Trains, Planes, and - no, just Trains

Just a reminder - if you're going to the 2010 Railroad Lecture Series beginning Wednesday, January 20th, registration starts at 4:45 pm at the Archives. See you there!

Where's MY Quill Pen?

I ran across this today among our online petitions. Now, this is only a couple of pages from a Nov. 1860 petition from the parish of 'St. John's Berkeley' about reestablishing an old road, but the cool thing is the scribe is, it appears, a leftie, which you don't see much of back in the day. Can you tell who's right- or left-handed?

I Love Me A Good Railroad

Trains are fun. They're cool. They're old, they're new, they're antiques and modern at the same time. You've got light-rails, you've got coal-burning monstrosities in museums. My father likes trains because as a child, he would sit on a fence by the tracks and watch them go by. I like them because they're an economical way of transporting goods. And yes, riding in an open car on a coal-powered train is truly a filthy experience: soot everywhere. Once you have that experience, you understand why people wore travelling clothes.

The SC Archive and History Foundation is holding a lecture series here at the archives on trains, and it promises to be fascinating. Plus, I've heard you get a reproduction 1827 map (ok, it's actually here on a table behind me). Looks pretty spiffy, train routes and all. Yes, spiffy.

You can see the schedule and topics - orphan trains, anyone? - and register for the Railroad Lecture Series at the Foundation site!

Mapping the Archive Gift Shop

Perfect for all your last minute holiday needs,

as well as for teachers, students, and history lovers of all kinds.

Come meet Dutch, and he'll give you a real special deal.











And if you like maps, check out the online gift shop,

where you can purchase books and maps like these:
Reproduction 1825 mills atlas Maps In Color
28 districts available:

Abbeville, Barnwell, Beaufort
Charleston, Chester, Chesterfield, Colleton
Darlington, Edgefield, Fairfield
Georgetown, Greenville, Horry
Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Lexington
Marion, Marlborough, Newberry
Orangeburgh, Pendleton, Richland
Spartanburg, Sumter, Union
Williamsburgh, York

SCDAH Gone Global

Well, in the spirit of holiday giving, thanks to you, our audience. Recent reports of traffic across our blog is promising, with visitors from 333 cities and 29 countries around the world - hello Hong Kong! - and over 1700 hits in the first three months alone. Not bad for a baby blog getting off the ground.

Now if only y'all would learn how to use the comment function!

Thanks, to everyone who's reading, and to everyone who's contributing. We couldn't do it without you.

Holiday Party 2009

The holiday party has come and gone, so let’s address the pressing concerns first:

Contrary to all sartorial expectations and hopes, SCDAH director Eric did not, in fact, wear a bow tie. Instead, he chose a normal tie, red with blue stripes.

And the food was excellent.

Also, the beautiful table decorations, hand-made by our own Ben Hornsby, garnered high praise. The gift baskets were lovely, the crowd congenial, the guests appreciated, the punch divine. If you missed it, we probably talked about you in your absence, because after all, we wished you could be there.

Many thanks to our overworked committee, and to those who helped bring food, and to those who suffered fools for the camera in accordance with the recent Directorial Coercive Digital Photography Policy of Dec. 2009, which was contrived at the last moment to compensate for the fact that the archives has no working video camera to record such events. We apologize for the inconvenience, and point and laugh as well.

State library people, we love you. Art people, too. Former employees - you too.

Paul (left) claims to not show up in photos, but he does. Barely.

Also left, our own, rarely spotted, Darlin' Patrick of the Archives.

Gift bags!

Bidding Bon Voyage to a National Historic Landmark

An important duty of the State Historic Preservation Office is to organize and host meetings for the South Carolina State Board of Review for the National Register of Historic Places. At its last meeting the board voted to recommend the addition of four properties (two plantations and two historic schools) to the National Register. Then in the last item of business, board members considered a request that was extraordinary.

The board was asked to approve the transfer of a National Historic Landmark from one state to another. The landmark in question is the USCGC Ingham (WPG-35), a Coast Guard cutter that served in both World War II and Vietnam, and which had been part of the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant. Patriots Point can no longer afford necessary maintenance on the Ingham, so it wished to transfer ownership of the ship to the Miami-Dade Historical Maritime Museum in Key West. Patriots Point noted that Key West would be a historically appropriate setting for the ship, since the Ingham played a major role in the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

The board gave its blessing to the transfer, though the ship was already in transit to Key West. We can only guess what would have happened if the board had denied the request. A more pressing question is what will happen when the state is faced with repair bills, which are estimated at over $100 million, on the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. In the current economic climate, will the state continue to pay to maintain the Yorktown, the destroyer USS Laffey, and the submarine USS Clamagore, or will we bid bon voyage to the remaining floating Historic Landmarks in South Carolina? This is the question of the week for Anonymous, who comments on so many of our blogs. We know that you won’t let us down.