The Southern Historical Collection would like to wish you a very happy Independence Day! We may think of Fourth of July celebrations that include fireworks and barbecues, but this may not have been how we historically celebrated the nation’s founding.
In a letter dated 10th of July 1858, Joseph Nathaniel Allen described the Independence Day celebration in his hometown in North Carolina. He explained that there were large crowds of people, and a traveling band. The highlight of the day for him involved a reading of the Declaration of Independence, though he complained of people being too noisy for him to hear properly and lamented his ignorance about the contents of the document.
The Southern Historical Collection also has preserved records from one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. William Hooper helped found the government of North Carolina during the Revolution, and was elected to the First and Second Continental Congresses. He split his time between North Carolina and Philadelphia, and both of his family homes, in Finian and Wilmington, were captured by the British. The collection here includes documents from North Carolina’s revolutionary government, and a biographical sketch completed by his nephew.
William Hooper, who signed the Declaration of Independence.
We are pleased highlight one of the many new collections that became available for research this spring: the Helen Maynor Scheirbeck Papers.
These papers contain almost 20,000 items related to Helen Maynor Scheirbeck’s work as a community organizer, educator, and political scientist. She focused her career on achieving better American Indian education in the U.S., and on receiving tribe recognition for both the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina and the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin.
Our finding aid has more Scheirbeck and her many accomplishments: The Helen Maynor Scheirbeck Papers #5526, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This powerful image, part of the James A. Felton and Annie Vaughn Felton Papers (#05161), is a flyer used by the Voter Education Project in 1970. James A. Felton co-founded an African American organization in North Carolina called the People’s Program on Poverty. Its aim was to study and change poverty at the grass-roots level. This flyer shows one way it worked with the Voter Education Project to support the education of African American voters in The South during the civil rights movement.
Over the last few years the SHC has been collaborating with Karida Brown (Ph.D. candidate at Brown University) and many Appalachian families on the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project (EKAAMP), which documents peoples’ lives in eastern Kentucky and their tale of migration into and out of the communities there. The wonderful stories shared by the endlessly generous people who grew up in these small towns inspired the creation of Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia–an exhibit hosted in Wilson Library’s Melba Saltarelli Exhibit Room.
The exhibit explores an often forgotten part of American History. It shares part of the story of the Great Migration of African Americans out of the Deep South and into coal mines of Appalachia. After the mining industry collapsed, the people who grew up there left again. The exhibit explores what home means to a community that sometimes spent only one generation in Appalachian America.
The exhibit opens on Monday, and we hope that during its life you’ll come to share our enthusiasm for these stories. You can learn more about EKAAMP on its website, and we hope to see you here between April 27th and July 31st 2015.
Four years ago, Wilson Library began an ambitious blog that samples the vast holdings on the Civil War among the various collections here. Every day the Civil War Day by Day blog posts a document that is exactly 150 years old to the day. The blog’s objectives have been to present objects exactly as the people who created them would have seen them, and put a human face to those who lived, suffered, died, or survived during this tumultuous time in American history. It provides insights into the varied perspectives from within the conflict.
The picture taken of the Civil War Day by Day team shortly after receiving the Primary Source Award from the Center for Research Libraries. From left to right: Biff Hollingsworth, Barrye Brown, Jason Tomberlin, Samantha Crisp, Stephen Fletcher, Katie Harper, Helen Thomas, Matt Turi, Nancy Kaiser. (Photo by Jay Mangum)
The blog has received much positive attention from commenters, and followers. It is featured on the Society of North Carolina Archivists’ blogroll, and even won a Primary Source Award from the Center for Research Libraries in the access category last year. Overall, the blog’s efforts are diverse in nature—it draws documents from the Southern Historical Collection, the Rare Book Collection, the North Carolina Collection, and University Archives and Record Management Services. It documents the war from various perspectives as well, including military papers and diaries, and letters written by women, slaves, soldiers and farmers. Though the blog cannot give an exhaustive picture of the war, it is a small sample of what people thought and wrote as events unfolded.
An image from a recent post on the Civil War Day by Day blog. This is a letter from E.P. Alexander to his wife. To view the whole letter, and its transcription, see the 16 March 1865 entry.
