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Craft and Crum Family Papers Link Charleston and England

By on August 30, 2010 in Guest Contributor, New Acquisitions

Today’s post was authored by a Guest Contributor,  independent historian Jeffrey Green of England.

When I returned to Charleston in June 2010 to attend the Charleston Jazz Initiative’s weekend, I visited the Avery Research Center to investigate a postcard of Buckingham Palace. Mailed in 1914, the postcard was addressed to the son of English-born Ellen Craft Crum of Charleston.

Edmund Jenkins to Aubine Craft

Postcard from Edmund Jenkins to Aubine Craft

Prior to my South Carolina excursion, an Avery archivist had contacted me as the card seemed to be from Edmund Jenkins, whose biography I wrote in 1982.  I drove twenty miles to Ockham Park, where Ellen Craft Crum’s fugitive slave parents had lived in the 1850s, in order to visit All Saints Church and examine its baptism register.   The link between Charleston and England continued, as I discovered images of that very church in Avery’s recent acquisition, the Craft and Crum Family Papers.

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Ordinary Objects, Unexpectedly Profound

By on May 24, 2010 in Artifacts

To many of us Westerners, African art exudes an aura of otherworldly mysticism.  We think of intricate masks and figures that resemble beings not human, or ritual objects with mysterious powers that we are unable to exploit.  These ritual objects, of course, have incredible cultural value; but in some cases, the everyday and seemingly mundane can communicate an even deeper, richer part of a civilization’s existence.

An example that I have found to be unexpectedly profound is African stools.  Some are simple, some are elaborate, and the scope of variety is incredible.  Aside from the aesthetic value of these objects, they symbolize much deeper aspects of daily life.

Not to over-glorify what is often merely a carved piece of wood, many stools are simply furniture, a place to sit, with no deeper significance.  But others serve very particular purposes for milestones in life such as births, initiations, deaths, or marriage.  Often they are status symbols of the political or spiritual elite, similar to a Western king’s throne.

Dogon stool

Wooden stool, ART 1996.001.008, Muriel and Marcus Zbar Collection

The stool featured above, part of the Muriel and Marcus Zbar Collection, is from the Dogon people of Mali.  Traditionally, the Dogon worship ancestral spirits called nommo, represented here in the center of the stool.  The bottom disc represents the earth, the top disc represents the heaven or sky, and the nommo are the essential beings that responsible for holding the universe together and providing a link between the two worlds.  These stools used to be symbols of authority for hogons, or priests, and were never actually used as seats.

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$25 and a 9 Hour Ride

By on April 24, 2010 in Oral Histories

Working on Avery’s Oral History Collection for the past few months has probably taught me more history about the Lowcountry region and the Civil Rights Movement than any other educational source. So today, I want to share with you a tiny part of an interview with Septima Poinsette Clark that was recorded in 1982, which struck me for various reasons. It is fascinating to hear this lady -– the Grandmother of the Civil Rights Movement –- talk about her family history and her upbringing on Henrietta Street.  (Did you know that Charleston is actually more residentially segregated today than it ever was?)

Septima Clark with papers

I’m sure most of you have heard of Ms. Clark, who is an alumna of the Avery Normal Institute, in the context of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and her alliance with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Some of you may also know that she actually got banned from teaching in Charleston in 1956 because she was a member of the NAACP — two years after the Supreme Court ruled Brown vs. the Board of Education unconstitutional!

But what really caught my attention in this oral history was Ms. Clark recounting her first teaching experience on John’s Island.  Back in 1916, it actually took a nine-hour boat ride through the creeks, depending on the tide,  to get to the island from Charleston since there were no bridges. Can you imagine?

Click to play excerpt from the Oral History Interview with Septima Clark by Jean-Claude Boffard, 1982

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Welcome

By on February 15, 2010 in CLIR

Welcome to the new blog of the Avery Research Center Archives.

In 2008, the Council for Library and Information Resources (CLIR) awarded the Avery Research Center the prestigious “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” grant.  This Hidden Collection grant affirms the national importance of Avery’s collections, which center on African American culture in coastal South Carolina.  Among Avery’s riches, we will be processing the Holloway family scrapbook; papers and oral histories of Civil Rights leaders; materials related to the experiences of African American women and sweetgrass basketmakers; and the notes, recordings, artifacts, and files of renowned anthropologists Joseph Towles and Colin Turnbull.

The work began in 2009, with a CLIR team of Project Manager, Project Archivist, Project Registrar, and three project assistants hired to increase intellectual and physical control of materials and to enhance access to documents, photographs, sound files, and three-dimensional objects.  Our team arranges and describes archival materials to national standards and produces finding aids that are publicly available online.  We are leveraging this  incredible opportunity to digitize oral histories and have undertaken a potentially groundbreaking initiative to provide digital access to the artifact collection.  Through this grant, Avery is able to effectively participate in the Lowcountry Digital Library and is now taking a leadership role in metadata standards.

The CLIR team and Avery staff hope to share our excitement over the treasures found within these red brick walls.  Through our actions and these posts, we aspire to innovate, liberate, and communicate.

We do hope you will join the discussion by commenting or providing additional information on the posted items or topics.

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