"Map of the countries between Paris and Moscow, Shewing the Route of the French Army, in their disastrous campaign, 1813"

"Map of the countries between Paris and Moscow, Shewing the Route of the French Army, in their disastrous campaign, 1813"
Originally uploaded by Special Collections at Wofford College

Via Flickr:
This is a fold-out map from "A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, embellished with plans of the Battles of Moskwa and Malo-Jaroslavitz," etc., by Eugene Labaume, translated by Edmund Boyce, 7th edition, London, 1816.

The full description of this title is available here.

"Map of the Holy Land, compiled from the best sources" 1859

"Map of the Holy Land, compiled from the best sources" 1859
Originally uploaded by Special Collections at Wofford College

The fold-out map and an illustration from W.M. Thomson’s two-volume The Land and the Book, a work of “Biblical illustrations drawn from the manners and customs, the scenes and scenery, of the Holy Land.” Published in New York in 1859. From the collection of William Wallace Duncan, a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and Wofford graduate, class of 1858.
Full description

"Physical Map of Palestine and the adjacent countries"

"Physical Map of Palestine and the adjacent countries"
Originally uploaded by Special Collections at Wofford College
A finely-detailed, hand-colored, fold-out map from John Kitto’s The Land of Promise, “a topographical description of the principal places in Palestine, and of the country eastward of Jordan, embracing the researches of the most recent travellers.” Published in London, c. 1852.

Full description

Snapshots from a turn-of-the-century vacation

The two photographs below are from a photo album likely compiled by Walter M. Smith, an engineer with family ties to Spartanburg. According to the title page of the album, Mr. Smith appears to have a taken a tour of the eastern seaboard in the winter of 1901-02, during which these photographs were taken.

Title page of the photo album.

Stopping in Glenn Springs in eastern Spartanburg County, Mr. Smith took several photographs of scenes and buildings, including the two below. Shown from two different angles is the house of Dr. William F. Smith, described by a contemporary* as “well educated and a finished gentleman.” In the details, we can glimpse Dr. Smith on the porch of his home holding a toddler.

Two photos of the Dr. William F. Smith home as they appear in Walter Smith's photo album.

The photo on the left enlarged and enhanced.

A detail of that image showing children in the yard and others near the porch.

Dr. Smith's house from a different angle.

Detailed view of image above showing Dr. Smith with a toddler on his knee.

The album, from the Walter M. and Marie Smith Papers in the Littlejohn Collection, contains several dozen silver gelatin snapshots taken in Glenn Springs, Spartanburg, Charleston, New York, and Boston.

*Dr. J.B.O. Landrum, in his History of Spartanburg County (1900).

Congratulations to Nikky Finney!

The Sandor Teszler Library congratulates Nikky Finney on her induction into the South Carolina Academy of Authors.

Author Nikky Finney next to an excerpt of her poem "The Thinking Men" on permanent display in Wofford's Old Main building, 2008.

Finney’s 2008 poem “The Thinking Men” celebrates the builders of Wofford’s Old Main.

Click image for larger size.

Finney is the author of several books of poetry and prose, editor of another, and, after 20 years of teaching at the University of Kentucky, will begin in the Fall of 2013 her tenure as the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair of Creative Writing and Southern Literature at the University of South Carolina (Columbia).

For a biography and full list of publications, visit Finney's website.

Permelia

This item is a receipt for the sale of 21-year-old Permelia to A.M. Holland by John Susan[?] for $1100. 

The full text reads:

“Rec’d of A.M. Holland Eleven Hundred Dollars for a Negro Woman Named Permelia which Girl I warrant sound in body and mind and free from all incumberances [sic]

Jany 24/59 –

[signed] John Susan[?]

Said Girl is about Twenty one years of age”

It is difficult to know much for certain about the people concerned in this transaction. The illegibility of the seller’s signature, perhaps due to his semi-literacy, prevents us from knowing his name for certain.

However, research reveals that an Adolphus Milton (A.M.) Holland (b. Georgia) married a Mississippi woman in 1858 in Harrison County, Texas and was living with her in Rusk County by 1860.

Knowing this, from a social and economic standpoint the purchase of a slave woman for domestic duties makes some sense and lends weight to the assertion that this was the same A.M. Holland.

It seems that A.M. Holland served as a Confederate soldier through at least 1863, until he was presumably disabled.

The fate of 21-year-old Permelia, though, is lost to history — for now. If she survived the war period, Permelia would have been about 27 years old by 1865, and may turn up in the 1870 Federal Census.

Selection from a daguerreotype (circa 1850) of Delia, a slave on a plantation in Columbia, South Carolina. 

(This is a web essay reflecting an item from the Littlejohn Collection on display in the lobby of the Sandor Teszler Library until 22 April 2013.)

The Big News of March 1863: African-Americans fight for the Union

Harper’s Weekly was the most widely read magazine of the Civil War. It both shaped and reflected public opinion, as can be seen by the editorial “double-dealing” in the paper's treatment of African-American soldiers. Some entrenched racial stereotypes are indulged, such as the description of blacks as “docile” or their portrayal as animal-like (“Negroes as Soldiers” column), while simultaneously the same stereotypes are exposed as false: such as in the descriptions and illustrations of black soldiers’ conduct in combat (the cover and double-page image, and the “Negroes as Soldiers” column), or when the picture of a neat, dignified-looking African-American soldier (“Union Jim”/”Jim Williams”) is shown on the same page as a scraggly, duty-shirking, con-artist white soldier. (“A Straggler”).

The articles and illustrations shown here all appeared in issues of Harper’s Weekly from March 1863 (held in the Littlejohn Collection), when, after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863, the Union was just beginning to (legally) field and pay African-American combat units — though the American "Colored Troops" were paid three dollars less per month.

The cover of Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863 




 David Oyelowo portrays a Union corporal in Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012)

"Negroes as soldiers," Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863

Calvin Candie, a plantation owner portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), lectures his guests on phrenology, a pseudoscience disingenuously used by white supremacists of the time to “prove” the inferiority of sundry non-white peoples.

African-American troops depicted in combat, Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863

Part of a page from Harper's Weekly 28 March 1863 in which "Union Jim" and "A Straggler" are portrayed

(This is a web exhibit reflecting historical materials from the Littlejohn Collection on display in the lobby of the Sandor Teszler Library until 29 March 2013.)