The Beaufort County Library is one of the few libraries in the world to have original copies of this rare and uniquely local booklet compiled and published by Rachel Mather of the Mather School in 1894. You can read the booklet in its entirety through the BCL's long partnership with the Lowcountry Digital Library.

"Black History Note" posts:

January 31 - "Black History Note:" Among those fighting in the Battle of Beaufort was a free man of color, Jim Capers. He would stay with the Patriots all the way to Yorktown. Artist Jeff Trexler depicts him playing his drum on the battlefield in his painting "In the Glorious Cause of Liberty." He would drum during the ceremony at which British Gen. Charles O'Hara surrendered in place of Lord Cornwallis. You can read more about him and other African-American Patriots in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution by Bobby G. Moss and Michael C. Scoggins (2004) in our Research Room.

February 7 - The Library has a Black History Month webpage that includes a lot of BDC "stuff." Check it out.

February 13 - Jalen changed out the BDC's display case in honor of Black History Month. Read about what he chose and why he chose the items in Connections.

February 14 - "Black History Note Wednesday:" "African Americans and the Arts" is the Black History Month theme for 2024. Explore the key influence African Americans have had in the fields of "visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression" this month. I'd like to suggest that you begin by learning more about Jonathan Green. Jonathan Green's Seeking is a documentary by Charles Allan Smith about how an interest in Green's ancestors influence his art. A complement to the award-winning documentary is Seeking: Poetry and Prose Inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green edited by Kwame Dawes and Marjory Wentworth. Both items are available in our Research Room. Contact us to set up a time to come in: bdc@bcgov.net ; 843-255-6468 We have plenty more about this native son artist.

Finding Aid Fridays post:

February 9 - Now that Cassi is hard at work in the BDC, you will see periodic posts to the "Finding Aid Fridays" series again. Up first: The records of the oldest historical organization in Beaufort County, the Beaufort County Historical Society which turns 85 years old on Tuesday, 13 February 2024. Give us a call 843-255-6468 or email us bdc@bcgov.net to make an appointment to review the contents of this archive.