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Beyond Preservation: Reconstructing Sites Of Slavery, Reconstruction, And Segregation, Charlotte Adams

Theses and Dissertations

The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties define reconstruction as “the act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location.”1 Reconstruction is a controversial treatment method among historic preservationists, so this thesis seeks to answer the question of why stewards of historic sites still choose to reconstruct nonextant buildings. It explores three case studies: (1) the slave buildings of Mulberry Row at …

If This Be Sin: Gladys Bentley And The Performance Of Identity, Moira Mahoney Church

Theses and Dissertations

Known for her improvisational risqué lyrics and tailored white tuxedo, Gladys Bentley was one of the most notorious figures of the 1930s. Situated in the pansy and lesbian craze of the 1920s and 30s, Bentley’s career was part of a broader trend that favored gender-queer performers due to their exotic appeal. Despite being more transgressive than most, Bentley has ultimately faded from society’s collective memory.

“Catering To The Local Trade”: Jewish-Owned Grocery Stores In Columbia, South Carolina, Olivia Brown

Theses and Dissertations

In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe fled persecution, anti-Semitism, and violence in search of the “American dream.” Both the Rivkin family and the Kligman/Baker family found their way to Columbia, South Carolina, rather than staying in urban centers like New York and Philadelphia. While both families eventually operated grocery stores in Columbia, their respective roles within their communities were very different.

Jacob Rivkin, and later his son Caba, originally ran a grocery in the heart of the Jewish community that sold kosher products unavailable elsewhere in the city. The popularity of Rivkin’s Grocery led to …

“Remember Them Not For How They Died”: American Memory And The Challenger Accident, Elizabeth F. Koele

Theses and Dissertations

The sudden explosion of the Challenger space shuttle seventy-three seconds into its launch in 1986 not only brought the American space program to a halt for almost three years, but also firmly imprinted itself upon public memory. The Challenger accident, preceded by the Apollo 1 and later followed by the Columbia, became a unique event to memorialize. Witnessed by people of all ages due to the presence of schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the impact of the tragedy was exacerbated by the media storm which followed. In the months and years after the accident, a plethora of monuments, memorials, and museum exhibits …

Heritage Without History: The 1960 South Carolina Secession Reenactment And The Desertion Of Historical Authority In Confederate Commemoration, Joshua Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations

In 1960 the South Carolina Confederate War Centennial Commission sponsored a reenactment of the 1860 secession convention as the keystone event for state observances of the Civil War Centennial. Local organizations such as the Richland Country Historical Society and WIS Television produced the reenactment, which featured politicians like Strom Thurmond and George Bell Timmerman in leading roles as secession delegates. The pageant had three live showings, and a televised version of the reenactment aired on WIS-TV, which broadcast the program across the state. Following the production’s open-circuit broadcast, the SC Educational Television Center continued broadcasting it in state public schools …

Potential Republicans: Reconstruction Printers Of Columbia, South Carolina, John Lustrea

Theses and Dissertations

If the project Reconstruction was to succeed in the South, Republicans needed a significant minority of native white Southern support. The printers of Columbia, South Carolina seemed like a promising group of potential Republicans. They were members of an urban skilled trade that had a long history of activism. There were several immigrants and native Northerners among them. Plus, the Republican presence in the South created the possibility of more jobs and patronage money for them. All the relevant data suggests that the printers of Columbia could have been scalawags, but they ultimately were not. My research shows that the …

Skin Deep: African American Women And The Building Of Beauty Culture In South Carolina, Catherine Davenport

Theses and Dissertations

“Skin Deep: African American Women and the Building of Beauty Culture in South Carolina,” examines how African American women in the state adapted door-todoor beauty systems into successful businesses between 1900 and 1960. Black beauticians in South Carolina built beauty parlors that would serve as critical community meeting spaces away from the cruelties of Jim Crow segregation, and in some instances became centers of activism. Through sources including memoirs, newspapers, city directories, and the Negro Motorist Green Book, I highlight the ways black beauty culture proved black women could be financially independent, beautiful, and politically active.

