SCPC Welcomes Dr. Browder and 'Stealth Reconstruction'

"We chose the title -‘Stealth Reconstruction’-because it seems an intriguing and logical approach for studying overlooked leaders and their service in Southern and national history. Also our main concept-‘stealth politics’- is simply apt, evocative of the ‘quiet, bi-racial politics’ that challenged and changed the traditional Southern political life during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.”

-Authors Glen Browder and Artemesia Stanberry in Stealth Reconstruction: An Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History

Dr.Glen Browder, a former Alabama congressman and a native South Carolinian, returned to South Carolina for a talk and book signing for his latest book, Stealth Reconstruction. SCPC co-sponsored the event with the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and the Statehouse Report on Tuesday, March 9th at the State House Auditorium in Columbia. Myself, Gabby Dudley, and our Director, Herb Hartsook, attended the event.

Dr. Browder was introduced by his friend and former colleague, Liz Patterson. Ms. Patterson, no stranger to politics herself, served in both the South Carolina Senate, 1979-1986, and the US House of Representatives, 1987-1993, alongside Dr. Browder. He spoke to an intimate crowd including members of the South Carolina Legislature. Browder talked candidly about his research and his life as he himself practiced ‘stealth politics’ in his career as Alabama’s Secretary of State, a member of the Alabama Legislature and a US Congressman.

It was a pleasure listening to Dr. Browder’s presentation and meeting his lovely wife, Becky. His book, Stealth Reconstruction is available from NewSouth books. Dr. Browder is also the author of The South's New Racial Politics: Inside the Race Game of Southern History. We hear Dr. Browder has another book in the works and we would love to have him back in South Carolina to present again!

- By Debbie Davendonis Todd and Gabby Dudley

Cheese Day 2010!

The staff of SCPC and Tim and Don of SCL gathered for our 7th Annual Observance of National Cheese Day on Tuesday, Jan. 26th. What is Cheese Day, you ask? Well, at the end of every January, we choose a special day to observe National Cheese Day (officially, Jan. 20th). For details of our celebration and more pictures, see last year's post.

Don and Dorothy inspect this year's selection of cheese foods, including cheese soup, assorted international cheese selections, baked mac and cheese, black bean and cheese casserole, a cheese ball, and cheese dip. In the break room, we had our desserts -- cheesecake and chocolate chip cheese ball goodness.

This year, we added a feature to Cheese Day. We put together an exhibit of cheese-related documents from a few of our collections, including Workman, Hamby, and Gasque. Here, Kate, Lori, and Virginia prep the exhibit. (and thanks to Debbie for helping choose items!) It was a hastily-constructed exhibit but next year we'll have a head start with a few of this year's items.

Pictured here from the exhibit is a 1969 State Fair
Centennial Cookbook containing a recipe for Cheese Pie. Yum! Hamby and her firm, Bradley, Graham, and Hamby, worked on the State Fair ad campaign that year.

AND FINALLY
The annual playing of "The Big Cheese: Official Indoor Sport of National Cheese Day" closes out festivities (created by Laura Koser Christiansen, a former graduate assistant at SCPC).

Herb tosses out the Big Cheese to start the game while Debbie and Gabby look on.


Gabby has the final throw of her Gruyere playing piece but looks like it's Limburger that is closest to the Big Cheese while Bleu, Cheddar, and Gouda look on in defeat.


For next year's Cheese Day, we'll celebrate in our new home, the Hollings Library. We hope to convince our fellow Hollings Library and Thomas Cooper Library denizens to join in the festivities! Hopefully the flooring in our new space will allow for playing of our beloved "The Big Cheese."

2009...A Year In Review

Look what happened at SCPC this year...

Rapid progress in construction of the Hollings Special Collections Library
We should move in April. Cross your fingers! Soon, we will be only a short walk across an enclosed bridge to Thomas Cooper Library, our library colleagues, and potential researchers (in the form of the thousands of undergrad students who inhabit Cooper Library each day)! Check out more pictures.

Processing
For our fine and valued researchers, we put online many new or revised finding aids, including the papers of Lester Bates, Barbara Moxon, Charles Appleby, Robert Hemphill, and Bruce Littlejohn. Counting the collections brought in this year, we are incredibly close to that magic number of 100 collections.

Researchers
We welcomed researchers from far and wide. Along with researchers from our own university and from universities around the Southeast, we had students from England for extended stays and two political scientists from California State University, Channel Islands who were awarded the William Jennings Bryan Dorn Research Award. Of course, we also helped many folks via phone and email.

