Creating the South Caroliniana Library

By John M. Bryan and W. Eric Emerson

The South Caroliniana Library, located on the historic Horseshoe of the University of South Carolina campus in Columbia, is one of the premier research archives and special collections repositories in South Carolina and the American Southeast. The library's holdings—manuscripts, published materials, university archives, and visual materials—are essential to understanding the Palmetto State and Southern culture as it has evolved over the past 300 years.

When opened as the South Carolina College library in 1840 it was the first freestanding academic library building in the United States. Designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument, it is built in the Greek Revival style and features a replica of the reading room that once housed Thomas Jefferson's personal library in the second Library of Congress. When the college built a larger main library (now known as the McKissick Museum) in 1940, the Mills building became the home of "Caroliniana"—published and unpublished materials relating to the history, literature, and culture of South Carolina.

Through a dedicated mining of the resources this library has held, art historian John M. Bryan crafted this comprehensive narrative history of the building's design, construction, and renovations, which he enhanced with personal entries from the diaries and letters of the students, professors, librarians, and politicians who crossed its threshold. A treasure trove of Caroliniana itself, this colorful volume, featuring 95 photographs and illustrations, celebrates a beautiful and historic structure, as well as the rich and vibrant history of the Palmetto State and the dedicated citizenry who have worked so hard to preserve it.

A foreword is provided by W. Eric Emerson, director, South Carolina Department of History and Archives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643360652

Book preview

CREATING the SOUTH CAROLINIANA LIBRARY

© 2020 University of South Carolina

Published by the University of South Carolina Press

Columbia, South Carolina 29208

WWW.USCPRESS.COM

Designed by Nathan W. Moehlmann, Goosepen Studio & Press

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/.

ISBN: 978-1-64336-064-5 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-64336-065-2 (ebook)

Frontispiece: Harry Dodge Jenkins,

University of South Carolina Library, watercolor, 1927.

To

ANNA DAVIS KING

(1914–2012)

An inspiring librarian

Contents

Foreword

W. ERIC EMERSON

Preface

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE

The College Library before the Library Building

CHAPTER TWO

Robert Mills and the College Library

CHAPTER THREE

The College Library, 1840–1932

CHAPTER FOUR

Collecting Caroliniana

CHAPTER FIVE

The South Caroliniana Library

Appendix One

Robert Woodward Barnwell to the Honorable Board of Trustees …

Appendix Two

Construction Contract and Specifications

Appendix Three

A Description of the University of South Carolina Library … , 1877

Appendix Four

Minutes of Various Committees

Appendix Five

Remarks on the … Publication of The Papers of John C. Calhoun … , 1959

Appendix Six

Benjamin Henry Latrobe to John Ewing Colhoun, April 17, 1802

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Foreword

IN MANY WAYS, THE HISTORY OF the South Caroliniana Library mirrors the history of South Carolina. As John M. Bryan so adeptly demonstrates in this volume, the fortunes of the library at South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina) follow closely the economic fortunes of the state. From its beginnings it benefited from a booming state economy, which was driven by profits accrued from the cultivation and sale of cash crops made possible by the toil of an enslaved African majority. With its affluence, South Carolina sought to create a state college that would educate the young men of its most prosperous planter families. Remarkably, even during this early period, the college’s library accounted for as many volumes as much older and more prestigious institutions in the North.

As the college grew, so did its reputation. That the library’s architect, Robert Mills, would for at least the next two centuries be recognized as the Palmetto State’s (and one of the nation’s) greatest architects, only enhanced the prestige of the college and the library that stood at the center of its intellectual life. This volume thoroughly documents the architectural development of the college’s libraries, with special emphasis on Mills’s building, which today houses the archival collections of the South Caroliniana Library. Bryan’s affinity for, and thorough knowledge of, his subject is evident in the historical architectural drawings and vivid descriptions that detail the substance, look, and feel of the college’s libraries.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, South Carolina College and its library, like the state, entered a period of decline. The conflict left South Carolina impoverished, and the state’s college suffered the neglect that accompanies any period of financial penury in state government. Reconstruction would introduce, for a brief time, a state university open to any and all South Carolina men regardless of race, but the institution struggled to survive. The end of Reconstruction brought the institution’s closure, and the reopening of the college with segregated admission policies did little to reinvigorate the moribund school. The national institutions, with which South Carolina College and its library had briefly competed, outdistanced their former challenger.

Since those decades of prosperity and subsequent penury, the library has remained at the intellectual center of the college’s activities. Its twentieth-century growth and the subsequent creation of the South Caroliniana Library followed a common path taken by libraries across the nation, which sought to separate circulating materials from rare manuscript collections that focused on certain topics or geographic locations. The South Caroliniana Library’s collections would include papers and volumes related to the state, and it would join the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and the South Carolina Historical Society as one of three great manuscript repositories devoted to telling South Carolina’s story.

As external forces had shaped the fortunes of the South Carolina College library during and after the Civil War, they also impacted the University’s later efforts to collect South Caroliniana. In 1930 the University of North Carolina established the Southern Historical Collection and appointed J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton as its first director. Hamilton spent decades traveling the South and purchasing manuscript collections, including a significant number of South Carolina letters and diaries. Not to be outdone by their rival, Duke University purchased other valuable South Carolina collections for its rare book and manuscript library. The establishment of the South Caroliniana Library would prove to be an important and urgent countermeasure to these and other efforts to spirit away the state’s written and printed treasures.

As it struggled to succeed, and later prospered, the South Caroliniana Library was blessed with professional staff and supporters who would be the envy of institutions nationwide. Bryan’s history stands out because he has taken time to personalize the institution’s journey by telling the stories of those dedicated individuals who made critical and enduring contributions, from long-serving directors Robert L. Meriwether, Erwin L. Inabinett, Allen H. Stokes Jr., and current director Henry Fulmer, to inspired and dedicated staff members and volunteers. This volume documents the stories of those individuals who played a vital role in ensuring the success of this noteworthy institution.

The long history of the South Caroliniana Library is one of success in the face of substantial obstacles. From its earliest origins among the ranks of the largest academic libraries in the nation, to its current role as the architecturally significant home to the state’s largest private manuscript collection dedicated to South Caroliniana, it remains at the center of the University’s historical and intellectual endeavors.

W. ERIC EMERSON

Preface

Libraries provide the bridge over which civilization travels from century to century and hemisphere to hemisphere.

FRANCIS LIEBER, quoted in Patrick Roughen, Francis Lieber and the South Carolina College Library

THE COLUMNS OF THE South Caroliniana Library evoke a sense of heritage, continuity, and quietude. We think of the building as a local landmark. In reality, however, it is neither quiet nor local. It is a hive of activity, and it becomes more meaningful when we remember outside forces that have influenced every aspect of its evolution.

The Caroliniana building was designed by Robert Mills and built in 1840 as the first freestanding academic library in the United States. It served the college for a century. When the college became a university and, in 1940, built a larger library, the historic Mills building became the home of Caroliniana— material related to the history of the state.

Exploring the history of the old library, we encounter the visions and constraints of the nineteenth-century builders. We recall where the college library moved and why. Librarians play cameo roles too: James Divver, an Irish immigrant who landed in New Brunswick, and his wanderings thence I cannot trace; he came to Newberry … with his bundle on a stick, and taught a common country school. He studied classics in Newberry and Laurens, entered the junior class at the South Carolina College, and was hired as librarian while still an undergraduate. Another librarian, Erastus Everson, was a Union veteran who ran afoul of the Ku Klux Klan and carried seven bullets in his body. In 1875, anticipating the end of Reconstruction, Everson slipped away without giving notice. Everson’s successor, R. T. Greener, is especially memorable as the first African American graduate of Harvard and the first African American professor at the South Carolina College, and for an eventful career that included a posting as U.S. consul in Vladivostok, Russia. Margaret H. Rion should be remembered too, for around 1906 she started gathering Caroliniana into one of the reading room alcoves as a separate collection.

The 1876 national centennial stimulated interest in American history. Historians at the time were beginning to emphasize the use of original documents, and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, public and private collections of historical materials grew rapidly. Depressionera federal programs accelerated and codified archival activities, and the development of the Caroliniana Library was part of a nationwide movement to preserve, organize, and use historical documents.

Prof. Robert Lee Meriwether (1890–1958) is remembered as the founding father of the Caroliniana. He envisioned an ongoing effort to gather all types of material related to the history of the state; in 1937 he organized the University South Caroliniana Society, which still actively supports the library.

The South Carolina College received its first manuscript, The Carolinian Florist, as a donation from Gov. John Drayton in 1807. Today, in addition to printed items, the Caroliniana contains approximately 7,000 manuscript collections totaling about 11,520,000 pages. These letters, business records, diaries, and the related oral history interviews and photographs are maintained in climate-controlled storage. This material is similar to the miscellaneous family papers and photographs that many of us intend to organize one day. Librarians at the Caroliniana believe this material is important, for the Caroliniana is dedicated to the idea that all history is ultimately personal.

Lulled by the tranquility of the reading room, we are apt to forget the collection is an organic, growing thing. Behind the scenes, staff members are always processing donations and preparing indexes. Others are addressing curatorial problems; repairing, filing, and storing fragile material; maintaining the shelves by checking the location of each item; noting the condition of bindings; re-housing (making acid-free wrappings for fragile items); adding bar codes; and helping on-site researchers. The staff also deals with correspondence and telephone requests, makes copies of historic material, copes with logistics (the collection is housed in four locations), maintains websites, digitizes collections, organizes exhibitions, prepares newsletters, and hosts sundry events.

Much of the work is done outside the historic Mills building. The oral historian conducts interviews, the field archivist seeks material, and friends of the library often alert the staff that something meaningful may be available. The Caroliniana Library is a busy place.

Finally architecture, like orchestral music, is a social art, for many people are involved in the creation and use of a building. Thinking about the library and its collections evokes what Lincoln called the mystic chords of memory that swell and summon the better angels of our nature.

By putting South Carolinians literally in touch with history, the Caroliniana expands our lives.

Acknowledgments

The affliction lacks a proper name, but a lot of us have it and most of us are not looking for a cure. It is the passion for libraries.

PAUL DICKSON, The Library in America

ANNIVERSARIES PROMPT REFLECTION, and Henry G. Fulmer, director of the Caroliniana, suggested this book as part of the library’s 175th birthday celebration. I want to thank him; Kenneth L. Childs, president of the University South Caroliniana Society, and Thomas F. McNally, dean of university libraries at the University of South Carolina, for their support.

Many people contributed to the research and production. Derek Gruner, university architect, analyzed Robert Mills’s sketches and prepared drawings to help readers see what Mills envisioned. Yancey R. Modesto, an architect who works with Derek, helped with computer graphics.

Current and former Caroliniana staff made the project a pleasure. Edward Blessing worked with me every day. Mike Berry, Beth Bilderback, Travis Bland, Brian Cuthrell, Todd Hoppock, Craig Keeney, Terry Liscomb, Nathan Saunders, Lorrey Stewart, Linda Stewart, and Don Turner located resources. Andrea L’Hommedieu, the oral historian, provided transcripts of interviews. Elizabeth West, university archivist, retrieved administrative records, and Nicholas Doyle, an undergraduate intern, found pivotal documents in the Meriwether papers. In addition to dealing with questions, Graham Duncan also coordinated the acquisition of illustrations. Conversations with Ron Bridwell, Andrew Chandler, Robin Copp, Fritz Hamer, Rachel Haynie, Jamie Hendrick, Tom Johnson, Charles H. Lesser, David Rembert, Patrick Scott, Allen Stokes, Harvey Teal, and Robert Wynn were always productive.

In preparation for the restoration of the Caroliniana, many records have been moved to the Thomas Cooper Library. I am grateful to the Thomas Cooper staff; their contributions appear on almost every page. Joseph Askins, Marilee Birchfield, Kate Boyd, Karen Brown, Alexandra Trim, Timothy Simmons, Elizabeth Sudduth, William E. Sudduth III, Sharon Verba, Stacy Winchester, and the computer magicians Lance Dupre and Randy Heard—all of them helped.

Whitman Page and Elaine E. Sandberg, reference librarians at the State Library, often helped me find things.

Beyond the libraries, Christian Cicimurri, curator of collections at the university’s McKissick Museum, took me behind the scenes to see Thomas Cooper’s collection of minerals, fossils, and handwritten labels; Stephen Tuttle and Marion Chandler, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, made state records accessible. Douglas Evelyn, former Smithsonian Institution administrator and director of the Papers of Robert Mills project, was, as always, helpful; Skip Moskey of Washington, D.C., author and historian, located the 1837 advertisement for the library building, and Robert Stockton, a distinguished Charleston historian, made the Caroliniana–Towell Library connection. I would also like to thank Pat Callahan, editorial, design, and production director, and her colleagues at the University of South Carolina Press.

I am especially grateful to two friends: Hunter Clarkson, who made many of the new images, and Lynn Barron for proofreading the draft.

CHAPTER ONE

The COLLEGE LIBRARY before the LIBRARY BUILDING

A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden

JOHN DRAYTON (1766–1822) DONATED his illustrated, handwritten copy of The Carolinian Florist to the South Carolina College in 1807. As the first manuscript acquired by the college, it is the cornerstone of the current collection of more than 11.5 million sheets.

The Florist’s skillfully rendered illustrations, Latin taxonomy, and references to European botanical literature suggest its author never knew turmoil, that he lived a life of leisure. This is not the case. His mother died when he was four years old, and his father, William Henry Drayton, died when young John was eleven. His father’s brother, Charles Drayton, controlled the Drayton patrimony and effectively disinherited John and his younger sister, Mary. As a young man, John studied in England and France. He returned to Charleston, read law with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and sued his uncle Charles. John Drayton claimed his grandfather’s will had been misconstrued. He lost the first lawsuit but sued again and won. He did not win Drayton Hall, the ancestral seat, but the financial settlement made him financially secure and enabled him to enter politics.¹

Rutledge College, circa 1875. All illustrations courtesy of the Caroliniana Library unless otherwise noted.

As governor, John Drayton approved the act creating the South Carolina College on December 19, 1801. When the new college opened three years later, on January 10, 1805, with nine students, two faculty members, and one building, the library was on the second floor above the chapel in Rutledge College. Rutledge resembled Nassau Hall at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where most of the South Carolina College trustees had been students. They lived in the wings of Nassau Hall and used its library, a spacious room on the second floor, for it was the usual practice in the early decades of the nineteenth century to locate the library on the second floor of a three- or four-story multipurpose building. In addition to New Jersey and South Carolina, this was done at Yale in 1763, Bowdoin in 1805, Wesleyan in 1824, and Brown in 1835.² The structural reason for this arrangement was that these rooms were about the same size and served all of the college community.³

The South Carolina College was just getting underway when Edward Hooker, a young tutor from Connecticut, mentioned its library in his diary:

The central parts [of Rutledge] are designed for the Chapel, Library, Philosophical Chamber, Recitation rooms, etc. — the wings are designed for scholars’ mansion rooms…. The chapel occupies the two lower stories of the central building … and is in a beautiful style of workmanship both within and without. The Library room above is supported by four stately Tuscan