Category: Photographs

William Wightman and the Cornerstone

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date April 25, 2014

Before a crowd of several thousand people from all over South Carolina, The Rev. William M. Wightman, the first chair of the Wofford College Board of Trustees gave an address of several thousand words that laid out some of the major principles that he hoped would be central to the new college. At President Nayef Samhat’s inauguration this morning, student Laura Kate Gamble read some of the highlights of the address. Here’s some of what she shared:

We are assembled this day, fellow citizens, to perform the pleasant task of laying the cornerstone of Wofford College. A noble building is to arise on this spot, bearing on its entablatures, and emblazoning in its heraldry, the name of a citizen of Spartanburg District whose liberality has made a princely contribution to the cause of Education. We this day give that name down to posterity…

We make this beautiful grove classic ground. For posterity emphatically, we lay this cornerstone – Generations unborn are interested in the transactions of this hour. We summon the future, with its great “cloud of witnesses” to join us in the ceremonies of this joyous occasion.

It is impossible to conceive of greater benefits, to the individual or to society, than those embraced in the gift of a liberal education combining the moral principle… with the enlightened and cultivated understanding which is the product of thorough scholarship.

Wofford College…will be known throughout the United States as a Methodist institution of learning…

I make this frank and distinct avowal on the present occasion, for,… on behalf of that religious organization, that its leading principles are abhorrent of sectarian bigotry, and breathe the true spirit of catholic liberality, of universal good will…. In the spirit of these broad and liberal views, we shall open the doors of this institution …

We may shout the praise of our glorious Constitution in Fourth of July celebrations, and sing to our model republican institutions. Far better would it be to go to work, each one in the appropriate sphere of action, to strengthen the foundations on which these rest – intelligence and moral principle.

We must have better schools and more of them…Public opinion must be brought to a higher standard of judgment… institutions of learning are the nurseries in which these noble virtues are trained.

For the good of posterity we plant the foundation of this institution. After the hopes of ages, and amid whatever chances or changes may in the eventful future befall our social and our political institutions, may this cornerstone support a fabric still flourishing in its early freshness.

Coeducation Documents Photographs Students

Women at Wofford: The Early Years

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date March 17, 2014

In years past, I’ve put up blog posts about the early years of coeducation at Wofford – the time that the college went from being a college for men only (or mostly) to one that had both male and female students enrolled and living on campus. This month, we’ve put a display of some pictures and clippings in the entry area of the library for Women’s History Month.

From the 1971 Bohemian: Robin Henry, Donna Green, and Shelley Henry, three of the first four women day students.

Although Wofford had women students on an occasional basis from 1897 to 1970, only in the spring of 1971 did the college announce that it would admit women as regular students. For the next five years, the college did not provide housing, but in the fall of 1975, the Board of Trustees voted to move to full residential coeducation beginning in the fall of 1976. These clippings, photographs, and documents from the College Archives tell something about these early years of coeducation at Wofford.

Among the items in the display are some yearbook photos of the first women’s sports teams, the 1981 volleyball and basketball teams. This clipping, below, talks about the organization of Zeta Tau Alpha, the first fraternity for women on campus. Please drop by if you’re on campus to see all of the items in the display.

Methodist Photographs

Annual Conferences of a century ago

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date June 13, 2013

This was my column in the Advocate for June. We just concluded the South Carolina United Methodist Annual Conference this week.

As we gather for Annual Conference, it’s worth remembering that we Methodists have been conferencing since the days of John Wesley. South Carolina Methodists have been gathering annually since around 1785. Now we meet in the late spring or early summer in a large convention center and stay in nearby hotels. That hasn’t always been the case. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Conference met in the late fall – probably reflecting our days as a primarily agricultural society. It generally met in local churches, and members would stay not in hotels, but in the homes of members of the community. The week before Conference, the Advocate published a directory telling everyone in whose home each clergy and lay member of the conference would be staying.

St. John’s UMC, Rock Hill, the site of the 1913 South Carolina Conference.