Student Assistants
We love our student assistants (funded through endowed support), and SCPC would not function well without them. This year, they helped with researchers, research requests, arrangement and description of collections, and many more tasks, always with great attitudes all around. Our students in 2009 were:

*Graduate students Debbie Todd, Gabrielle Dudley, Virginia Blake, Julie Milo, and Allison Hughes. -- We said goodbye to Allison (pictured above with Herb Hartsook, SCPC boss) and Julie (pictured below with Debbie in their workroom) in the summer. They graduated with an MLIS and took positions in Atlanta and Florida, respectively. We get to keep Debbie, Gabby, and Virginia at the start of 2010 as they continue working toward their degrees.

*Undergrad Mai Nguyen graduated in December and is off to do great things like attending law school. Our last undergrad went off to law school, as well. Go pre-law students!

*Graduate intern Katie Thompson of Long Island University received our 2009 Schuyler L. and Yvonne Moore Summer Internship. She spent six weeks here, processing the papers of Mary Kelly, a leading figure in the SC League of Women Voters.

Pictured here in July at Julie and Katie's farewell party, from L-R: Lori, Mai, Katie, Debbie, Julie, and Dorothy

Exhibits
We put up many exhibits in our gallery at Thomas Cooper Library, including:

• A nod to the changing administration in Washington led us to set up an exhibit based on material from the collections of Ambassadors John West and David Wilkins and cabinet officers Jim Edwards and Dick Riley.
• We celebrated the centennial of the NAACP by displaying material from the papers of Modjeska Simkins and I. DeQuincey Newman.
• We enlightened folks about SCPC's Oral History Program.
• We filled a case with memoirs and biographies written by our donors.
• Holiday cards...this year's cards were sent and received by Joe Wilson.

In February, we displayed material from the Fritz Hollings Papers at the SC Book Festival in conjunction with a talk between Jack Bass and Sen. Hollings. It was one of the last of many events promoting Hollings' new book, Making Government Work. Also this year, we digitized 200 documents and audio records from the Hollings Papers and placed them online in "Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words."

Oral History
Oral History helps fill gaps in the documentary record and enriches many research experiences. This year, SCPC completed a major oral history with Jim Edwards, began a project with Joe Wilson, and continued a project with former Butler Derrick staffer John Gregory.

That completes our journey through 2009. Those were merely some of the highlights. On to 2010 and all the progress it will bring!

SCPC at the South Carolina Book Festival

SCPC participated in the 13th annual South Carolina Book Festival over the weekend of February 27. The Festival celebrates the book and features South Carolina authors, publishers, and book sellers. Four SCPC donors - - Jack Bass, Fritz Hollings, Kate Salley Palmer and Nick Zeigler, were featured prominently. All spoke at the Festival and signed their books for the avid readers drawn to Columbia’s Convention Center for the event.

Hollings was the main speaker Saturday morning. He appeared with Jack Bass before over one hundred and fifty Festival patrons for a fifty minute presentation in which he reflected on a life in government. Later, he was interviewed by C-SPAN, whose bus, a mobile studio, visited the Festival for the second year in a row.

SCPC was given a booth at the Festival for a well-received exhibit of the Hollings Collection. Hundreds saw the exhibit, which showcased materials from the collection and Lori Schwartz’s new electronic publication - - Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words, which features over two hundred speeches, press releases, op ed columns, and other items from the Hollings Collection presenting Hollings’ thoughts on government and politics. It is hoped this publication will be welcomed by those interested in Hollings’ career as well as public school teachers using primary materials in their classrooms. Hollings continues to talk and write on government.

Recent writings are available at his web site - - http://www.citizensforacompetitiveamerica.com/.

Hollings to Speak at SC Book Festival

On Sat., Feb. 28th, at 10am at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in the Vista, Senator Fritz Hollings will speak about his career and his book, Making Government Work, published by the USC Press in 2008. Jack Bass will serve as interviewer, much as he did for Hollings' talk and book signing at the State Museum last fall. Afterwards, Hollings will sign copies of Making Government Work in the Exhibit Hall.

The above candid shot of Hollings with fellow Senators Frank Lautenberg and James Exon during Budget Committee hearings, c.1987, is one of many photos in the book.

Staff from SCPC will be exhibiting documents, photographs, and memorabilia from the Hollings Papers at the USC Press Booth #101 in the Exhibit Hall on Saturday and Sunday. Stop by and take a look!

