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Furman University’s Special Collections and Archives is teaming up with The Hungry Drover on Saturday, August 18. Come for lunch and stay for a poetry reading, featuring poets from the newly-published anthology “Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005.”
Lunch 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM / Poetry Reading 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
The Hungry Drover is located at 2601 Tigerville Road in Travelers Rest.
Edited by Furman faculty members Gil Allen, Jeffrey Makala and Bill Rogers, “Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005” is a new anthology of the writings of 46 contemporary South Carolina poets. The anthology’s contents were previously published in national poetry journals, chapbooks or single-authored works. As such, the anthology is the best survey and summary of the writings of South Carolina poets since the previously-published 2005 Ninety-Six Press poetry anthology.
The Ninety-Six Press, established at Furman in 1991, has published over 20 volumes of poetry by South Carolina authors. It is now part of the South Carolina Poetry Archives in the Department of Special Collections and Archives in James B. Duke Library at Furman.
The South Carolina Poetry Archives contains the papers and manuscripts of over 20 South Carolina poets and a comprehensive collection of the published writings of all South Carolina poets.
Books will be available for purchase ($20) and signing during the August 18 reading.
August 9 is the last day of Summer Session II. If you will be around between now and the first day of Fall Semester, the library is open so come and see us.
Summer Interim Hours |
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August 12 |
Sunday |
1pm-5pm |
August 13 |
Monday |
9am-5pm |
August 14 |
Tuesday |
9am-5pm |
August 15 |
Wednesday |
9am-5pm |
August 16 |
Thursday |
9am-5pm |
August 17 |
Friday |
9am-5pm |
August 18 |
Saturday |
1pm-5pm |
August 19 |
Sunday |
1pm-5pm |
August 20 |
Monday |
9am-5pm |
August 21 |
Tuesday |
9am-5pm |
August 22 |
Wednesday |
9am-5pm |
August 23 |
Thursday |
9am-5pm |
August 24 |
Friday |
9am-5pm |
August 25 |
Saturday |
1pm-7pm |
August 26 |
Sunday |
1pm-7pm |
August 27 |
Monday |
9am-6pm |
The James B. Duke Library empties out after Summer Session II. However, it’s not quite as empty as it was in this 1956 photo.
August 5, 1789
The Senate spent most of its first year setting precedents. During the month of August 1789, it established two precedents that particularly irritated President George Washington.
On August 5, for the first time, the Senate refused to confirm a presidential appointee. Ignoring the budding concept of “senatorial courtesy,” President George Washington had failed to consult with Georgia’s two senators before he nominated Benjamin Fishbourn to the post of naval officer for the Port of Savannah. One of those senators, James Gunn, favored another candidate who was a close political ally. Gunn promptly engineered the Senate rejection of Fishbourn.
From late in the 18th century until the early 1930s, senators occasionally derailed nominations for positions wholly within their states simply by proclaiming them “personally obnoxious.” No further explanation was required or expected.
On the day after the Fishbourn rejection, President Washington angrily drafted a letter to the Senate. The overly formal style of the message failed to hide the chief executive’s irritation. He began by noting that the Senate must have had its own good reasons for turning down his nominee. Then his frustration burst through. “Permit me to submit to your consideration whether on occasions where the propriety of Nominations appear questionable to you, it would not be expedient to communicate that circumstance to me, and thereby avail yourselves of the information which led me to make them, and which I would with pleasure lay before you.” He explained his own close association with Fishbourn, whom he considered brave, loyal, experienced, and—pointedly—popular among the political leaders of his state. The president then nominated a candidate acceptable to Senator Gunn.
Three weeks later, on August 22, 1789, the president visited the Senate to receive its advice and consent for an Indian treaty. He occupied the presiding officer’s chair while Senate president John Adams sat at the desk assigned to the Senate’s secretary. Intimidated by Washington’s presence, senators found it difficult to concentrate on the treaty’s provisions as Adams read them aloud. After hearing the contents of several supporting documents, members decided they needed more time. An angry president spoke for the first time during the proceedings: “This defeats every purpose of my being here!” Although he returned two days later to observe additional debate and the treaty’s approval, he conducted all further treaty business with the Senate in writing.
