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Electric Scotland News
CHIEFSHIP INVESTITURE WEEKEND (15TH TO 17TH APRIL 2016)
Commander Iain Gunn of Banniskirk
Following the recent decision by Lord Lyon to appoint Iain A Gunn of Banniskirk as Chief of Clan Gunn, we are pleased to announce that there will be an official investiture of the Chief at the Merchant’s Hall in Edinburgh on April 16th, 2016. We are also delighted that the Lord Lyon has kindly agreed to be involved in the ceremony which will mark it as all the more special for the Clan.
The investiture will be followed by a black tie dinner and will form the centrepiece of a weekend of events (from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th April) which also coincides with the Clan’s patron saint, St Donan’s day. Full details of the investiture weekend’s events will follow shortly, but we were keen to release the location and dates for those that want to plan their travel now. We hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend what we believe will be a memorable and enjoyable occasion.
Burns Suppers
The traditional Burns Suppers to celebrate his life are always held in January each year and thousands of these Burns Supper are held all over the world.
During this month we'll bring you some features on him and to start you off there is no better way than to visit our own Robert Burns section at: http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/index.html where you can watch three videos we have on that page.
Now here are stories from the Scottish Press this week...
How Italians ended up in the Borders
Borders Italians feature in a new exhibition by the National Records of Scotland, on view in Edinburgh.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...tland-35168150
Step aboard the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world
The Courier Travel takes a look at the great Paddle Steamer Waverley.
Read more at:
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyl...world-1.917528
Scotland leading the way to play host to UK’s first spaceport
PEOPLE could emulate astronaut Tim Peake’s heroics and blast into orbit from a Scottish spaceport within three years.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/news/scot...rst-spaceport/
100 years of women in Scottish policing
2015 was the centenary of women first being admitted to the police force.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35152786
John Swinney defends budget cuts to flood warning agency
John Swinney faced criticism for reducing funding for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/john-sw...ency-1-3990419
Nicola Sturgeon hits back at SNP brainwashed claim
Opinion polls indicate the SNP is on course to increase its majority at Holyrood and may take all Scottish Labour’s remaining constituency seats.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...laim-1-3990601
Call for wider role for Scottish Fiscal Commission
The Scottish Fiscal Commission should have a greater role in scrutinising Scottish government finances, a Holyrood committee has said.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-35233235
Dennis Robertson clarifies no North Sea crisis remarks
Mr Robertson has now said he could have expressed myself better.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-35241479
Youth Unemployment and Education
I was reading some issues of the Uplift Magazine and was struck with two stories I read and so thought I'd copy them here for you to read...
YOUTH BEARING BRUNT OF CRISIS
(Charlotte Observer)
We often talk today about the high unemployment of our Youth and I found this interesting article from the magazine Uplift from North Carolina of 1939 showing this is an ongoing issue. Here is what it says...
Although young people of today are better educated than their parents, their education stands as of little value when it comes to getting work.
Such is the verdict presented by a study completed in this field by Maxwell S. Stewart, in co-operation with the American Youth Commission, a study which shows that nearly one-half of the young people between the ages of 16 and 24 in the larger cities, who are out of school, are unable to find jobs. Among the 16-year-olds unemployment runs up to 75 per cent.
A slightly higher proportion of youths with vocational training are employed than those without, but other types of education seem to be of little help. The young people who have never had jobs have almost exactly the same range of training as those fully employed.
Finding work will not end Young America’s troubles.
Most of the jobs available are of a deadend variety. It is estimated that half of the employed youth will have to quit their present jobs if they are to have any hope for advancement. Wages in the cities average around $15 a week. In the villages and country they are much lower, averaging from $5 to $9 a week in some sections.
Recreation also presents far more serious problems for today’s young men and women than it did for their parents.
Many of the simple outdoor amusements of earlier years are no longer possible. “Youth is thus faced with the necessity of learning to enjoy itself in a day of commercial amusements without spending money.” The study reveals that comparatively few young people belong to organizations.
“The shortage of clubs is most acute,” the pamphlet states, “for young people from 18 on. High school youths are well organixed. But when they leave school they also leave their clubs. Since they are not ready for adult organizations, and cannot afford their own, the majority stay outside of organizations altogether. That there is a special need for co-ed groups is shown by the experience of the Youth’s and the recent spontaneous development of ‘cellar clubs’ in some of our large cities.”
In summarizing youth’s problems the pamphlet points out that “an improvement in our educational guidance system will not solve all of the problems of today’s young people. Many of these, such as unemployment and low cultural standards, are not really youth problems at all If they are to be overcome, they must be dealt with cooperatively. It is the duty of the adult generation to provide youth with decent living conditions, with adequate training for life, with leadership, and with an opportunity to occupy its rightful place in the workaday world.”
“But youth must help plan and fashion its own future. Many of these problems are too difficult for young people to handle alone. Others they may have to tackle by themselves, even against opposition from their elders. They must attempt to work out a practical program for overcoming the difficulties which face them. And they must learn the art of working together, where possible with adults. Only by joint effort of all age groups can youth hope to come into its rightful heritage.”
