Monthly Overview Posts:
1 November 2024 - November Overview: This month is rather busy. Expect to see posts highlighting Native American Heritage Month, our 5 "specials;" changes to our schedule; and (fingers crossed) the onboarding of a new staff member before the month ends. I'm also taking some time off for family so there will be fewer than usual Materials Monday posts. This afternoon we have a local history program at Beaufort Branch. Cassi will be at the Civil War Encampment at the Arsenal 10 - 2 on Saturday. While you're downtown (for any reason) drop by the Friends of the Beaufort Library Book Sale in Waterfront Park, Nov. 1 - 3. Please don't forget to vote for the candidates of your choice on Tuesday, Nov. 5. On November 14, you can learn about an important former Sheriff, Matthew O'D. White AKA "Matty", also at Beaufort Branch. We're giving some members of the Friends of the Beaufort Library Board a Behind-the Scenes tour on November 18th. On Friday, November 22, we are hosting researcher Nick Linville at Hilton Head Branch. The Library will be closed on Monday, November 11, 28 and 29 for County holidays.
JSYK: Then we take a month long local history program break. Which will be followed by another "Katie bar the door" for the 8 weeks after that: 4 local history programs and one outreach January 16 -28 and 4 more local history programs in February.
Cassi and Sydney are scheduled to be in the office to assist BDC customers. But life happens, so this reminder: For assured service, please make an appointment to visit our Research Room: 843-255-6468; bdc@bcgov.net.
The Library will be closed Dec. 23, Dec. 24, Dec. 25th, Jan. 1st and Jan. 20th for County holidays.
"This Week in the BDC" Posts
10 November 2024 - "This Week in the BDC:" Tomorrow the Library is closed for Veterans Day. Regular hours resume on Tuesday, Nov. 12th. We have an "Historically Speaking" lecture with the Beaufort County Historical Society on Thursday. The new BDC circulation assistant is scheduled to arrive later this week (Hip! Hip! Hooray!!). I hope to pick up some good programming ideas at the Annual American Revolution Symposium sponsored by the Friends of the SCDAH on Saturday. (Alas, I did not get to attend the Symposium after all on account of a death in the family. However, it is my understanding that factors are in play that may result in one of the presentations done at the Symposium being done here in Beaufort County in 2025.)
17 November 2024 - "This Week in the BDC" we have 2 "specials." Some of the Friends of the Beaufort Library Board are taking a Behind the Scenes tour on Monday and on Friday, we head to Hilton Head Branch to explore the history at your doorstep with Nick Linville and the Hilton Head Chapter, Archaeological Society of South Carolina. In between "specials," we'll be training our new staff member, helping customers, preserving and arranging materials, writing social media, and other tasks as assigned and/or needed.
As a heads up about next week: The Library will be closed Thursday, November 28-29 for the holidays.
24 November 2024 - This Week in the BDC: We will be open our regular hours Monday - Wednesday. As per usual, we strongly encourage that you make an appointment in advance: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468 so that we can give you our best service. The Library system - and its special local history collection and archives unit, the BDC - will be closed for the Thanksgiving holidays on Thurs., Nov. 28 and Fri., Nov. 29th.
8 December 2024 - "This Week in the BDC:" We have the final BDC local history of the year on Thursday. Chris Barr, Chief of Interpretation at Reconstruction Era National Historical Park. will share his research about the people aboard the Planter when Robert Smalls piloted it into Union lines on May 12, 1863. So, this means that the Research Room will be closed part of Dec. 12th for staff to lead the program at St. Helena Branch Library. We'll likely open the Reading Room around 1:30-ish on Dec. 12th.
Otherwise, Cassi is doing her archives work, wrangling the Beloved BDC Docents, and helping train Sydney; I'm doing my bit integrating Sydney into the BDC team, playing catch-up with long neglected statistical analysis and paperwork at the same time as I'm trying to get some things done in advance of my vacation; and Sydney is learning on the job - and doing a fine job at it! In between, we'll take care of our customers, both in person and remotely as appropriate.
BTW: Evidence for Sydney's progress is in her write-up for the "History for the Holidays" display she created - and her photographs of our programs - which I do hope to post here on Facebook before I vamoose for a bit.
