Category: Documents

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Documents Exhibits Photographs

World War I and the Student Army Training Corps

American entry into World War I in April 1917 saw the Army begin to scramble to find enough trained officers.  Many Wofford students and alumni entered military service directly, and President Henry Nelson Snyder put the college on a more military footing as soon as the United States entered the war.  In 1918, the college organized the student body into a Student Army Training Corps to provide military training to almost every student.  The SATC dominated life on campus through the remainder of World War I.  When the war ended, the student body quickly reverted to civilian control.  The success of the SATC set the stage for the creation of ROTC in 1919.   

  • SATC Sophomores
    Sophomores in Wofford’s Student Army Training Corps, 1918
  • Leaders of Company A
  • Company A, SATC
    Company A of the Student Army Training Corps
  • The Student Army Training Corps Band
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Alumni Documents Exhibits Faculty

Bourne on the Societies

I wrote a piece on Prof. W. Raymond Bourne, class of 1923, recently, and since we have a literary society exhibit up right now, and I’m trying to feature some stories about that right now, I’m going to include a piece Professor Bourne wrote about the literary societies in the 1954 Wofford centennial edition of the Herald-Journal.

“When I first knew the college, in the fall of 1920 the societies met every Friday evening right after supper. Normally there would be the role call, discussion of business, and an oration or two, debate, and sometimes the reading of original compositions of varying kinds. Judges were named for each debate and a decision was rendered. At the end of the program, the critics offered comment on the quality of each performance.

“Sometimes a member assigned to speak by the program committee would be absent. If he had no acceptable excuse, he was fined it for non-performance of duty. In his absence, volunteers were called for, and if there were no volunteers, the president appointed someone to take his place. So those who value the opportunity got to speak to their hearts content. But the mood of 30 years earlier, when the meetings had lasted sometimes into the morning, it was gone, and the meetings were generally over by 9 PM.

“At this time, the societies controlled the three campus publications. Also the societies gate a few public performances in the chapel, notably the sophomore oration, and the general oration on February 22.

“As late as the early 20s, white tie and tails were required for formal public appearance in one of the contests. And while an occasional boy with only one pair of shoes to his name might appear in brown footwear, lapses of this kind were infrequent. The audience appeared in whole suits, with collar and tie.

“Today the publications board has to go down to the sophomore class to find editors, even for salaries. The Glee Club gives almost the only student public performances in the chapel, and it is entirely controlled by a faculty member, Professor Sam Moyer.

“So, in the course of a century, the college literary societies gave their opportunities for intellectual growth and a surface polish. They have passed, with their demands on time and attention, and have been replaced by other activities such as athletics, social fraternities, dances, marriage, and plain and ordinary sitting. The 20th century of wealth for everybody is well underway and all educational procedures are under survey.”

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Alumni Brushes with History Documents

Remembering Wofford’s World War I fatalities

Today is Armistice Day – the 99th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Seventeen Wofford graduates and students, including three graduates of Wofford’s Fitting School, died during the First World War.  The College’s Alumni Bulletin published their photographs and biographies in 1919, and the College remembered their service and sacrifice at a memorial service during Commencement 1919.

Below are the pictures of those 17 who gave their lives in the war to end all wars.

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Documents

A Hundred Years Ago in the Advocate

This was my column for the October 2017 edition of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate

South Carolina’s Methodists were well aware of world affairs a hundred years ago this month.  With American entry into World War I, one Advocate columnist predicted that American entry would tip the balance in favour of the Allies.  Another South Carolina missionary in Brazil wrote about his work there.  And Methodists celebrated their community at the annual Indian Fields camp meeting.  Here are some of the stories from the Advocate of October 1917.

Dr. David Duncan Wallace writes:  The longer the war goes on the more evident it becomes that those German authorities were correct who had preached before the outbreak of the conflict that Germany’s hope for victory in the war would be in an overwhelming assault at the front. When this plan failed because of the unexpected resisting power of France and the invaluable aid rendered by the small British contingent that did not know how to be defeated, the German hope of victory was really scuttled. The British drive now on in Flanders is accompanied by a barrage fire beyond anything in intensity, constancy and effectiveness that either side has ever seen.