AN INTERESTING LETTER
(Boys’ Industrial School Journal)
This letter sent to Mr. F. Elberhart, Youngstown Probation Officer and a friend of the School is rather interesting as the writer seems to have been doing quite a lot of thinking and realizes how vague the education given in our present-day academic schools really is.
527 N. Walnut St.,
Youngstown, Ohio,
November 3, 1938.
Mr. Eberhart:
I was at the Regent Theatre last night and saw a picture, March of Time, describing the industrial school system. It showed how the old prison was eradicated and a new one was set up. In this new prison, instead of keeping the inmates idle and locked up, they attended classes and were taught a trade. Upon release they had some definite type of work to apply for and stood a chance of getting a job as they knew their work. This certainly is a sound way of liquidating potential criminals, provided work can be found after their release.
On the other hand I have been looking at my own situation. I have a regular high school education. A regular high school education is a very vague education. Very few students in high school know what they will want to do when they graduate. Another thing is that the constant hammering of the teachers boosting certain subjects, which may turn out to be valueless upon graduation, also tends to mislead the students. So we find ourselves in a plight at graduation that is really bad. We want to take our place in the world, but can’t for the simple reason that we lack the specialized training. And in a time of depression like this the situation really becomes desperate.
I myself trying to further my education have gone to night schools and have found that the training in the night school is so vague an dthe progress so slow that I was forced to give it up. Definitely it isn’t worth the five dollars per semester. I also took my case to the State Rehabilitation Department. For me they picked out Comptometer, and sent me to a school. After a few weeks in the school I found that I was not interested in this work. Furthermore the eye strain was enormous. So I quit. After this they have refused to have anything to do with me. The trouble with the Rehabilitation Department is that they don’ realize that a fellow has to try something before he can say he is interested enough to make it his life work. So here I stand no further than I was on the day I graduated from high school.
Now, Mr. Eberhart, the industrial school system seems sound to me. Properly applied it can do what the high schools have failed to do. If it can give a specialized training in any field with a few tries at the various different types of work, it certainly fills the bill. At present the industrial school is only for those who have committed a crime. But isn’t there a possibility that it could be extended in such a way as to take care of those who cannot afford to go to special schools of training? For instance a fellow like myself who wants to learn a special trade, but had trouble finding out exactly what it is, and furthermore can’t afford any further schooling would be more than glad to attend such a class or school.
I have been thinking that as long as our high school shops and class rooms stand idle every evening, couldn’t they be used by our department to put such a program to work? I am sure the Board of Education would permit it. It would only be a question of hiring teachers. The students would of course have to supply their own books and materials. Of course it must be understood that the training offered should be more intensive than that offered in our high schools. That is if a student selects machine shop, he can be certain that upon finishing the course he will know enough to take his' place in a machine shop. The same applies to all other subjects.
Well what do you think? It sounds sensible. Not only will it train those that need training, but it will keep those who are unemployed and lack of money off the streets and away from the gangs and out of mischief. I understand that there has recently been an excessive amount of crimes committed by young fellows. The reason for committing crimes can usually be laid to the want of money and the lack of honest means of getting it. In some cases crimes are committed just for the sake of a thrill to take up some idle time, especially when some fellows lack money to pay for their recreation. So a school like this operated every evening would give some of the fellows a place to spend their idle evenings at a profit.
I am interested in furthering such a program. I will be glad to help out in any way I can. How about seeing if anything can be done about it.
Sincerely yours,
William Bernstein.
Electric Canadian
The Gaelic Bards from 1411 TO 1517
By The Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair
PREFACE
THis WORK is especially intended for Gaelic-speaking Canadians. Some of them, it is true, take very little interest in the past; they forget or ignore their obligations to it. But others are of a nobler stamp. They work hard to make a comfortable living for themselves; still they find some leisure hours for reading the poetry, legends, traditions, and history of their ancestors. They are Canadians by birth and are thoroughly loyal to their own country; but they are Kelts by blood, and are not ashamed of the poetic, warm-hearted, and warlike people from whom they have sprung. The Old Highlanders had faults, but they were men.
I have in this work given specimens of the compositions of the best known poets and song-writers of the Gaeldom of Scotland from 1411 to 1513, or from the Battle of Harlaw to the Battle of Sheriffmuir. I have also given a brief account of every author respecting whom it was possible for me to obtain any information. I have added glossaries and explanatory notes, which I trust may be useful in making the poems intelligible. I have not given as many poems as I would like to have given, and for the very good reason that I could not afford to pay for a larger work.
I have departed to some extent from the common orthography. I am very far, however, from thinking that the mode of spelling I have adopted is free from faults. Still I do not suppose that it can, as a mere experiment, do any harm.
I have prepared the first fifteen pages of the Introduction for the benefit of English readers who speak Gaelic and would like to be able to read it. I feel confident that any person of ordinary intelligence who can read English and speak Gaelic can, if he will only try, learn to read Gaelic in a very few hours.