The thesis consists of …

Environmental Negotiations Cherokee Power In The Arkansas Valley, 1812-1828, Cane West

Theses and Dissertations

In the early 19th century, the Arkansas River Valley existed as a borderlands region of powerful Indian nations and immigrant Euro-American and Native American settlers. In the resulting contests over settlement, Cherokee chiefs recreated the Arkansas Cherokees' ecological identity from hunters to agrarians to differentiate themselves from their Osage and white rivals. During the 1820s, Cherokee chiefs expanded on their agrarian rhetoric by appropriating American scientific systems in order to stymie white settlement. By the end of the 1820s, Arkansas Cherokee chiefs had infused their arguments of preferred agricultural lands, appropriate survey methods, and accurate cartography into the debates over …

Changing The Conversation: Diversity At Living History Museums, Sarah M. Lerch

Theses and Dissertations

"Changing the Conversation: Diversity at Living History Museums" explores the lack of diversity among costumed historians at living history sites. Using Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts as a case study, this paper traces the history of diversity among costumed staff and the interpretation at the site. I suggest solutions and ideas for interpretative planning to increase the representation of minority perspectives into the historical narrative of the site and include more ethnic and racial diversity among the employed costumed staff.

A Matter Of "Vicious Habits": Civil War Families Under The Strain Of War, R. Kyle Bjornson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the long term consequences of spatial and temporal distance on marriages during the Civil War. The absence of male labor created by enlistment in the Union Army stretched women to their economic limits while physical and emotional separation created opportunities for infidelity for both husbands and wives. Central to this narrative is mid-nineteenth-century ideas about manhood. The war offered a confirmation of male adulthood, but also required men to abandon the duties to home that were no less fundamental to the ideal of male maturity. Recent scholarship on veterans’ disabilities, including mental illness and substance abuse, show …

In Search Of Granby: A Colonial Village Of South Carolina, Kathryn F. Keenan

Theses and Dissertations

Granby was a thriving village in the middle of South Carolina from 1760-1830. Most histories of the Midlands of South Carolina generally begin with the establishment of the state capital Columbia in 1786 with some mention of Native Americans and backcountry settlers before that, but do not mention Granby. The reason it has been overlooked are twofold. When Columbia was built across the Congaree River from Granby, merchants and residents moved to the new city. As Granby fell into decline, most of its buildings collapsed or were moved and Granby ceased to exist as a town. Also, most of the …

Deserts Will Bloom: Atomic Agriculture And The Promise Of Radioactive Redemption, Chris Fite

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the rhetorical and visual strategies used in marketing atomic agriculture to the American public from the 1940s to the 1960s. The term “atomic agriculture” refers to various agricultural research programs that used radioactive materials, particularly radioisotope tracing and mutation breeding. In print and on screen, atomic boosters from government and industry offered the promise of a better world made possible by applying atomic energy to agriculture. I argue that the proponents of atomic agriculture combined futurism and nostalgia to create a techno-pastoral vision. They hearkened back to the nineteenth century while simultaneously imagining a bright postwar future. …

Rediscovering Camden: The Preservation Of A Revolutionary War Battlefield, Gary Sellick

Theses and Dissertations

The Battle of Camden was the largest pitched battle fought in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War, yet until the late twentieth century the battlefield itself was largely forgotten. For over two hundred years, the ground on which so many men fought and died was used for timber, only visited by relic hunters wishing to collect a piece of its relatively hidden history. Then, beginning in 1996, local organizations around South Carolina began to recognize the value of the site. Using federal funds, but without the close assistance of national bodies, this group of local preservationists bought the site, saving …