When hostilities began on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter the future of the country was uncertain. But unlike the men and women who lived during this time, we know that the end of the war approaches! The last turbulent weeks of the war included the Battle of Bentonville, the drama at Appomattox Courthouse, Lincoln’s assassination, and General Johnston’s surrender in Durham, NC. We’d like to announce the culmination of the blog’s efforts over the years. And as our sesquicentennial documentation comes to a close on April 26th, we hope you’ll join us in turning your attention to the letters, broadsides, diary entries and sketches that help tell us about the end of the War. Most of all, we hope that you have learned as much about the realities of the Civil War, and those who lived during it, as we have!
Four years ago, Wilson Library began an ambitious blog that samples the vast holdings on the Civil War among the various collections here. Every day the Civil War Day by Day blog posts a document that is exactly 150 years old to the day. The blog’s objectives have been to present objects exactly as the people who created them would have seen them, and put a human face to those who lived, suffered, died, or survived during this tumultuous time in American history. It provides insights into the varied perspectives from within the conflict.
The picture taken of the Civil War Day by Day team shortly after receiving the Primary Source Award from the Center for Research Libraries. From left to right: Biff Hollingsworth, Barrye Brown, Jason Tomberlin, Samantha Crisp, Stephen Fletcher, Katie Harper, Helen Thomas, Matt Turi, Nancy Kaiser. (Photo by Jay Mangum)
The blog has received much positive attention from commenters, and followers. It is featured on the Society of North Carolina Archivists’ blogroll, and even won a Primary Source Award from the Center for Research Libraries in the access category last year. Overall, the blog’s efforts are diverse in nature—it draws documents from the Southern Historical Collection, the Rare Book Collection, the North Carolina Collection, and University Archives and Record Management Services. It documents the war from various perspectives as well, including military papers and diaries, and letters written by women, slaves, soldiers and farmers. Though the blog cannot give an exhaustive picture of the war, it is a small sample of what people thought and wrote as events unfolded.
An image from a recent post on the Civil War Day by Day blog. This is a letter from E.P. Alexander to his wife. To view the whole letter, and its transcription, see the 16 March 1865 entry.
When hostilities began on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter the future of the country was uncertain. But unlike the men and women who lived during this time, we know that the end of the war approaches! The last turbulent weeks of the war included the Battle of Bentonville, the drama at Appomattox Courthouse, Lincoln’s assassination, and General Johnston’s surrender in Durham, NC. We’d like to announce the culmination of the blog’s efforts over the years. And as our sesquicentennial documentation comes to a close on April 26th, we hope you’ll join us in turning your attention to the letters, broadsides, diary entries and sketches that help tell us about the end of the War. Most of all, we hope that you have learned as much about the realities of the Civil War, and those who lived during it, as we have!
Contributed by Bryan Giemza, Director of the Southern Historical Collection
As part of the Collection’s ongoing work with the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, I visited the historic town of Eatonville, Florida in December. In recent days the town commemorated the legacy of one of its notable residents, as the Zora! Festival celebrated the life and work of writer Zora Neale Hurston. Professor William Ferris delivered a keynote address there, and attendees had the opportunity to soak up some of the atmosphere and remarkable local culture of a town that has retained its distinctiveness through the years.
A 2008 New York Times article gives a sense of the town and its atmosphere; I had a chance to visit some of the places and people it mentions. Stepping into Eatonville is transporting. Against all expectation, with the suburbs of Orlando at its doorstep and the interstate visible from the town center, Eatonville has survived the fragmentation common to many small southern towns. If Eatonville retains a small-town atmosphere, it is also mindful of deep history. Town residents told me of the sacrifices entailed in protecting those legacies; where they have succeeded, one said, is because the townspeople “have a backbone.” Eatonville is permeated with a sense of the importance of history as well as its fragility.
Mrs. Maye St. Julien explains the significance of historic documents in the Eatonville Town Hall (est. 1887).