Several of the poems in this work are from Dr. Maclean's MS. I feel convinced that it would be useful, especially for philological purposes, to publish that MS. verbatim et literatim. I shall be glad to hand it over to any person or persons who
will agree to do so.
The printers of this work do not understand a word of Gaelic. I live twenty miles from Charlottetown, and it was inconvenient to send me proofs more than once. In consequence of these facts there are a few typographical errors. Fortunately, however, they are not of very much importance. They can cause no difficulty to any reader.
A. Maclean Sinclair.
Belfast, Prince Edward Island,
October 28th, 1890.
You can download this book at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...aelicbards.htm
Electric Scotland
Life of the Reverend David Brainerd
Minister of the Gospel; Missionary to the Indians from the Honourable Society in Scotland (pdf)
Really old book but thought I'd make it available to you and you can read this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/bible/DavidBrainerd.pdf
Clan Crozier/Crosier
Added a page for this clan.
I got in a pdf file about this name and as we had no information about the name on the site I created a page for them. I then went on to see if there might be other information on them so did a further search and found a couple of other very interesting books which I also added to the page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...c/crozier.html
How my father gave me a terrifying lesson at 10
A story by Bernard Hare which I added towards the foot of our Coal Mining page which I hope you'll enjoy. You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../industry1.htm
Adirondack Murray
A Biographical Appreciation by Harry V. Radford (pdf)
WHEN the Rev. William Henry Harrison Murray—whom the world knew as Adirondack Murray expired at his ancestral homestead near Guilford, Corau, March 5, 1904, in the same room in which, sixty four years before, he first saw the light, American sportsmanship lost one of its most conspicuous, brilliant and influential exponents, an orator surpassed by none stepped forever down from the public platform, and from the world of polished letters there vanished one of the strangest, strongest and most fascinating literary lights this coiintry has ever
known.
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...dackMurray.pdf
Murison family of Gamrie
Got in an update of the information sent into some year ago about this family which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webc.../m/murison.htm
Snippets from the Glasgow Herald
Added a literature section and also another war story about Nazi New Year Resolutions. You can get to this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/snippets
Local Society and the Defence of the English Frontier in Fifteenth-Century Scotland
The War Measures of 1482 by Jackson W. Armstrong (pdf)
You can download this book at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cles/14397.pdf
Clan Gunn
Did an update of the Clan Gunn page to provide links to information on their Septs and you can get to this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/dtog/gunn.html
Alexander Bain
Inventor
I have a small page about him but have just found two books about him and his inventions which I've added to his page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist..._alexander.htm
Oor Nicht Tryst By The Sea
An update of a song by John Henderson which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel458.htm
THE STORY
I decided to give you two stories this week...
Cape Fear Settlement
Sir Robert Heath came to Carolina territory in 1629, but did not make any effort to colonize the area. In 1663 Charles II granted the region to eight proprietors. The region later was divided into two; North Carolina and South Carolina. Cape Fear is located on the coast of North Carolina. In the upper Northwest of Cape Fear River, the Highlanders began to settle as early as 1732. There were reported three Highlander names to be the first settlers; James Innes, William Forbes and Hugh Campbell. Each received a land grant of 640 acres in 1733.
James Innes became the justice of peace in 1734 and Cape Fear rapidly populated over the next forty years. Innes, Forbes and Campbell agreed to transport Highlander families to Cape Fear making Cape Fear majority Highlanders and Gaelic the dominant language.
Many families farmed the land, but there were also numerous other trades, stores, mills, and even a doctor, but Highlanders faced many hardships as well, the climate was tough for them and a lot of people suffered from illness such as “Yellow Fever” and “Malaria.”
There was not a church established so it made weddings and funerals difficult. Duncan Campbell went back to Scotland to request for a “Gaelic speaking” minister to come to Cape Fear. The minister never made it to Cape Fear. Therefore, a minister by the name of Hugh McAden came to Cape Fear, but he did not speak Gaelic and made it difficult for both he and the congregation to communicate.
Over half of Cape Fear was settled by Gaelic speaking Highlanders, which in turn the slaves learned the language. The language was the dominant language until well into the mid nineteenth century. Unfortunately today there is no evidence the language ever existed.
One fourth of Highlanders owned slaves or indentured servants. Innes, Campbell, and Forbes would bring Highlanders who could not obtain land grants to work as indentured servants for those Highland families who had established plantations. There were black slaves who worked right next to indentured servants, so the slaves learned Gaelic. There was an account by Charles W. Dunn of a Highland Lady who had just landed on the shores of Cape Fear;
So she disembarked at the wharf, she was delighted to hear two men conversing in Gaelic. Assuming by their speech that they must inevitably be Highlanders, she came near, only to discover that their skin was black. She knew her worst foreboding about the climate of the South was not unfounded and cried in horror. “A Dhia nan fras, am fas sinn vile, mar sinn?” (O God of mercy, are we well going to turn black like that?)
