Last exhibit before we move!

We recently put up our last exhibit in the East Gallery at Thomas Cooper. (The gallery is just inside the front doors to the left.) After May, we'll move to our beautiful new gallery in the Hollings Library!

“South Carolina Governors” offers a snapshot into the administrations of 11 men who have led our fair state since 1935. They are: Olin D. Johnston, George Bell Timmerman, Fritz Hollings, Donald Russell, Robert McNair, John West, James Edwards, Richard Riley, Carroll Campbell, Jr., James Hodges, and finally, Mark Sanford.

On the left we have one of Campbell's royal blue re-election t-shirts and the top notecard from a 1991 speech of his. On the right you'll see a colorful copy of Jim Hodges' second State of the State Address and some of Mark Sanford's campaign materials.

By February, there will be a video accompanying the exhibit, showing a few minutes of speeches, interviews, etc. of each governor at work (drawn from archival footage held by SCPC and Newsfilm Collections here at USC).

And FYI, many of these collections are open to research. Check out the finding aids for the collections of: Olin D. Johnston, George Bell Timmerman, Fritz Hollings, Donald Russell, Robert McNair, and John West.

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!

Archives Month is here

We are in the closing days of American Archives Month, a month-long celebration of all things archival. In honor of Archives Month, I thought now to be a good time to take a look at the resources on our website that might aid you, friend of the archive, in your research.

Digital Collections
I. DeQuincey Newman Papers -- a Methodist pastor, activist, entrepreneur, and a leading figure in the Civil Rights movement in South Carolina. His entire collection is digitized. Some documents are available online through the link above. Others may only be viewed from a computer at SCPC.

Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words --200 of Senator Hollings' writings, speeches, photographs, and audio files from his days as Lt. Governor, Governor, and U.S. Senator.

Online Exhibits
The Acerbic Pen: Editorial Cartoons from the Collections of Walt Lardner and Kate Salley Palmer. At left is a Lardner cartoon about the Hunger tours of the late 1960s and early 1970s embarked on by Senator Hollings and Governor West.

Exhibits on Robert McNair, Donald Russell, Floyd Spence, and John West

Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words -- 200 items from the Papers of Fritz Hollings

Research Guides
Civil Rights material and Women's History material at SCPC.

Bibliographies
Books written by and about our donors (like Jack Bass, Kate Salley Palmer, and C. Bruce Littlejohn)

Memoirs of U.S. Representatives and Senators.

New Finding Aids for Hollings Collection

More finding aids for the Ernest F. Hollings Collection are now on our website. Check them out! You'll find guides to Hollings' Gubernatorial Papers, his Personal Papers (except for his Campaign Files -- that will be up in a few weeks), and most of his Senate Papers.

For his Senate Papers (1966-2004), 3 files list every folder of legislative material and constituent correspondence -- Folder List #1 (1966-78), Folder List #2 (1979-90), and Folder List #3 (1991-2004). Aids for Press and Media, Travel Files, and Voting Record are also up.

Some documents in Press and Media are part of "Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words". Of the 200 writings, speeches, photographs, and audio files in this online exhibit, you'll find 57 articles written by Hollings for newspapers and magazines, 65 newsletters (like the partial front page of one shown above from Aug. 1976) and newsletter articles sent to South Carolinians from the late 1960s through mid-1980s, and a few press releases.

So if you can't make it down to SCPC on the USC Campus, check out some of Hollings' material online.

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.

Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words

We're proud to announce the completion of “Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words,” a digitized collection of 200 items chosen from the Papers of Senator Ernest F. Hollings, representing his service to South Carolina as Lt. Governor, Governor, and U.S. Senator.

Speeches, letters-to-the-editor, newsletters, and newspaper and magazine articles are supplemented by 11 audio excerpts and numerous photographs of the Senator at press conferences, on the Senate floor, and in Senate committee meetings and hearings (like the one above of the Senator talking at a crowded Senate Finance Committee hearing, July 17, 1985).

Through these items, those unfamiliar with Hollings’ career and accomplishments can discover his intellect, unflinching honesty, and sense of humor – qualities that often captivated his colleagues, the press, and his constituents…whether they agreed with him or not.

Visitors may search through the material in a number of ways. They may do a keyword search of all the items OR pull up a list of all items from a specific decade OR pull up all documents of a certain type (like articles or letters or audio excerpts). They can also visit a page with over 200 subject terms. You want to know if any of the 200 items talks about NOAA or footwear or Voodoo Economics? Well, the subjects page will tell you.

To view these items, visit: http://sc.edu/library/digital/collections/hollings.html.

Forming a New Government

Just in time for Inauguration Day, we have mounted a new exhibit titled "Forming a New Government."

One of the first and most important tasks facing a new president-elect is selecting nominees for Cabinet and ambassadorial positions. Four prominent presidential appointees, whose papers are held by SCPC, are represented in the exhibit:

John West, ambassador to Saudi Arabia under President Carter;

Jim Edwards, Secretary of Energy under President Reagan;

Dick Riley, Secretary of Education under President Clinton (shown above);

and David Wilkins, ambassador to Canada under President George W. Bush.

The exhibit will be on display in the East Gallery of Thomas Cooper Library until March 31.

"Christmas on the Potomac"

Please go to the East Gallery on the ground floor of Thomas Cooper Library to see SCPC's Christmas card exhibit. This year's theme is presidential greetings, and we have included a variety of cards sent by presidents from Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson to Clinton and Bush. The exhibit will be on display from December 1st through January 15, 2009.
Merry Christmas!

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.