18 November 2024 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" The BDC is the only unit of the SCLENDS consortium to have a copy of The Search for Altamaha : The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of an Early 18th Century Yamasee Indian Town by archaeologist William Green (1992). We're lucky to have historian Nick Linville come talk about Altamaha Towne, the Ford's Shell Enclosure, and Coosaw Island's South Bluff Heritage Preserve on Friday at Hilton Head Branch Library. This is the third joint venture of the BDC and the HHI, ASSC this fiscal year.
25 November 2024 - “Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday”: Given that Thanksgiving and thoughts of good food are nigh, today’s featured item is a Humanities CouncilSC booklet that put a South Carolina spin on the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit “Key Ingredients: America by Food” that toured 5 communities in the state in 2008. The booklet explores the Palmetto State’s food story from the time of the Native Americans into the 21st century. Will Moreau Goins wrote about “South Carolina Cherokee Foodways” while Gale McKinley honored the role of “Corn and Maize” in Native American culture. Beaufort Gazette columnist Ervena Faulkner shared recipes in “A Labor Day Celebration” including Navy Beans and Pig Tails. Beaufort’s own Laura Von Harten wrote the section “A South Carolina Shrimp Story.” BTW: The cover is a lot prettier than the archival 4 flap folder in which it is stored on the shelves.
2 December 2024 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" is a Civil War related title in honor of our upcoming local history programs. Marching with Sherman by Mark H. Dunkelman (2012) follows the 154th New York regiment across Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina in 1864-1865 and how their postwar memories affected their lives. This book is his 5th about the regiment in which his great-grandfather served. The unit crossed into South Carolina at Sister's Ferry on Saturday, February 4, 1865, I like that his book is an annotated timeline summarizing personal accounts, regimental orders, notes about casualties and patient outcomes, along with memories of Confederate women about what happened on a particular day. Needless to say, the memories often conflict regarding what happened. The BDC is the only SCLENDS library to hold this title.
9 December 2024 - "Uniquely BDC Materials Monday:" The BDC has a fine collection of 19th century illustrated newspaper prints. One of those, Print #96, consists of a brief narrative and 6 drawings by Theodore R. Davis related to Sherman's March through the Carolinas - the subject of our most recent "Historically Speaking" lecture. The image on the top left shows Gen. Jefferson C. Davis' 14th Corps and Gen. Williams' 20th Corps crossing into Beaufort District on January 20, 1865.
16 December 2024 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" Today's entry is about the contents of the PLANTER (SHIP) vertical file in honor of Chris Barr's discussion of the enslaved people on it when Robert Smalls piloted the steamer into Union lines on May 13, 1862. In and among the newspaper and magazine clippings is a photocopy of a few pages of 'Him on the One Side and Me on the Other' - the letters between the Campbell Brothers who were discussed in our local history program of November 1, 2024 with the Beaufort History Museum. Alexander Campbell wrote his civilian brother, Peter, on May 22, 1862 using phonetic spelling:
"... You have heard by this time of a party of negroes running out of charleston with a steamer and 6 guns and surrendering to our blocade. It came down this way and Lay in beuafort here for a few days. I was aboard and had a talk with the hands and one of them said he recollects of seeing me in charleston. He told me the boat belonged to a scotch man named ferguson. I Know him verry well. The state had hire i from him for taking amonition and such from the city to the battries along the creeks. The negroes says that things such as provisions is verry dear and that a great manny of the wemen had Left and went up the country and they expect we will attack charleston soon." (pp. 86-87).
Planter saw additional Civil War service with Smalls at the helm. A gale in March of 1876 damaged the Planter beyond repair. Its component parts were salvaged and sold off by mid-July. There was a great buzz in 2014 that the Planter had been re-discovered and the hull may indeed be buried under sand. This file also contains a copy of the NOAA report, Maritime Heritage Program Series #1 (May 2014) "The Search for 'Planter:' The Ship that Escaped Charleston and Carried Robert Smalls to Destiny" about that investigation and its findings.
The contents of all the BDC's extensive vertical files (2500+ and counting) are varied and sometime provide just the clue needed to help a researcher dig deeper and explore local history topics more broadly. I love, love, love the BDC's vertical files.