Looking For Remnants Of Rice Cultivation At Manchester State Forest Through The Use Of Lidar, Sarah Anne Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, archaeological and historical preservation studies have looked into identifying and preserving the remnants of rice cultivation left on the modern landscape. This work resulted in guidelines for identifying and evaluating these remnants for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Further, these guidelines made a clear distinguish between two types of rice cultivation; tidal and inland rice cultivation. Still, this research focused on the identification and evaluation of rice cultivation remnant in areas of where the majority of rice cultivation place in South Carolina: along the Atlantic Coast. This study examines one parcel of land with possible rice …

Uncle Sam’S Jungle: Recreation, Imagination, And The Caribbean National Forest, Will Garrett Mundhenke

Theses and Dissertations

The Caribbean National Forest in Puerto Rico offers a unique lens into the environmental relationship between the United States and the Caribbean. Established by the Spanish and taken under possession by the United States, the forest represents an imagined space constructed as a Caribbean paradise. As environmentally inclined travelers reached the edge of the western frontier, their interests turned South to the tropics. Tourism boosters and the U.S. Forest Service fabricated a message of a uniquely American jungle. Tourism and the rise of the Caribbean vacation from the 1930s to the 1970s transformed the rainforest from a working landscape into …

National Register Nomination For The Waikiki Village Motel, Jane W. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The Waikiki Village Motel, built in 1963, embodies the Modern style of architecture that was prolific throughout the mid-century period in America. This building type constituted the majority of the development of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during this era, but much of it has been lost to more modern development. The L-shape design and Hawaiian-style hut demonstrate the Modern form as an affordable destination for middle-class fun. The motel characterizes the boom in resort style development prevalent in the Palmetto State’s Grand Strand after the destruction by Hurricane Hazel in 1954. It also represents the idea of “Populuxe” – forward …

“Antagonistic Describes The Scene:” Local News Portrayals Of The New Left And The Escalation Of Protest At The University Of South Carolina, 1970, Alyssa Jordan Constad

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the social upheaval of the 1960s, television news and dissident social movements developed a salient relationship. News coverage of campus movements and protests not only informed audiences of what protest looked like, but shaped the actions and reactions of both the protestors and those who opposed them. How national media outlets, particularly televised newscasts, affected the social movements of the 1960s on a national level has been well documented. However, media, specifically local television newscasts, also helped to shape movements on a grass roots level. Looking at local television news footage from Columbia, South Carolina, this paper will seek …

Preserving The Architectural Legacy Of Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, 1948-1976, Casey Lee

Theses and Dissertations

“Preserving the Architectural Legacy of Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, 1948-1976,” explores the architectural legacy of a mid-century modern architecture firm whose works dominate the built environment of South Carolina. This thesis advocates for the preservation of modern architecture as a whole and for the works of LBC&W more specifically. In order to do so, it looks at the history of one of the premier mid-century modern architecture firms in the Southeast and investigates how its buildings and structures came to dominate South Carolina’s landscape. It then evaluates the ten broad property types designed by the firm in order to …

A Call To Every Citizen: The South Carolina State Council Of Defense And World War I, Allison Baker

Theses and Dissertations

The South Carolina State Council of Defense (SCSCD), under the auspices of the Council of National Defense (CND), worked to convince citizens to voluntarily change their daily habits in the name of the World War I home front effort. The CND developed programs designed to get people to eat less of specific foods, cut back on unnecessary spending, and to participate in war bond drives like the liberty loans. The SCSCD brought the national programs to the local level. This project also demonstrates the strained relationship between the SCSCD and its auxiliary organizations, the Woman’s Committee and the Colored Branch. …

Foundations Of Memory: Effects Of Organizations On The Preservation And Interpretation Of The Slave Forts And Castles Of Ghana, Britney Danielle Ghee

Theses and Dissertations

The historical understanding of a place is bent to the will of the passage of time, but is susceptible to the pressures of entities that lay claim to the space. The memory of forts and castles dispersed along the tropical shorelines of Ghana have been remembered, forgotten, and rediscovered several times over the span of five centuries. But how has their story been changed? What is privileged and created for the collective memory and what has been concealed? The buildings currently serve as memorials to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but this understanding is complicated by the previous preservation motives and …