The annual conferences that met a century ago, in 1913, were a lot smaller than we are today. The historically white conference – known as the 1785 Conference – met that year at St. John’s Methodist Church in Rock Hill from November 26 to December 1. Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson presided. Bishops Collins Denny and John W. Kilgo were in attendance, and 215 clergy were joined by 37 lay members at the conference.

Among the actions taken by the conference, they supported the idea of building a South Carolina headquarters at the new Southern Assembly grounds at Lake Junaluska, they proposed appointing a commissioner of education to help raise funds to support the state’s Methodist colleges, they adopted the Textile Industrial Institute as a conference institution, and they voted to split the conference into two Annual Conferences, one for the upcountry and one for the lowcountry, pending approval by the General Conference.

A week later, the Advocate noted that 47% of the ministers in the conference were moving to new appointments. Moving day came very quickly after conference, and that churches would have new ministers just in time for Christmas. The Advocate also noted that churches should pay their new ministers quickly, because the expense of moving would make it tough on them financially right before Christmas.

The Advocate also expressed gratitude to St. John’s Church and the people of Rock Hill for hosting them very graciously and to Winthrop College for hosting a reception for the conference.

Of course, a second Annual Conference of South Carolina Methodism met that fall. The historically African-American conference, colloquially called the 1866 conference, met in Orangeburg on Wednesday, November 19, 1913, with Bishop Frederick D. Leete presiding. That conference, which lasted for five days, met at Trinity Methodist Church in Orangeburg, with 162 members of the conference in attendance.

Claflin University President L. M. Dunton invited the members of the conference to dinner at Claflin University on the first day of the conference, and they were also invited to participate in the dedication of a women’s residence hall. Considering the close relationship between Claflin and the members of the Conference, this must have been something like a homecoming.

Although the two conferences met less than a week apart, there’s not much evidence that they took official notice of each other. The Rev. Watson B. Duncan of the 1785 conference did bring greetings to the conference meeting in Orangeburg, which they acknowledged, but that act isn’t recorded in the 1785 conference minutes the next week.

So, for those of us who will be going to Annual Conference this year, remember that you are part of something that has a long history and a deep connection to South Carolinians and Methodists who have long since joined the church triumphant. I know that’s what I’ll be thinking about when we’re singing “And Are We Yet Alive.”

Documents Photographs Students

From the Journal: The Changes in College

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date April 25, 2013

An anonymous alumnus, possibly a member of the Class of 1884, wrote this in an early issue of the Wofford College Journal, the student literary magazine that began in 1889. The Journal, which is still published today, also contained campus news in those early years. These were the reminiscences of that alum about his student days. He was a student in the preparatory department before becoming a college student. The facilities he describes were a bit rough!

I entered college, or rather “Prep,” as the Preparatory’ Department was then called, so young that I, with two others, formed what one teacher, now professor, called his “barefoot class,” because we, like the famous Kansas statesman, went without the usual foot protectors.

The college, as I first remember it, was a plain brick building. No steps led up to the front piazza. Two buttresses jutting out from either side alone told where the old wooden steps had been. The wings were stained a peculiar shade of pink, while the towers and portico were painted a different hue. No garden, laid off in drives and walks, reached up to the very base of the building, but all in front was simply a field in which the boys played ball, the “home base” being near where’ the old oak tree now stands.

Inside, there have been as great, if not greater changes. The chapel was without plastering overhead, and on looking upward the lathes looked down on you in derision. Going from there to the recitation rooms you find,

“Within the master’s desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official,
The warping floor, battered seats,
The jack knife carved initial.

The charcoal frescoe on its wall,
Its doors worn sill betraying,
The feet that creeping slow to school
Went storming out to playing.”

There have been great changes both in faculty and in courses of study. The only professor here now that was teaching then is the President, who was then Professor of Mathematics.

The five professors, who had been teaching in the college for twelve years and were destined to teach for two more, at the time I entered “Prep,” were, Rev. A. M. Shipp, D. D., Whitefoord Smith, D. D., Warren DuPre, LL.D., James H. Carlisle, LL.D., and Professor David Duncan. Professor Lester resigned the year I entered.