Further Reading
200 Notable Days: Senate Stories 1787-2002. Richard A. Baker. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006.
200 Notable Days: Senate Stories 1787-2002 includes essays about the landmark days that shaped the Senate as an institution. Arranged chronologically, this book of days collectively reveals the character of the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.”
On June 24, the governing Council of American Library Association (ALA) passed a historic resolution that “apologizes to African Americans for wrongs committed against them in segregated public libraries” and commends those “who risked their lives to integrate public libraries for their bravery and courage in challenging segregation in public libraries and in forcing public libraries to live up to the rhetoric of their ideals.” ALA President Jim Neal read the resolution later the same day to an audience gathered at the main New Orleans Public Library to hear about this neglected chapter in library history from four individuals who participated in sit-ins and protests at libraries in the South during the 1960s.
Wayne and Shirley Wiegand, authors of The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South, began the presentation with some historical context. Wayne A. Wiegand, professor of library and information studies emeritus at Florida State University, said that many of his library colleagues had been completely unaware of library sit-ins in the South and assumed that librarians had been the same champions of access to all and intellectual freedom that they are in the 21st century. “Not so,” Wiegand said. “The few public libraries in the South that did provide limited services to blacks often subjected them to experiences that were humiliating.”
During the civil rights era, Wiegand said that public libraries became an early flashpoint for desegregation. He retold the stories of the Greenville (S.C.) Eight in 1960, the Tougaloo Nine at the Jackson (Miss.) Public Library in 1961, the St. Helena Four in Greensburg, Louisiana, in 1964, as well as other sit-ins and protests that led to the desegregation of libraries in the South.
But it was the panel of four people who had actually been involved in those demonstrations that drew the most interest during the presentation.
Joan Mattison Daniel, one of the Greenville Eight, who participated in a sit-in at the Greenville (S.C.) Public Library, on March 27, 1960.
Ethel Adolphe, one of the Tougaloo Nine, who conducted a read-in at the Jackson, Mississippi, Public Library on March 27, 1961.
Ibrahim Mumin participated in a protest at the public library in Columbus, Georgia, in July 1963.
Teri Moncure Mojgani, now a librarian at Xavier University, participated in a protest at the public library in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1964.
Presentation by Joan Mattison Daniel, one of the Greenville Eight.
Save the Date: On October 3, 2018 the Friends of the Furman University Libraries will be sponsoring a CLP featuring Dr. Wayne Wiegand.
The Furman Course Catalog of 1899-1900 describes the new Alumni Hall that had just been erected on the downtown campus at a cost of twenty thousand dollars.
“The building is modern in construction and contains, besides two lecture rooms and two spacious halls for the Adelphian and Philosophian Societies, a large auditorium . . . will seat nearly a thousand persons . . . . The windows of the entire building are of opal art glass, affording a soft mellow light with a pleasing effect.”
The building was later named the Judson Alumni Hall in honor of long-time professor and Dean Dr. Charles H. Judson.
The 1900 Commencement exercises were held in the new building, and visitors to that function immediately commented on the fifteen stained-glass windows fixed inside the Hall. Manufactured by the F.J. Cooledge Art Glass Company of Atlanta, the windows figured prominently in The Baptist Courier’s descriptions of the Commencement.
“It was a happy thought of the building committee,” the Courier wrote, “to adopt the memorial window feature.” “The windows place[d] before the students and the coming generations the names of men who helped to make the University and the denomination (Baptists) in South Carolina.”
Information, unfortunately, is sketchy as to the creation of the windows. At least one window’s birth, however, appears to originate from funds collected by the Spartanburg Baptist Association. The Association Minutes list the cost of a window as approximately $200.00, and the Association resolved to raise the money necessary for one window.