If Russia had stood firm, the end of the war would have been immensely hastened. With the advent of great American armies next summer, the end it is all together reasonable to anticipate will be brought about inside of that year.

Cyrus B. Dawsey, a South Carolina missionary in Brazil, wrote this letter to the Advocate’s editor: 

My dear Dr. Stackhouse: we were delighted to get your letter written just after the Wofford commencement.

A few days ago I returned from our annual conference in Rio de Janeiro. Bishop Mouzon is not with us.  However we had a splendid conference. The reports of both native and missionaries are the finest in all the history of our Brazilian work. Even though the times have been hard on account of the war, yet our financial reports were excellent. Our Sunday school gain was more than three times the gain of 1915-1916.  Our Epworth league also made a forward step.  In fact, all of our work was greatly advance during the year. I believe it all points toward a great of a day for Brazil. Those of us who are here are glad that we have a part in this change for the better.

My territory is all new. So many times do I preach to people who have never before heard the Gospel. Next Sunday I shall receive into the church a man who had never attended a Protestant service until he moved here some months ago.

Finally, this report summarized the annual camp meeting at Indian Fields, which is still going strong a century later.

Indian Fields camp meeting closed Sunday which was the biggest day of the camp and a number of people from Charleston drove up in machines [automobiles] to spend the day. From Summerville to the camp there was a continuous stream of vehicles from the high powered motor car to the old farm wagon pulled by a mule.

The camp meeting is held every year and is one of several held in the state, the next one being in about three weeks time at Cypress. The roads to the camp were in good condition, this being another attraction for a Sunday afternoon drive, and machines were in evidence from every part of the state. A number of machines were advertising the Orangeburg County fair, showing that Orangeburg was well represented. The campgrounds are situated on a beautiful site about 3 miles from St. George, well shaded by large pine trees. The tabernacle is in the center of a large tract of land, full of stately pines and surrounded by a number of small houses called tents by the campers.

Categories
Brushes with History Documents

Gerald D. Sanders: Wofford’s War Poet

One of Wofford’s 1918 graduates, Gerald D. Sanders had written regularly for the Journal while a student. Shortly before his graduation, he found himself on the way to France as a member of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. He wrote several poems while overseas, and they wound up being published in the Journal the next year.

Sanders later earned his PhD in English and taught at Michigan State Normal College, Cornell, and the University of Arizona. He lived in Spartanburg in retirement, and the archives has a small collection of his papers. He was the author of Chief Modern Poets of Britain and America, and Unified English Composition, among other works. He died in 1983.

Here are a few of his poems. You can see other material that is part of our World War One At Home and Abroad exhibit in the Sandor Teszler Library Gallery this fall.

Categories
Brushes with History Documents

World War One: At Home and Abroad

This fall, the Sandor Teszler Library has an exhibit on World War One at Home and Abroad in the library gallery. Most of the items in the exhibit come from the College’s Special Collections and Archives. The exhibit will be in our gallery until December, so if you are here for a football game or for Homecoming, please drop by and see what we have on display.

In addition to recognizing the 17 students and alumni who gave their lives in the war, one of the display cases has a list of all Wofford students and alumni who the college had recorded as serving in the war. The list came from a 1919 College Bulletin, and includes over 400 names. Considering that the college rarely had more than 400 students enrolled at any point before World War I, this is a substantial proportion of the college’s alums. Had American involvement in the war lasted longer than 19 months, this number would doubtless have been higher.

Below are copies of the pages indicating the names, arranged by class, of everyone who served in some capacity in the war.

Categories
Brushes with History Documents

Spartanburg’s Centennial Pageant

I recently acquired this program, from the 1931 pageant commemorating the centennial of Spartanburg’s incorporation as a village.  My student assistant digitized it recently and I’ve added it to Wofford’s digital repository.

http://digitalcommons.wofford.edu/localhist/11/

The program contains lists of all of the area high schools as of 1931 and the names of each individual from each high school that participated in the pageant.