Last but not least, our famous Jacobite, Flora McDonald came to Cape Fear and lived in Cameron’s Hill, she attended Barbeque Church, but her stay was short due to her husband being arrested for being a Loyalist on the brink of the Revolutionary War. Flora and her children went back to Scotland.
Written by Stephanie Cruz
Taken from The Highlander Scots of North Carolina 1732-1776 By Duane Meyer
You can read another article by her at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...les/cruz02.htm
Building great historical collection at Chapel Hill
The President’s speeches, the publication of thousands of countless investigators, books and plays have labelled the South a “depressed area,” assailed by the apocalyptic horsemen of tenancy, industrial serfdom, and political self-complacency.
A scholar reasoned that before the remedies for the ills which beset the South could be discovered, the soil from which those ills sprang must be analyzed. So came into being the Southern Historical Collection, to make possible, for the first time, research into the problems of a region in the midst of economic and social revolution.
With the aid of a Model A Ford capable of “making” the steepest red clay hill in Dixie, and the patience-lending habit of “rolling one’s own,” the scholar set about to remove what he considered the chief handicap of those seeking to interpret the South and to guide its growth. That handicap was ignorance, enforced ignorance due to absence of available facts.
Three generations ago the South lost her place in the sun. The efforts of its leaders to restore it in the old fields of politics and agriculture, to create a place for it in the new fields of industry, finance and education, demanded a reliable source of information about the Southern background of those and related subjects. No such source existed until the founding of the Southern Collection.
The predicament of those who sought to grasp the background of the South so dominated the thoughts of Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton of the University of North Carolina that he conceived the idea for a collection that would be to the South what the Bancroft Collection is to California, the Burton Library to the Middle West, and the library of the Wisconsin Historical society to the Northwest. But its scope was to be greater than these.
This was Dr. Hamilton’s plan: to gather anything, everything, every piece of writing of any kind written in the South or by a Southerner which would throw light upon the problems of the whole region fiom Maryland to Texas and from Missouri to Florida.
Nowhere else in the United States has there been projected anything of the kind so inclusive for so large an area and population, bound together and differentiated from other sections by unifying economic and political interests and institutions.
The cost of the collection Dr. Hamilton estimated at a million and a half dollars. There was no such sum available. But Dr. Hamilton’s grandfather, James Hamilton, nullification Governor of South Carolina, coined a phrase to which his descendant heartily subscribed—“He who dallies is a dastard, he who hesitates is damned.” So the historian disregarded lack of funds and plunged into the work with all the energy of a zealot.
“I started on faith and a shoestring,” he admits. And the Southern Collection has been built on that.
Although without money, he was not without encouragement. Since the days of Henry W. Grady, that eloquent man of vision who interpreted the broken South to the North after the Civil war, there have always been Southerners working to make the dream of a New South reality.
The University of North Carolina released Dr. Hamilton from class-work, contributed his traveling expenses and granted him part of its new fireproof library to house the collection. Several interested people made contributions, none of them large, but all helpful. From scholars the country over come letters of approval and offers to help. Southern newspapers commented favorably, as did the national press. In 1928 the work began.
Chapel Hill, seat of the University of North Carolina, was a fortunate choice as center for assembling this material. It is conceded to be the cultural center of the South. The career of its university has been long and distinguished, its work impressive. For many years it had acted as a clearing house of information to North Carolina and the South concerning many important questions. Geographically and scholastically, it was the logical home for the Southern Collection.
At the university was already the nucleus for such a collection: a great body of Carolina touching in part upon the development of other Southern states; the results of investigations by the department of rural social science dealing with the economic and social aspects of the South; an extensive collection of bound periodicals; the Kenan Collection of Civil war material, and the collection of the North Carolina Historical society.
Today the Southern Collection includes over two million items, with three times that number promised. In protecting vaults are rare documents that extend back to the beginning of Southern history, unclassified letters and papers packed in wicker baskets which contained magnums of champagne in old days, factory records, plantation account books, personal cash books and family records in iron-clad trunks and old valises.
Where the material has been classified, row upon row of files contain the records of the South’s families, records of the masses of the people as well as of the statesmen, soldiers and sailors.
In those files is the data which lends flesh and blood to history, which reveals the life and thought of a people. There are diaries, unpublished reminiscences and other autobiographical writings, letters of every description, stud books, and the ledgers and records of industrial undertakings.
Behind this manuscript material are divers state publications, general historical works, biographies, local histories, genealogical works, essays, poetry, fiction, sermons, maps, broadsides, statistics, the reports, proceedings and minutes of educational bodies and institutions, fraternal orders, professional religious, social, patriotic and scientific organizations, and the files of newspapers.
In index files are listed thousands of published works with prices current at the time printed, a great Southern bibliography in the making. Rows of heavy leather-backed volumes line the walls of the collection quarters, and under glass for public inspection are specimens of particularly famous letters and books. On film are photostatic reproductions of unavailable material.