Most of the window panels were saved when the downtown campus was razed in the 1960s. The panels were crated and put in storage, not to be accessed again until 2003 when the James B. Duke Library was undergoing renovation. The panels currently grace the library and other buildings on campus.
Pitts Room, James B. Duke Library
What are some of the most frequently requested materials in Special Collections and Archives?
University Course Catalogs The University Archives maintains a complete run of catalogs for Furman University, which contain descriptions of all courses offered at Furman from 1852 to present. An incomplete run of catalogs for the Greenville Woman’s College begins in 1857. All course catalogs can also be viewed online in the Digital Collections Center.
Bonhomie Yearbook This growing collection contains all the Furman University Bonhomie yearbooks from 1901-present, as well as selected Greenville Woman’s College yearbooks from 1901-1932.
Inside Furman Online Inside Furman, a newsletter for the university’s faculty, staff, retirees and friends, is published quarterly during the school year. The publication has been recognized regionally and nationally for excellence. In Inside Furman you will find university news items, colorful employee profiles, a listing of faculty/staff activities and departmental news. The newsletter is produced by Furman’s Office of Marketing and Public Relations.
The Robert J. Maxwell Media Center and Library is named for Mr. Robert J. Maxwell, Jr., a local philanthropist. Mr. Maxwell believed that “God had blessed him with wealth, and his burden was to use it wisely,”* and so during his life and through his estate, he gave generously to those around him who were in need, including thirteen non-profit agencies, churches, and colleges. In addition to being the named donor for the Media Center, Mr. Maxwell funded the Vickwell voice scholarships and endowed other scholarships in Art and Psychology. In addition to this support, he befriended and assisted a number of other music students. A member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenville, Mr. Maxwell was a singer and music enthusiast. He was a humble, eccentric, and generous man. Each Christmas he gave friends and professional associates presents he carefully chose and wrapped himself or cookies he baked. Mr. Maxwell was a 1941 graduate of the University of Georgia who majored in English and was a stickler for proper grammar. He passed away December 31, 1998.
*Quote by Bing Vick in Abe Hardesty, “Robert Jefferson Maxwell Jr.,” City People Section, Greenville News, June 28, 2000.
J. Martin England was born in the mill town of Seneca, South Carolina in 1901. He received degrees from Furman University in 1924, and from Crozer Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania. England received an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity from Furman University in 1986.
From 1933 until 1939 and again from 1945 to 1950, England and his wife served as Northern Baptist missionaries in Burma. After the Japanese Army overran Burma the England’s returned to the United States and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. A mutual acquaintance, Walter Nathan Johnson, introduced England to Clarence Jordan (1912-1969), a farmer, Greek scholar, and Southern Baptist minister, and they realized they shared a dream of creating an intentional community in the southern United States based on modern agricultural economy, a commitment to biblical ethics, and a desire for racial reconciliation for the South. England and Jordon, along with their wives, moved to Americus, Georgia, bought some land, and started Koinonia Farm in 1942. After the Japanese left Burma, the England’s returned to the mission field in 1945.
After returning to the United States in 1950, England became involved in civil rights work and in peace activism from the 1950s to the 1980s. As a staff member of the American Baptist Church’s Minister and Missionaries Benefit Board, England arranged to provide Martin Luther King with a retirement and death benefit policy just months before King was assassinated.
England retired in 1972 and passed away January 2, 1989 in Somerset, N.J.
Furman University’s Special Collections and Archives houses The J. Martin England Papers. This collection contains correspondence, handwritten and typed notes, essays, and several articles written by England. The handwritten notes are from the time that England and his family lived in Burma and notes England made after he returned to the United States that reflected on his Burman experiences. The notes focus particularly on his appraisal of the differences and similarities between life in Burma and life in the United States, especially between life among the Kachin peoples, with whom England and his wife, Mabel Orr England, and their children lived and worked. A letter Martin wrote Johnson was published in the newsletter, The Next Step in the Churches, and led directly to the creation of Koinonia Farm.