"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.) 

Maud Mary Mason, “Iris”

Works in the College’s art collection are housed in the Library when not on display in the galleries or campus building.  At times pieces move from one location to another for longer-term loans.

Recently a large still life painting of irises by Maud Mary Mason was transferred to the Kilgore-Clinkscales House on campus, the home of the Dean of the College.

The painting has been in the college collection for many years.  A photograph of long time college librarian Miss Mary Sydnor DuPré shows the painting behind her in the old Whitefoord Smith Library.  Miss DuPré was librarian from 1905-1953.  An undated note on the reverse of the painting itself also confirms the history:  “This painting, ‘Iris’ by Maud M. Mason, A.N.A. was given to Wofford College at the request of Grace Annette DuPré.  For many years, Miss Mason was considered to be the finest painter of flowers in the U.S.A.”

Maud Mason (1867-1956) indeed was well known in her time.  Born in KY, she moved early to New York City where she studied under Impressionists Charles Merritt Chase and Arthur Wesley Dow, as well as at the Art Students League and the Pratt Institute.

First known as a ceramist and ceramics teacher she also exhibited her paintings widely.  She reports to have begun doing floral paintings out of boredom:

"One day I just go bored while working from a model in Mr. Chase's studio, so I went out and bought a bunch of daffodils and painted them.  Mr. Chase liked the painting, and so did everyone else, and later I showed flower paintings at the National Academy of Design which were admired very much.  Orders for flower paintings began to come in, and I have never had time to paint much of anything else". [AskART]

So, What’s an Archives?

[This column ran in the November issue of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate.]

Archives conjure up all sorts of image, and in the popular imagination, they usually involve dust.
You probably are thinking of scenes from a movie, maybe an Indiana Jones film where he dashes into a room with lots of shelves and old volumes in search of some bit of information, some item of lost knowledge. Or maybe you’re thinking of a warehouse of boxes, or a small, dark room with someone, probably of advanced age, there to help find some hard to locate bit of information.
The truth is, we don’t really like dust, and we try to keep the books and papers in the various collections as free of it as possible. Archives vary in size, from closet to warehouse. And the types of things in archives aren’t limited to books, but can range from paper files to audio recordings and video tape, from maps to computer files, and from yearbooks to photographs.
Technically, archives are the permanently valuable records of an organization, such as a college, a church, a state, or an annual conference. In our case, they include such things as the conference journals, the Advocate, conference board and commission minutes, agency files, and district records. An archives might also collect materials that relate to its mission, such as books by and about South Carolina Methodism or Methodists, pictorial directories, local church histories, and files on different churches. Taking a broader view, archives to some people are simply the place where the old stuff goes, or where one goes for information about the past.
Our primary focus is on the records of the Annual Conference, though we do have the records of some closed local churches. If you are looking for local church history, the best place to start is in the local church or in the community, though we may be able to help with some statistics, a list of pastoral appointments, and changes in charge lines. We’ve been trying to put pictures of clergy online so that local churches can download them. 

Some researchers call to ask if we can produce an ancestor’s baptism or marriage record,
and anticipate that all of those records are on the internet, ready to be found with a quick Google search. I wish it were that easy. We don’t have the baptism or marriage records for active congregations, nor do we have their church council minutes. If we tried to keep all of that, we would need a warehouse, and anyone who has visited knows we don’t have that kind of space!
Why should your church have an archives? In part, because keeping local church history is the local church’s responsibility. That’s why you have a local church historian and a committee on records and history. The church historian’s job is to take care of the church’s historical records and to make sure that records being produced today – everything from the weekly bulletin or newsletter to the minutes of the church council – are being kept in a safe place.

You can find some help for these tasks on ourwebsite: http://www.wofford.edu/library/archives/methodist.aspx. There are links to the collections here in the archives and to resources that will help your church organize its own records. And you can always contact me for guidance. I’ll even remind you to keep the dust out.


WRITTEN BY: PHILLIP STONE - November 14, 2012

Where are all the Chi Phi brothers?

Would all of the alums who are members of Chi Phi please stand up.

Members of Chi Phi with Professor Henry Nelson Snyder, center,1896.

Silence.

Oh, that’s right, that fraternity hasn’t existed at Wofford for over 100 years.  What happened to it?

Chi Phi was the third fraternity to be established at Wofford, after Kappa Alpha and Chi Psi.  These first two got started in 1869, and the Chi Phis were chartered in 1871.  Over its forty years at Wofford, the Sigma chapter initiated a number of students who went on to become prominent in the community.  A short list of those would include Howard B. Carlisle ‘1885, James A. Chapman ‘1883, a noted textile leader, Dr. John G. Clinkscales ‘1876 of the Wofford faculty, Thomas Carey Duncan ‘1881, a noted textile leader, William Preston Few ‘1889, the first president of Duke University, W. Thornwell Haynes ‘1893, an American diplomat, and approximately 160 other alumni.

Though the number of active fraternity members was never especially large, the actions of some fraternity and anti-fraternity students caused the trustees to ban all of the Greek-letter organizations in 1906.  All of the fraternities had to surrender their charters, though many of them simply went underground.  After several years of agitation by students and alums, and after what really amounted to an ultimatum from a group of students, the faculty and trustees relented, and in the fall of 1915, fraternities were allowed back, subject to the rules of the college.

However, the national organization of Chi Phi declined to allow the chapter at Wofford to have its charter back.  President Snyder, himself a Chi Phi from Vanderbilt, worked his connections to try to get the fraternity back on campus, but to no avail.  He reported to one correspondent that the objections came from the northern chapters.

The Chi Phis left a few items behind for us to remember them by.  Among these are a few group photos, some alumni bulletins, and assorted fraternity pins.  The pin below, which belonged to James A. Chapman ‘1883, was recently donated to the library by his great-granddaughter, Mrs. Laura Chapman Jackson Hoy, who is now a member of the Wofford board of trustees.

Written by Phillip Stone, November 20, 2012

Chi Phi pin, 1883

Chi Phi pin, inscribed JAC, WC 83