Many important proposed studies in Southern history are now possible; many abandoned projects will be resumed. The South has been inadequately portrayed in the nation’s history, the background of her political, social and economic life dimly drawn, the life and thought of the masses of the people scarcely known at all.
Research for any one institution or person entailed too great an expense of effort, time and money. Collections of southern material before the work of Dr. Hamilton were widely scattered, relatively inaccessible and fragmentary.
Properly extended and maintained, the Southern Historical collection will make it possible for an investigator to study any phase of southern life. Already it contains a wealth of information as to politics, economics, war, industry, agriculture, commerce, religion, education, family life, slavery and the freedman. In all fields are gathered hitherto unknown facts making possible new and more accurate conclusions in relation to the past.
It is possible to foresee important changes in the concept of southern history, the clearance of misunderstanding which resulted from the un-awarenes of the south to its written history. Unlike posterity-minded New England, the South never saw the importance of saving its records, letters, and diaries. Family-conscious and sectional-minded, it yet depended on word of mouth to preserve its story. Historians, confronted with an astonishing dearth of material, naturally misunderstood and slighted. Now Dr. Hamilton believes the collection will make her a more just, saner, less sectional interpretation of American life.
The huge collections of personal letters, some of them extending back for four generations, will make it possible to recreate the atmosphere of the past and will reflect the manners and morals, the civilization of the South.
“Famous men were always conscious that their letters might see print; they wrote guardedly,” says Dr. Hamilton. “In the letter of a son to his father there is no concealment. Lack of other means of communication necessarily made the letters more detailed. Thus these ordinary family letters are the most important single item throwing light upon the way of living, the thoughts and actions of southerners.”
Plantation records upon slavery and agriculture, coupled with the revelations of business and industrial records will furnish a more genuine economic history of the South.
“In this period when the South is so rapidly shifting its emphasis from agriculture to industry,” wrote Dr. Hamilton in preparing his plan, “and is attracting to itself for investment so much of the nation’s capital, it is of supreme importance for it to remember and study the past, and to save the records of today, in order that the South of the immediate future may wisely chart its course.
The myth of moonlight and magnolias has long been discredited. There remain many other fallacious ideas about the South which this collection will thoroughly explode, among them the conception of the masses of southern people as being politically inactive, and that picture of an unrelenting and impenetrable caste system which has figured so largely in most writing about the South. The collection will doubtless rectify other misconceptions, but many years will be required before such an assemblage can be catalogued, much less digested.
Little money has been available for the purchase of materials. Yet from New York, Falls River, Chicago, St. Martinsville, San Francisco, Wetum-pka, Philadelphia and Miccosukee matter has poured in—and from hundreds of towns scattered through Southern states. From Charlotte came 12 valuable plantation record books contributed by E. L. Baxter Davidson. Listed according to years, and extending from 1838 to 1890 they include both day books and ledgers for Rural Hill, Ingleside and Rural Retreat. Also coming from Charlotte were some of the papers of Col. E. L. Baxter.
During the last decade, Dr. Hamilton has traveled 275,000 miles in the South and has worn out six cars. The diaries of his trips are the saga of a scholar turned adventurer.
Courteous, persuasive, eloquent, he has lured tons of documents from the garrets, closets, trunks and outhouses of the South. Many of his most important items have been discovered in the junk room of some courthouse or plantation home.
There have been disappointments, of course. Famous letters have been destroyed by families which considered them worthless. Flood has ruined priceless items, fire has taken more. Invading armies played their part in the havoc. Deadlier than these have been energetic housewives and rats.
In spite of the holocaust of records, Dr. Hamilton has secured a mountain-range of documentation. He has succeeded where mere money might have failed. Some purchases have been necessary. Somtimes individual collections have been given under seal, to be broken only after the donor’s death or at his instructions. By far the larger part of the southern collection, however, has been given outright.
Once secured, this material must be put in condition for use. Books in bad condition must be mended and rebound; manuscripts must be repaired, and all materials receive the most modern treatment for their preservation. Every item must be classified, catalogued and made available to researchers. A good deal of it ultimately will be edited and published.
Far from wilting under the difficult task he has set for himself, Dr. Hamilton seems to have subtracted rather than added 10 years to the 50 at which he began work on the collection.
Nationally known as an historian, editor and author, Dr. Hamilton is a graduate of the University of the South, received his doctor’s degree from Columbia and has been on the staff of the University of North Carolina for 32 years. His friends know the director of the collection as a good companion with dogs and guns or around the fireplace, boast that he knows more genuine people in the South than any other man.
He is the moving spirit of the Southern Historical Collection and has done most of its work single-handed. Now it has so expanded that he would like to see a collector in every state, and an addition to the university’s beautiful and imposing library. If need be though, he will make out with his “faith and a shoe-string.”
The Southern Historical Collection is sectional but Dr. Hamilton considers it national in purpose, character and scope. The collection is open to all investigators. It is his belief that from it will be drawn greater and more accurate knowledge of an important section of the United States; that it will make possible a fresh interpretation of the nation’s history, a better and easier building of the New South.