What’s especially interesting is the topics, or historical scenes the author of the pageant chose to feature.  The Dawn of Things Created, In Indian Days, The Hampton Massacre, and In Colonial Days were the first four vignettes.  The Battle of Cowpens, featuring Cowpens High School, appropriately enough, came fifth.  The Good Old Times of 1810 came next, followed by a vision for Wofford College, featuring students, alumni, and friends of Wofford.  After that came Cedar Springs, The Minute Men of 1860, Reconstruction Days, Converse College, and “Over There,” no doubt a tribute to World War I.

We don’t have the script – which might be both instructive and painful to read – but you can download the full program to look at names and some of the songs written for the festivities.  And you can read the menu for the dinner as well.

Spartanburg's Centennial Pageant Program
Spartanburg’s Centennial Pageant Program

 

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Documents Methodist

A Hundred Years ago, in November 1916

This was my November 2016 column in the SC United Methodist Advocate

 

I occasionally like to look back and see what South Carolina Methodists were talking about in the pages of the Advocate at points in the past.  A hundred years ago this November, they were preparing for Annual Conference, discussing national politics, and celebrating our colleges.

November 1916 saw President Woodrow Wilson’s re-election.  The Advocate wrote:  “Mr. Woodrow Wilson has been reelected President of the United States for another four years.  Nearly every reader of this paper rejoices over this happy event.  The administration justified itself in the eyes of the voters by a four years’ record of patriotic and honorable service.  The present government has been democratic in the best sense and progressive.  The strongest opposition to Mr. Wilson was centered in those states where the money powers rule…  His reelection is due to the South and to the West, where the people are the freest to express their own will and judgment.  We are happy in feeling that our country will not, under Mr. Wilson, go to war against any people in the world except under the extremest provocation.”

South Carolina Methodists were strong supporters of prohibition, and the Advocate carried this piece:  “Last year the United States brewers and rum makers shipped 20,000,000 gallons of rum, whiskey, wine, gin, and beer to the countries where we send foreign missionaries. If we could have complete prohibition of the sale of liquors in this country, there would be very much reduction of the need or home missions here. Let every home mission worker stand by any effort to get Federal prohibition laws.  In line with the above it is meet that we call attention to the fact that consideration of the National Constitutional Prohibition amendment is expected soon after Congress convenes in December. Letters written by voters are said to have special weight, therefore, get your husbands, sons and brothers, each to write the representative from his congressional district and both the senators, asking for favorable consideration.

Members of the conferences mourned the accidental death of the son of one clergy member.  “News has been received of a sad accident at Ruffin, near Walterboro, where an Atlantic Coast Line engine ran over and killed the two and one-half year old son of the Rev. J. B. Bell of Bethel Circuit. The child ran upon the tracks, falling under the moving engine. A flagman made a heroic, but vain effort to rescue the child, narrowly escaping injury to himself.

Members of the Columbia College Club enjoyed a meeting last Wednesday with Mrs. Arch Bethea.  Her home was decorated with dahlias and ferns.  Mrs. Bethea was assisted in receiving by her sister, Mrs. J. Stephen Bethea of Prescott, Arizona, who was a former member of the club.  The committees in charge of the Book Day Club celebration reported 110 books sent on to the college library.  Miss Major was asked to read Miss Omega Ellerbe’s “History of the Columbia College Club” and Mrs. Hayes read a paper on “Our Present Work.”  Mrs. W. W. Daniel gave the history of the alumnae association.  After a discussion, it was decided to concentrate the efforts of the club upon furnishing the College Library, and a group agreed to raise $50 before Christmas to buy another library table.”

Finally, Rev. Thomas G. Herbert shared some information about the arrangements for the upcoming Annual Conference in Florence, including asking how many of the brethren intended on bringing their “machines” – i. e. their automobiles – to Conference as a few families who wanted to host members were too far to walk to from Central Church, where Conference would be held.

And that is just a snippet of South Carolina Methodism a century ago.