"Black History Note" Posts
6 November 2024 - "Black History Note:" Given that elections and voter registrations are in the forefront of most political discussions of late, I have an historic Voter Registrations list to share from 1868. This was the first election cycle in which freed Black Men could submit a ballot for political candidates to represent them.
This abstract was created by order of the commander of the Second Military District in accord with 14 U.S. Stats. 429, 15 U.S. Stats.2, and 15 U.S. Stats. 14, which gave him ultimate responsibility for the registration of voters and the conduct of elections. The series was abstracted prior to 12 September 1868 from the series Voter Registrations Reported to the Military Government and was deposited with the Secretary of State in October 1868.
These volumes record the name and race of each voter, arranged first by county, second by precinct, and thereunder by polling place. The names appear alphabetically by the first letter of the surname, with African Americans and whites grouped separately. Local history librarians throughout SC transcribed the records about I helped transcribe the Beaufort County voters. Search the records to see if one of your male ancestor's is listed.
If you're interested in a brief history of how voting rights have been extended and/or retracked over the course of American history, see this timeline.
13 November 2024 - "Black History Note:" WeGOJA soft launched their "SC Preservation Toolkit" which aims to provide resources to individuals and organizations across SC as they begin their preservation journey. They include entries for churches, cemeteries, genealogy, artifacts, oral history, and more. If you're interested in preserving sites connected to Black History in the Palmetto State, you should check out the website.
20 November 2024 - Penn Center has been included on the UNESCO's Network of Places of History and Memory linked to Enslavement and the Slave Trade. UNESCO Director-General Azoulay states "Preserving and visiting these places will help us honor the memory of its millions of victims, advance scientific knowledge and educate new generations." Read more about the Network.
27 November 2024 - Given that the Penn Center was recently added to the UNESCO's Network of Places of History and Memory, I suggest that learning a bit about its history is in order. I recommend Penn Center: A History Preserved by Orville Vernon Burton with Wilbur Cross; Foreword by Emory S. Campbell (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2014) as the ideal book with which to start. Copies are available in the BDC as well as in the local history sections at the BCL Branch Libraries.
4 December 2024 - "Black History Note Wednesday:" Because of the BDC's geographical imperative, a difficult task - finding written records of Black perspectives on the Civil War - is made even harder. Luckily, we do have one such account in the Research Room.
From his enlistment to February 1864, he wrote about 50 weekly letters to his local newspaper, becoming "a truthful and intelligent correspondent" (in the words of its Editors) for the staunchly abolitionist New Bedford (MA) Mercury newspaper. Eminent Civil War historian, James McPherson, describes Gooding as "observant, well informed, a fluent writer, passionately committed to the cause of Union, liberty, and black rights. He also possessed a sense of humor that makes these letters a delight as well as an education to read."
Gooding's letters are one of the few known collections of materials written by a United States Colored Troops soldier about USCT military actions and conditions. Our copy is the only copy of this title within the SCLENDS consortium. We'd be happy to share it with you in the BDC Reading Room. For assured service (that is, to make someone is is here to assist you), please contact us ahead of your visit: bdc@bcgov.net or 843-255-6468).
I'm looking forward to hearing about the primary source documentation for the African-American perspectives of Sherman's March tomorrow. I do wonder whether Dr. Parten had to rely on more records of Black Georgians during Sherman's March to the Sea or on more records of Black South Carolinians during Sherman's March through the Carolinas for his book. Perhaps I shall report back here on that topic next Wednesday.
Better yet, I do so hope that you can join us for the "Historically Speaking" lecture 6.3.
18 December 2024 - "Black History Note:" One of my very favorite items in the BDC is a comic book: The Life of Robert Smalls (1970).
Bertram A. Fitzgerald, Jr. read Classics Illustrated comic books as a child, but was saddened to find that none existed relating to Black History. He decided to change that with the Golden Legacy Illustrated History series.
The comic book about Smalls is volume 9 of a 16 part series of educational Black history comic books published by Fitzgerald Publishing Co. from 1966 to 1976. Each one features 32 colorful illustrated pages about the life of a notable Black people in history. The illustrations in the Robert Smalls volume were drawn by Don Perlman, better known for his work at Marvel Comics and Valiant Comics.
His childhood, escape on the Planter, and his post-War political life in Congress and fighting for civil rights are covered well. Volume 9 is the only one of the series that meets the BDC's geographical imperative. BTW: This could also be an "Uniquely BDC" item.