The Book Festival is the latest in a series of events promoting the Senator's book. Following the rousing success of the first book signing at Thomas Cooper Library last June, Hollings signed in Washington, D.C., at The Citadel in Charleston, the Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, DeBordieu Colony Country Club in Georgetown, the Florence County Public Library, and the SC State Museum.

Cheese Day 2009!

The staff of SCPC and Tim and Don of SCL gathered for our 6th Annual Observance of National Cheese Day last Thursday, Jan. 22nd. On a cold day at the end of every January, we bring delicious cheese dishes to share, decorate our breakroom with cheese-y decorations, put on a cheese-y cd, play our cheese game, "The Big Cheese," and enjoy good conversation, all in the name of cameraderie and cheese. Take a look below at some of the day's highlights.

Here we are preparing for the festivities. Note the "Corpse of Milk" book of original cheese poetry (held by Kate), compiled by Kristi Castro, a former student and staff member; the "Big Cheese" game (held by Lori) crafted and created by Laura Koser, another former student and staffer; and lastly, the official Cheese Day sign, made by Craig Keeney, one of Cheese Day's founders, in 2004.

L-R: (standing) Lori, Debbie, Herb, Diane, Dorothy, Don, Kate; (crouching) Julie and Allison [Tim was taking the picture!]

Here's our spread of food. On the table was ham and cheese pasta, mac and cheese, cheese-y potatoes, cheese tasties (scone-like), cheese and pineapple pizza, cheese and crackers, mozzarella and ricotta fritters, chocolate chip cheese dip with graham cracker sticks, cherry cheese pudding, and cheesecake! mmm...mm.

The last element of the festivities is the playing of "The Big Cheese"...

Debbie (pictured here having just released her cheese playing piece) and Allison emerged as victorious. In a playoff, Debbie won and was crowned, "The Big Cheese."

As proof we take "The Big Cheese" seriously, Herb is pictured here measuring (with Lori as the second official) to determine which cheese is closest to "The Big Cheese" playing piece. The person whose cheese is closest gets 3 points so we have to be accurate!

Feel free to comment below.

Republican Party "Pioneer" Reunion

Gov. and Mrs. Mark Sanford and the Republican Party hosted a reunion at the Governor’s Mansion on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008 for over three hundred Republican “pioneers,” folks active in the Party prior to 1974. SCPC was invited to mount an exhibit and the pioneers were requested to bring memorabilia to add to SCPC’s Heritage Hunt collection.

James B. Edwards, South Carolina’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, welcomed the crowd, which included such early Party luminaries as Gayle Averyt, Mark Buyck, Marshall Cain, Crawford Clarkson, John Courson, Martha Edens, Ray Harris, Tommy Hartnett, Joyce Hearn, Marshall Mays, Roger Milliken, John and Erminie Nave, Marshall Parker, Ken Powell, Arthur Ravenel, Greg Shorey, Johnnie Mac Walters, Billy Wilkins, and Ed Young, as well as congressmen Henry Brown and Joe Wilson and newly elected National Committeeman Glenn McCall.

The exhibit was well received. Six portable cases featured materials from our collections of the papers of Charlie Boineau, Jim Edwards, Edgar and Ann Morris, Ken Powell, the Republican Party, Greg Shorey, Floyd Spence, and Bill Workman, and vertical files on Marshall Parker and Albert Watson. One case was devoted to the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, a landmark event in the rise of the Republican Party in South Carolina.

We appreciate the kindnesses shown us by Rusty DePass, Gov. & Mrs. Edwards, Gov. & Mrs. Sanford, and Gay Suber in assuring that we were represented in this fine event and to thirteen pioneers who brought and donated memorabilia.

Presidential Prospects & Palmetto Politics

We mounted a new exhibit in Thomas Cooper's East Gallery on September 22nd in conjunction with an Associated Press photographic exhibit.

View of the East Gallery showing the new exhibits

One of our cases showing items from

the 1976 and 1984 presidential campaigns

The first of more than a dozen panels on display from the AP;

On September 25th AP photographer Scott Applewhite

gave a lecture sponsored by the School of Journalism and

Mass Communication and the University Libraries.

Part of the mobile exhibit we brought to the Applewhite lecture

The Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library

Today our future building, now being constructed behind Thomas Cooper Library, was officially named for Senator Fritz Hollings. The Senator's collection, recently opened to researchers, is currently our largest at 860 feet.

The Naming was marked by a reception at

Thomas Cooper at which the Senator made remarks.

Senator Hollings speaking with the press

For the reception we put together this portable

exhibit of classic Hollings photos and ephemera.

And here we are with our student assistants.