From the first, Mayor Bruce Mount and his staff were gracious hosts. Mrs. Maye St. Julien shared insights into town history and her life story was fascinating in its own right. The City Hall houses many artefacts and keeps the minutes of its meetings, dating back to the mid-twentieth century (many earlier records were lost to a fire). We were warmly received by Ms. Hortense Jones of St. Lawrence A.M.E., who opened the chapel, its walls brightened by the J. Andre Smith murals that incorporate scenes from local life. The paintings offer a kind of primer to fire a child’s imagination, with inscriptions such as “And when I am thirsty He brings me a bowl/Of life-giving water to sweeten my soul.”
Mayor Mount walking from the Moseley House (not visible), with St. Lawrence A.M.E. at center.
From the standpoint of historic preservation, there is much to sweeten the soul in Eatonville. I viewed the guest book of the Household of Ruth, and saw on its pages many names familiar from Zora Neale Hurston’s life and her writing. We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant owned by former mayor Abraham Gordon, Jr., and toured the Moseley House, which brims with period artefacts that reflect the careful stewardship of Hurston’s own Zeta Phi Beta sorority. Later we toured the school on the grounds of the Hungerford Institute, now closed, and gleaned a sense of its importance to the community. At various times during the day I benefitted from the archival perspective and generosity of Mrs. N.Y. Nathiri, and was privileged to meet her mother, Ms. Ella Dinkins, who at ninety-seven years of age remembered town history with unfailing clarity.
Mrs. N.Y. Nathiri displays artefacts in the home of Mrs. Ella Dinkins.
The day came to a fitting and memorably powerful end with a chance to walk the grounds around Mrs. Louise Franklin’s home. With a catch in his voice, her son explained how the family had held that had been purchased against all odds. It had long served as an oasis for black life—social gatherings, picnics, campouts, baptisms, community fellowship—in spite of segregation’s long grind. This history was made tangible, for example, in the lanyards that dangle where lanterns once glowed from tree branches, and in the planks that had served as simple benches, now overgrown by the trees. Seeing and touching that history made it real to him (and to me), and brought home the importance of conserving it.
Mrs. Franklin shows one of the benches on her historic and storied property.
The visit was also a reminder of how fortunate the Southern Historical Collection is to work in partnership with communities that are using their unique heritage to support campaigns of renovation and preservation, as the HBTSA charter states, “such that those who follow will have the ability to assume active stewardship to understand, interpret and appreciate these historic places through the lenses of their inhabitants.” These projects require the talents of community members, students, and future archivists, and so we were grateful to have a chance to tell others about the work of HBTSA at a breakout session during the recent TEDx UNC conference. My good colleague Chaitra Powell and I shared information with attendees about the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA), the summer fellowships in the towns sponsored by UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, and the forthcoming ThatCamp Community Archives conference at UNC. We hope that the conference will contribute to the energy and creativity surrounding HBTSA and serve other communities as well.
Chaitra Powell shares information about the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance and ongoing SHC projects at TEDx UNC.
To entertain your family this holiday season, the SHC wants to highlight a digital collection that may provide you with some historical family fun. The Mini Page Archive houses digital versions of the four page features that appeared in over 500 newspapers weekly. The Mini Page was created as an educational and fun tool for children, which covered topics included in school curricula. Many of them also covered current events in an easy to understand style with activities and recipes meant for children. The archive provides digital access to every issue from 1969-2007. The creator of The Mini Page, Betty Debnam, did much of the work herself during the nearly forty years documented in the archive.
Each issue of The Mini Page contains brief reporting and fun activities that are an exciting way to explore history with children, or even adult family members, this holiday season. The archive has holiday themed issues for each year, with suggested activities meant to spark engagement. For example, the pages from the issue highlighted here explore different holiday customs from different countries, and provide ideas for ways to get kids talking about cultural differences. Feel free to explore this awesome resource!
Contributed by Bryan Giemza, Director of the Southern Historical Collection
What do you do for the Southern Historical Collection?
My chief responsibility is to build and develop a high-research-value Collection, and to preserve the items in our care. An important part of that process is connecting talented people who are passionate about the Collection with the resources to achieve its vision. I’m enjoying playing a part in shaping that vision, too.
At work in a storage unit in Oxford, Mississippi
My work as director is tremendously varied, which is one of the fun things about the position. On any given day I might be traveling a backroad or rummaging in an attic to appraise a collection, meeting with donors and colleagues to solicit input, or making a presentation on some aspect of the work we do. It’s my astonishing good fortune to meet with cultural creators and innovators of every description, and to take part in the larger exchange of ideas about the history and culture of a fascinating region.