A heads up: Chris Barr will update and reprise his talk about the people on the Planter with Robert Smalls at Bluffton Branch Library on Thursday, January 23, 2025.
Native American Heritage Month (November) Posts:
9 November 2024 - The BDC has a lot of good books about the Native Americans who once roamed South Carolina.
19 November 2024 - The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 by Alan Gallay (2002) outlines how Native Americans got trapped by and reacted to the European Slave Trade. Native Americans would sell members from other groups to Europeans while the Spanish, French and English would capture and sell Native Americans allied to other Europeans. This book helps explain a complex economic system of racism, subjugation and resistance. I highly recommend it to you.
21 November 2024 - The BDC has a geographical imperative. Accordingly, the BDC concentrates on Native Americans who once lived in our immediate area as the "Resources about Native Americans of the South Carolina Coastal Plain" indicates.
26 November 2024 - If I had to choose only one book as my favorite book about the local Native Americans to you, I would have to say that it is Indians of the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1562-1751 by Gene Waddell (1980). The book consists of 2 parts: 1) a general discussion of 19 Lowcountry tribes; and 2) documentary evidence from eye-witness accounts and other primary sources and annotations about those made by the author. Arrangement of section 2 is alphabetical by indigenous tribe and placename. Footnotes are endnotes on pp. 359-396. The Bibliography is quite extensive covering pages 397 through 462. It has an index. The end-papers has a modern map indicating some settlements of the Native Americans.
An important note: Waddell does not consider the Yemasee an indigenous tribe though he does state "They deserve a book-length treatment that would include their earlier and later history in other states." (p. xiii)
30 November 2024 - I think that The Yamasee Indians : from Florida to South Carolina edited by Denise Bossy and Allan Gallay (2018) answers Waddell's desire for a book-length treatment of the Yamasee. This anthology includes the latest research from archaeologists of South Carolina and Florida and historians of the Native South, Spanish Florida, and British Carolina who address elusive questions about Yamasee identity, political and social networks, and the fate of the group.
BDC Display Posts:
3 December 2024 - Look at and read about Sydney's first display case: "History for the Holidays" on Connections.
"Just Because" Posts
5 November 2024 - If you are eligible to vote and registered to vote, today's your last chance to cast your ballot in the General Election of 2024. Polls are open 7 AM - 7 PM in South Carolina.
Not sure that you're registered or where your polling place is? The Beaufort County Board of Elections can help. Visit their website or call 843-255-6900 for additional information. JSYK: A number of Beaufort County precincts moved earlier this year, including mine - so you may want to make sure that you go to the right voting place. It'd be a trifle inconvenient to stand in line for awhile and then discover that you're in the wrong place.
Please remember to be patient with and respectful of our fellow citizens who are doing their best to administer a fair and safe election process for us all.
8 November 2024 - Okay, I will admit that this is a "just because I think that it's fun" post. The only local history connection - and I'll readily admit that it's a very, very tenuous one - is that the Alcoa company developed Dataw Island. "Lemon Pig" recipe is among the 401 Party and Holiday Ideas from Alcoa promotional cookbook that's easy enough for even my limited culinary and kitchen skills.
12 November 2024 - The most recent issue of the South Carolina Historical Magazine has arrived. The BDC has all 121 volumes in the public area of the Research Room. Of the 8 books reviewed in volume 121, number 4, the BDC has copies of The Shell Builders by Colin Brooker; Patriots in Exile by McCrady and Bragg; and Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World by Edward Rugemer.
15 November 2024 - Another year done - thanks to Beloved BDC docent Kathy Mitchell. She indexed 1333 published obituaries from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers of 1997. Check to see if your loved one's name appears.
7 December 2024 - "A date that will live in infamy" had direct impact on the people of Beaufort County. Learn about the Beaufort servicemen who were at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 in Connections.
20 December 2024 - We wish you a joyous holiday season. The Library will be closed Mon., Dec. 23, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day and again on Wed., Jan. 1, 2025. Otherwise, BDC staff is scheduled to be in the office but for assured service, please make an appointment with BDC staff: 843-255-6468; bdc@bcgov.net. Stuff can happen that affects our usual schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment