Yale University’s Beinecke Library announces the recent acquisition of the archive of Thomas Thistlewood, eighteenth-century British planter in Jamaica.   Spanning more than thirty-five years, from before Thistlewood’s arrival in Jamaica in 1750 through his death in 1786, the archive comprises some 92 volumes of diaries and notebooks. 

The archive has already been the subject of several important recent works by scholars including James Walvin, Trevor Burnard, Douglas Hall, and Michael Chenoweth.    The collection adds to the Beinecke’s already extensive manuscript and archival holdings for early modern British history and materials relating to slavery and abolition, and will prove an invaluable resource for scholarship in the Atlantic World, the Caribbean, African Diaspora Studies, cultures of empire, and British and European history.

Once catalogued, the collection will be open for research. For more information contact Kathryn James at kathryn.james@yale.edu.

SC State University 1890 Research & Extension is among several organizations and businesses to join the City of Charleston in its efforts to revitalize the area where the former Cooper River bridges once touched down, near Cooper and Meeting streets. The 1890 Program has plans to develop an outreach community center, where extension educators will offer GED classes, nutrition education, youth-oriented programs, agriculture-related workshops and other programs and services relevant to the community needs. Development of the center will further enhance the existing services and programs that 1890 Extension provides to businesses, families and individuals in Charleston. Report of the community center was published Aug. 30 in the Charleston Post and Courier’s “Bridge-area makeover in slow lane: College plans community outreach center.”

The 1890 Research & Extension Program will provide updates on the development of the center as they become available.