What did you do before joining the Southern Historical Collection?
My journey to the SHC unfolded as part of an academic path. You can learn more about my background by having a look at my curriculum vitae. I’m a graduate of Notre Dame and UNC (tarheel born and bred), and I count myself a “graduate” of the Appalachian Trail, too. As a graduate of UNC Law, I’ve taught courses in law, the environment, and the humanities, too.
Prior to arriving at the SHC, I was a tenured associate professor of American Literature at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. So, what I did was what professors do: I wrote and edited five books, I taught lots of courses in history and literature, and, most rewarding, I tried to make a difference in my students’ lives in my capacity as a teacher, mentor, fellow sojourner. I’m continuing on the academic journey, with several books in the pipeline, and teaching opportunities—but with the SHC, I have a wonderful new canvas and new ways of directing my energies.
How did you get into this line of work?
As a literary scholar with a historical turn of mind, it might be said that the SHC has always been a central part of my work, always been a companion. I’ve benefited immensely from its resources as a researcher, and my career has been shaped by its centrality in the academic understanding of American and regional culture. I’ve been inspired by, and benefited from, the organizations, publications, and partners that have grown out of the Collection: The Center for the Study of the American South, the Southern Oral History Project, the Southern Folklife Collection, and the journal Southern Cultures. Not to mention the great programs in American studies, folklore, history, and literature. For someone with my intense curiosity, it’s a delight to be at the hub where all these things come together.
I have some other important jobs, too: I’m a father and husband and occasional swamper. I love to write, and I’m currently at work on a novel. It’s a kind of morally purposeful thriller, set in the coastal Carolinas and Central Americas of the 1970s, about a Vietnam veteran turned smuggler.
With Mayor Darryl Johnson of Mound Bayou, MS
What do you like about your job?
E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. And I’m not exaggerating. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t marvel at how fortunate I am to be a part of the Southern Historical Collection and the University. We have a young, energetic, and inspired team here at the SHC, and I learn from my colleagues every day. I get to see how circles of generosity ripple outward. As I like to say, we’re in the business of outrageous generosity, which is the very best business, after all. Most of all, I like the way the job allows me to pursue service to others, which, as Bill Friday often suggested, is key to a meaningful life.
I recently heard an anecdote from friends in the North Carolina Collection about Charles Kuralt’s father. It was said that he planted trees and worked on landscaping at every place the family lived, even when they were renters. This didn’t quite compute for young Charles, since they would be moving on, but his father pointed out that you should always leave a place better than you found it. When I was moonlighting in wetland restoration during graduate school, I saw the truth of that as we planted trees to establish forests that we would not see during our lifetime. The best jobs, I think, are never finished, and you may not get to see the ends. Similarly, the best stories don’t end, and the SHC is a continuously written chapter in the larger volume of history. We might be the longest-standing collection of our type, and we are only beginning….
A Mississippi delta sunrise on the horizon
What are you working on right now? What are some new and exciting projects on the horizon?
Right now I’m focused on leading the strategic planning process for the Southern Historical Collection, and aligning our work with the vision of Wilson Library, the University Library, and the many academic communities and constituencies we serve. We have a clear sense of where we want to be in five years, and we are setting out with a unified plan and sense of purpose. I’m excited about gathering the resources to realize our vision, and to grow the collection in new areas and with new initiatives. For example, I’m developing plans to reach out to the Latino communities that are an important part of our state and region, and that will make crucial contributors to our collections.
I’m just coming back from an energizing trip in which Biff Hollingsworth and I crisscrossed the state of Mississippi: four days, five collections, six or more donor meetings, and over 700 miles. And at least two catfish suppers. One promising element from the trip that is on the horizon: a chance to support the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance. We are privileged to have a chance to participate in building sustainable communities through historic preservation!
P.S. I’m going to follow Chaitra and offer a little help in pronouncing my (Polish) surname: it’s pronounced GEM-za, with a hard G, to rhyme with stem-za…!