Categories
Documents Methodist

A Methodist Missionary in Brazil

This letter from the September 10, 1936 issue of the Advocate tells of the work of a South Carolina Methodist missionary in Brazil.  Some of you may know that Brazil and South Carolina have some long connections, and South Carolina’s own Cyrus B. Dawsey served as a Bishop of the Methodist Church in Brazil for a time.  The writer was Miss Clyde Varn, who was supported by the Charleston District.  Her parents lived at Islandton, S. C., and her home church was Wesley Chapel.

Bello Horigonta, Brazil,

July 11, 1936

My dear friends in the U. S. A.:

On the fourth of July, two years ago, I courageously attended an all day picnic at Wesley Chapel Church, and as the day ended, folded my tents and slipped away as gaily as the circumstances permitted. However, my “tents” consisted of two large trunks, a box of books, a Pullman bag, five suitcases, a hatbox, and a badly used but faithful Corona portable. Two years ago on the 7th I bade farewell to New Orleans, setting sail in a tub I scarcely considered seaworthy, but which landed me in Rio on schedule, July 25. I am beginning the third year of my second term.

Some of you have read my letter in the Press and Standard last year. The building I then called home has been razed to the ground, and home for me now is one of the two rooms of the former laundry, stuck off on a corner of the yard. Only a thin partition separates me from the church janitor and his garrulous wife. (I could give some of you wives points in successful henpecking.)  Cement tanks attached to the walls of this room when used for laundry purposes have caused it to have a very damp climate. In order to keep my books, shoes and other articles of leather from being ruined, a hole had to be opened in the roof of the porch to let in the blessed sunshine. The drying process has gone on rapidly, so that by the time the rainy season arrives, I shall be able to put the lid on the roof again.

And, oh, that something could be done to bring it on! (The rain, I mean, not the roof.) We have had no rain at all since March and expect none before October. How hard one works here to keep his shoes polished! And when it begins to rain, it’s just as bad; for then it is the season of white shoes.

Some of you probably saw Allie Cobb the first of the year.  She went to the States on her summer vacation. My month was well worthwhile. I went out into the interior of the State of Sao Paulo to visit the Dawseys (formerly of S. C.) in the little city of Morilia. It is a great coffee region. The country is new and is progressing rapidly. It was a great experience for me, for I had never been in that section. It took considerable sitting to get there but never more than sixteen hours on a stretch.

There have been many changes since the beginning of the year. We have a new principal, the other having returned to the States for rest. The present principal is Miss Mary Sue Brown of Texas, recently returned from the States and full of enthusiasm and plans for our school. She and I were co-laborers in Porto Alegre for four years.

We are badly in need of new buildings. These antediluvian structures just double our work. Miss Brown has plans for the new property, but we can’t build there until we sell here and we can’t sell here until we build there. We are trying to sell the least needed portions of this place (we have practically a city block in the city center) for a sufficient sum to put up enough of the new building to house us until we can complete our plans. But even the possibility of this seems distant, for the new property is not unencumbered. Soon a big bank building will be going up in our very yard. Across the street we have two lotteries, two bars and a billiard room. Often we are awakened by the sounds of fights and even shooting.

But before I close, I might suggest that if any of you are thinking of what present you might give to a missionary friend, ask her if she can use a Hectograph. A Sunday school class of Beaufort gave me this one and it has been a joy-the most useful present I ever received.  Useful not only to me but to the school and Sunday school.  It is grand for taking off worship programs, music, and outlining maps. (It never gets enough rest between times. I don’t know how long one lasts, but this has been in constant use and is going strong.

Note:  This was my September 2016 column in the S. C. United Methodist Advocate

Categories
Documents

Robert E. Lee and the Calhoun Literary Society

I like to share interesting documents from time to time, and this one came up recently.

As many of you know, the college had two literary societies that got their start before the Civil War.  One, the Calhoun, started in 1854; the other, the Preston, in 1858.

These societies were debating clubs, meeting weekly, and they are responsible for our oldest library collections, our student publications, and the beginning of our art collection.

Sometimes, the societies elected honorary members.  And so, this letter from one noteworthy southerner is in the collection.

Lee-CLSLetter