The University officially established the Southern Historical Collection on 14 January 1930, with Dr. Hamilton as director. Sarah Graham Kenan provided an initial endowment. When Hamilton retired in 1951, the SHC held approximately 2,140,000 manuscript items. Today the total has grown to over 15 million items organized in more than 4,600 discrete collections.
See http://library.unc.edu/wilson/shc/ for more about this organisation.
I also added a couple of books to the foot of our Sketches of North Carolina page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/nc/ where there is one of the issues of the Uplift publication, some 1600 pages, and also a book about the institution that published it.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
CHIEFSHIP INVESTITURE WEEKEND (15TH TO 17TH APRIL 2016)
Commander Iain Gunn of Banniskirk
The investiture will be followed by a black tie dinner and will form the centrepiece of a weekend of events (from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th April) which also coincides with the Clan’s patron saint, St Donan’s day. Full details of the investiture weekend’s events will follow shortly, but we were keen to release the location and dates for those that want to plan their travel now. We hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend what we believe will be a memorable and enjoyable occasion.
Burns Suppers
The traditional Burns Suppers to celebrate his life are always held in January each year and thousands of these Burns Supper are held all over the world.
During this month we'll bring you some features on him and to start you off there is no better way than to visit our own Robert Burns section at: http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/index.html where you can watch three videos we have on that page.
Now here are stories from the Scottish Press this week...
How Italians ended up in the Borders
Borders Italians feature in a new exhibition by the National Records of Scotland, on view in Edinburgh.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...tland-35168150
Step aboard the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world
The Courier Travel takes a look at the great Paddle Steamer Waverley.
Read more at:
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyl...world-1.917528
Scotland leading the way to play host to UK’s first spaceport
PEOPLE could emulate astronaut Tim Peake’s heroics and blast into orbit from a Scottish spaceport within three years.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/news/scot...rst-spaceport/
100 years of women in Scottish policing
2015 was the centenary of women first being admitted to the police force.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35152786
John Swinney defends budget cuts to flood warning agency
John Swinney faced criticism for reducing funding for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/john-sw...ency-1-3990419
Nicola Sturgeon hits back at SNP brainwashed claim
Opinion polls indicate the SNP is on course to increase its majority at Holyrood and may take all Scottish Labour’s remaining constituency seats.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...laim-1-3990601
Call for wider role for Scottish Fiscal Commission
The Scottish Fiscal Commission should have a greater role in scrutinising Scottish government finances, a Holyrood committee has said.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-35233235
Dennis Robertson clarifies no North Sea crisis remarks
Mr Robertson has now said he could have expressed myself better.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-35241479
Youth Unemployment and Education
I was reading some issues of the Uplift Magazine and was struck with two stories I read and so thought I'd copy them here for you to read...
YOUTH BEARING BRUNT OF CRISIS
(Charlotte Observer)
We often talk today about the high unemployment of our Youth and I found this interesting article from the magazine Uplift from North Carolina of 1939 showing this is an ongoing issue. Here is what it says...
Although young people of today are better educated than their parents, their education stands as of little value when it comes to getting work.
Such is the verdict presented by a study completed in this field by Maxwell S. Stewart, in co-operation with the American Youth Commission, a study which shows that nearly one-half of the young people between the ages of 16 and 24 in the larger cities, who are out of school, are unable to find jobs. Among the 16-year-olds unemployment runs up to 75 per cent.
A slightly higher proportion of youths with vocational training are employed than those without, but other types of education seem to be of little help. The young people who have never had jobs have almost exactly the same range of training as those fully employed.
Finding work will not end Young America’s troubles.
Most of the jobs available are of a deadend variety. It is estimated that half of the employed youth will have to quit their present jobs if they are to have any hope for advancement. Wages in the cities average around $15 a week. In the villages and country they are much lower, averaging from $5 to $9 a week in some sections.
Recreation also presents far more serious problems for today’s young men and women than it did for their parents.
Many of the simple outdoor amusements of earlier years are no longer possible. “Youth is thus faced with the necessity of learning to enjoy itself in a day of commercial amusements without spending money.” The study reveals that comparatively few young people belong to organizations.
“The shortage of clubs is most acute,” the pamphlet states, “for young people from 18 on. High school youths are well organixed. But when they leave school they also leave their clubs. Since they are not ready for adult organizations, and cannot afford their own, the majority stay outside of organizations altogether. That there is a special need for co-ed groups is shown by the experience of the Youth’s and the recent spontaneous development of ‘cellar clubs’ in some of our large cities.”
In summarizing youth’s problems the pamphlet points out that “an improvement in our educational guidance system will not solve all of the problems of today’s young people. Many of these, such as unemployment and low cultural standards, are not really youth problems at all If they are to be overcome, they must be dealt with cooperatively. It is the duty of the adult generation to provide youth with decent living conditions, with adequate training for life, with leadership, and with an opportunity to occupy its rightful place in the workaday world.”