Preparing for Halloween around the SHC can get a little spooky! Wandering through Wilson Library’s dark and silent stacks may uncover some truly spine-tingling tales. The archive documents many stories that hold cultural importance for the South, including some creepy North Carolina ghost stories.
A journalist, and active University of North Carolina Alum, named John Harden, compiled records of well-known ghost stories from different areas in North Carolina. Out of these grew two books, Devil’s Tramping Ground and Tar Heel Ghosts. The tales tell chilling supernatural events from familiar North Carolina locations. In 1955, WUNC television produced some of these stories as short programs. From the script drafts and illustrations for these shows, I’ll summarize two of the spookiest stories for you, to set the mood for a truly spook-tacular Halloween!
Colonial Apparition
This truly hair rising tale is a sailors’ story of terrifying apparitions seen on a stormy sea near the appropriately named Cape Fear, North Carolina. Legend from the area tells of two Scotsmen who were executed by the British during the American Revolution, between Wilmington and Southport on the Cape Fear River. African-American superstition in the 19th century told of two ghostly apparitions appearing during storms at the same spot.
One evening a well-known Captain, Captain John M. Harper was sailing the haunted stretch of river between Wilmington and Southport. The weather started to turn stormy and cold. In the darkness, some of the men on his boat began recounting times during which these ghosts had been seen. One man suggested that the two ghosts were probably the Scotsmen looking for a ship to carry them home. As the wind and the rain got worse, one man on Captain Harper’s ship saw an apparition clutching the railing, with a beard encrusted in ice. The crewman tried to save him from falling overboard, but the man disappeared. Returning to the captain, he reported what he had seen. To keep the men calm, Captain Harper began joking about how they should watch out for more ghosts.
As the weather grew worse they began passing the plantation where ghosts had been seen previously. All the crew grew more and more uneasy. A shrill shrieking sounded across the water from the direction of shore. The screams began getting louder and louder coming from a spot where colonial ships used to anchor. An object began to take shape in the darkness, and an impossibly ancient, seaweed-covered barge appeared before them.
The Captain ordered the crew to help the barge. But no sooner had they begin to throw a line, than they saw two figures dressed in Scottish garb wrapped in chains on board. The ghostly figures reached toward Captain Harper’s ship. As soon as they tried to pull the rotting barge closer it was swallowed by the angry river waves.
As they continued down the river, they came upon another boat wrecked by the storm. On board were two weakened men who had been shouting for help, revealing the source of the earlier screaming. However, most of the crew remained convinced that some of the unearthly yelling originated from the phantom barge they saw in midst of the terrible storm.
A Haven for Ghosts
A North Carolina man built his dream home near the banks of the Yadkin River upon the foundation of an old tavern. On his first night in the new house he heard what sounded like digging outside. Thinking that the construction men returned to find something, he looked out the window and saw his empty yard. Yet while gazing out into the dark he still heard sounds indicating that there was digging. Concerned, since animals could not be making that noise, he went to look around his property. When he went to turn the bolt on the door– that he carefully locked before bed–he found it already unlocked. Gazing around the property, he saw no evidence of anyone having been near the house. He heard a noise coming from his basement and quickly entered the basement shouting, but no one was there. Determining to investigate more in the morning, he returned to his bedroom. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep he heard the sound of something heavy falling in the room. But when he turned on the light nothing was disturbed.
As this series of events continued each night with no physical evidence, he began inquiring about it to neighbors and others from the area. They told a tale of a traveler who was rumored to be wealthy. The traveler had stayed in the old tavern after the Civil War on his way home. He was stabbed by a group of thieves looking for his money and buried outside. The thieves, however, were unable to find any money and searched the cellar. Months later a bag of gold fell from the rafters of the tavern, and many believed this to be the traveler’s money that the thieves were unable to turn up.
Though he was never able to rid himself of the noises in the house, the man began to unearth rumors that every structure built on the old foundation had always burned down, every so often. A year after the man finished building his house he went on an infrequent trip out of town. When he returned he found that his brand new house had burned down to the original foundation, giving the blackened stones a fresh charcoal coating.
Feel free to check out more of these spooky stories documented in the John Harden Papers, found here in the Southern Historical Collection!
Source for these stories: From Folders 1879-1897, In the John Harden Papers #4702, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