When I entered college proper, 1880, they changed from the old collegiate classes to the university plan. According to this plan a young man might enter any class for which he was prepared, provided the hours in that class did not conflict with the hours of any other to which he belonged. So you might find the phenomenon of a man, who combined in one person, all the dignity of the Senior, all the learning of the Junior, all the self esteem of a “Soph,” and all the pomposity of a “Fresh.” What a wonderful person that must have been!

Besides changing the plan of study they also changed the names of the classes to Junior, Intermediate and Senior. Ah! well do I remember how it puzzled the boys to understand how it would take four years to graduate when there were but three classes. As neither the plan nor the names seemed to work well, in five years, they returned to the same old system and called the classes by their former names.

In 1875, they discontinued the Preparatory department, and substituted the Introductory and sub-introductory classes. How the “Ducs.”‘ (Introductories) resented being classed with the “Subs” (Sub-Introductories,) and how indignant were both at being called ‘Preps,” any old student of those times knows.

The [Literary] Societies are now the pride of the college, but to enumerate the changes that have taken place within them would make this paper too long.

ALUMNUS

Documents Faculty Photographs

Joe Lesesne was installed as president 40 years ago today

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date April 12, 2013

On this day in 1973, Joab Mauldin Lesesne Jr. was officially installed as Wofford’s 9^th president.

Presidents often have a formal installation or inauguration several months after they officially take office. Joe Lesesne became the college’s president on June 30, 1972, but the formal ceremony did not take place until April.

Lesesne requested a smaller “installation” rather than a large “inauguration” because he wanted to speak more directly to the college community, and also partly to save money. Dr. Lesesne went on to serve 28 years as president, retiring in 2000.

Here are some photos and programs from the day. Click on each for a larger view.

Photographs Students

The Class of 1913

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date March 29, 2013

Wofford looked a lot different a century ago.

This is a composite photo of the Wofford Class of 1913 – one of several class photos in the archives collection.

38 students took degrees from Wofford that year.

Buildings Photographs

Main Building in the Snow

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date March 6, 2013

It didn’t snow in Spartanburg last night, but I understand that a lot of places on the east coast got more than a few flakes.

For those of you who got snow, and even for those of us that didn’t, here’s a photo of a snow-covered Main Building from the late 1940s.

Buildings Photographs

Main Building, 1930

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date February 15, 2013

Here’s a picture of Main Building, with the narrow steps and several trees, from 1930.

There are more photos like this on the Archives flickr stream.

Buildings Documents Photographs

Wofford’s landscape in 1963

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date January 17, 2013

Here’s what the college looked like fifty years ago this winter, in 1963.

Main Building is, of course, in the top center section, as are the original houses on either side of it. The “old library” – now the Daniel Building, and the original section of Milliken Science Hall are across from Main. DuPre Residence Hall, which was brand new, and Shipp Residence Hall, then under construction, are to the right of (behind) Main. Greene Hall is next to Daniel, and Andrews Field House is across from Greene.

A number of other buildings are gone – Wightman Hall, Snyder Hall, the old ROTC building, and the old canteen (all at the top edge of the picture) and Carlisle Hall (at the bottom.)

And, of course, there are plenty of buildings that have been constructed since 1963.

You can see more aerial photos of campus on the Archives Flickr Page.

Buildings Documents Photographs

Campus Postcards

Post author By Phillip Stone
Post date November 27, 2012

Today, a few campus postcards from the early 20th century made their way across my desk. These images are of the Cleveland Science Hall, constructed in 1904, of Carlisle Hall, constructed in 1912, and the buildings of the Wofford Fitting School, which were built between 1888 and 1904.

It’s always nice to get new (old) items, and even nicer when I can share them with interested readers. Out of all these buildings, only Alumni Hall, the center building in the top photo, is still standing and in use. It’s where the Admission and Financial Aid offices are today.