“But youth must help plan and fashion its own future. Many of these problems are too difficult for young people to handle alone. Others they may have to tackle by themselves, even against opposition from their elders. They must attempt to work out a practical program for overcoming the difficulties which face them. And they must learn the art of working together, where possible with adults. Only by joint effort of all age groups can youth hope to come into its rightful heritage.”
AN INTERESTING LETTER
(Boys’ Industrial School Journal)
This letter sent to Mr. F. Elberhart, Youngstown Probation Officer and a friend of the School is rather interesting as the writer seems to have been doing quite a lot of thinking and realizes how vague the education given in our present-day academic schools really is.
527 N. Walnut St.,
Youngstown, Ohio,
November 3, 1938.
Mr. Eberhart:
I was at the Regent Theatre last night and saw a picture, March of Time, describing the industrial school system. It showed how the old prison was eradicated and a new one was set up. In this new prison, instead of keeping the inmates idle and locked up, they attended classes and were taught a trade. Upon release they had some definite type of work to apply for and stood a chance of getting a job as they knew their work. This certainly is a sound way of liquidating potential criminals, provided work can be found after their release.
On the other hand I have been looking at my own situation. I have a regular high school education. A regular high school education is a very vague education. Very few students in high school know what they will want to do when they graduate. Another thing is that the constant hammering of the teachers boosting certain subjects, which may turn out to be valueless upon graduation, also tends to mislead the students. So we find ourselves in a plight at graduation that is really bad. We want to take our place in the world, but can’t for the simple reason that we lack the specialized training. And in a time of depression like this the situation really becomes desperate.
I myself trying to further my education have gone to night schools and have found that the training in the night school is so vague an dthe progress so slow that I was forced to give it up. Definitely it isn’t worth the five dollars per semester. I also took my case to the State Rehabilitation Department. For me they picked out Comptometer, and sent me to a school. After a few weeks in the school I found that I was not interested in this work. Furthermore the eye strain was enormous. So I quit. After this they have refused to have anything to do with me. The trouble with the Rehabilitation Department is that they don’ realize that a fellow has to try something before he can say he is interested enough to make it his life work. So here I stand no further than I was on the day I graduated from high school.
Now, Mr. Eberhart, the industrial school system seems sound to me. Properly applied it can do what the high schools have failed to do. If it can give a specialized training in any field with a few tries at the various different types of work, it certainly fills the bill. At present the industrial school is only for those who have committed a crime. But isn’t there a possibility that it could be extended in such a way as to take care of those who cannot afford to go to special schools of training? For instance a fellow like myself who wants to learn a special trade, but had trouble finding out exactly what it is, and furthermore can’t afford any further schooling would be more than glad to attend such a class or school.
I have been thinking that as long as our high school shops and class rooms stand idle every evening, couldn’t they be used by our department to put such a program to work? I am sure the Board of Education would permit it. It would only be a question of hiring teachers. The students would of course have to supply their own books and materials. Of course it must be understood that the training offered should be more intensive than that offered in our high schools. That is if a student selects machine shop, he can be certain that upon finishing the course he will know enough to take his' place in a machine shop. The same applies to all other subjects.
Well what do you think? It sounds sensible. Not only will it train those that need training, but it will keep those who are unemployed and lack of money off the streets and away from the gangs and out of mischief. I understand that there has recently been an excessive amount of crimes committed by young fellows. The reason for committing crimes can usually be laid to the want of money and the lack of honest means of getting it. In some cases crimes are committed just for the sake of a thrill to take up some idle time, especially when some fellows lack money to pay for their recreation. So a school like this operated every evening would give some of the fellows a place to spend their idle evenings at a profit.
I am interested in furthering such a program. I will be glad to help out in any way I can. How about seeing if anything can be done about it.
Sincerely yours,
William Bernstein.
Electric Canadian
The Gaelic Bards from 1411 TO 1517
By The Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair
PREFACE
THis WORK is especially intended for Gaelic-speaking Canadians. Some of them, it is true, take very little interest in the past; they forget or ignore their obligations to it. But others are of a nobler stamp. They work hard to make a comfortable living for themselves; still they find some leisure hours for reading the poetry, legends, traditions, and history of their ancestors. They are Canadians by birth and are thoroughly loyal to their own country; but they are Kelts by blood, and are not ashamed of the poetic, warm-hearted, and warlike people from whom they have sprung. The Old Highlanders had faults, but they were men.
I have in this work given specimens of the compositions of the best known poets and song-writers of the Gaeldom of Scotland from 1411 to 1513, or from the Battle of Harlaw to the Battle of Sheriffmuir. I have also given a brief account of every author respecting whom it was possible for me to obtain any information. I have added glossaries and explanatory notes, which I trust may be useful in making the poems intelligible. I have not given as many poems as I would like to have given, and for the very good reason that I could not afford to pay for a larger work.
I have departed to some extent from the common orthography. I am very far, however, from thinking that the mode of spelling I have adopted is free from faults. Still I do not suppose that it can, as a mere experiment, do any harm.
I have prepared the first fifteen pages of the Introduction for the benefit of English readers who speak Gaelic and would like to be able to read it. I feel confident that any person of ordinary intelligence who can read English and speak Gaelic can, if he will only try, learn to read Gaelic in a very few hours.
Several of the poems in this work are from Dr. Maclean's MS. I feel convinced that it would be useful, especially for philological purposes, to publish that MS. verbatim et literatim. I shall be glad to hand it over to any person or persons who
will agree to do so.
The printers of this work do not understand a word of Gaelic. I live twenty miles from Charlottetown, and it was inconvenient to send me proofs more than once. In consequence of these facts there are a few typographical errors. Fortunately, however, they are not of very much importance. They can cause no difficulty to any reader.
A. Maclean Sinclair.
Belfast, Prince Edward Island,
October 28th, 1890.
You can download this book at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...aelicbards.htm
Electric Scotland
Life of the Reverend David Brainerd
Minister of the Gospel; Missionary to the Indians from the Honourable Society in Scotland (pdf)
Really old book but thought I'd make it available to you and you can read this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/bible/DavidBrainerd.pdf
Clan Crozier/Crosier
Added a page for this clan.
I got in a pdf file about this name and as we had no information about the name on the site I created a page for them. I then went on to see if there might be other information on them so did a further search and found a couple of other very interesting books which I also added to the page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...c/crozier.html
How my father gave me a terrifying lesson at 10
A story by Bernard Hare which I added towards the foot of our Coal Mining page which I hope you'll enjoy. You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../industry1.htm
Adirondack Murray
A Biographical Appreciation by Harry V. Radford (pdf)
WHEN the Rev. William Henry Harrison Murray—whom the world knew as Adirondack Murray expired at his ancestral homestead near Guilford, Corau, March 5, 1904, in the same room in which, sixty four years before, he first saw the light, American sportsmanship lost one of its most conspicuous, brilliant and influential exponents, an orator surpassed by none stepped forever down from the public platform, and from the world of polished letters there vanished one of the strangest, strongest and most fascinating literary lights this coiintry has ever
known.
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...dackMurray.pdf
Murison family of Gamrie
Got in an update of the information sent into some year ago about this family which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webc.../m/murison.htm
Snippets from the Glasgow Herald
Added a literature section and also another war story about Nazi New Year Resolutions. You can get to this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/snippets
Local Society and the Defence of the English Frontier in Fifteenth-Century Scotland
The War Measures of 1482 by Jackson W. Armstrong (pdf)
You can download this book at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cles/14397.pdf
Clan Gunn
Did an update of the Clan Gunn page to provide links to information on their Septs and you can get to this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/dtog/gunn.html
Alexander Bain
Inventor
I have a small page about him but have just found two books about him and his inventions which I've added to his page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist..._alexander.htm
Oor Nicht Tryst By The Sea
An update of a song by John Henderson which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel458.htm
THE STORY
I decided to give you two stories this week...
Cape Fear Settlement
Sir Robert Heath came to Carolina territory in 1629, but did not make any effort to colonize the area. In 1663 Charles II granted the region to eight proprietors. The region later was divided into two; North Carolina and South Carolina. Cape Fear is located on the coast of North Carolina. In the upper Northwest of Cape Fear River, the Highlanders began to settle as early as 1732. There were reported three Highlander names to be the first settlers; James Innes, William Forbes and Hugh Campbell. Each received a land grant of 640 acres in 1733.
James Innes became the justice of peace in 1734 and Cape Fear rapidly populated over the next forty years. Innes, Forbes and Campbell agreed to transport Highlander families to Cape Fear making Cape Fear majority Highlanders and Gaelic the dominant language.
Many families farmed the land, but there were also numerous other trades, stores, mills, and even a doctor, but Highlanders faced many hardships as well, the climate was tough for them and a lot of people suffered from illness such as “Yellow Fever” and “Malaria.”
There was not a church established so it made weddings and funerals difficult. Duncan Campbell went back to Scotland to request for a “Gaelic speaking” minister to come to Cape Fear. The minister never made it to Cape Fear. Therefore, a minister by the name of Hugh McAden came to Cape Fear, but he did not speak Gaelic and made it difficult for both he and the congregation to communicate.
Over half of Cape Fear was settled by Gaelic speaking Highlanders, which in turn the slaves learned the language. The language was the dominant language until well into the mid nineteenth century. Unfortunately today there is no evidence the language ever existed.
One fourth of Highlanders owned slaves or indentured servants. Innes, Campbell, and Forbes would bring Highlanders who could not obtain land grants to work as indentured servants for those Highland families who had established plantations. There were black slaves who worked right next to indentured servants, so the slaves learned Gaelic. There was an account by Charles W. Dunn of a Highland Lady who had just landed on the shores of Cape Fear;
So she disembarked at the wharf, she was delighted to hear two men conversing in Gaelic. Assuming by their speech that they must inevitably be Highlanders, she came near, only to discover that their skin was black. She knew her worst foreboding about the climate of the South was not unfounded and cried in horror. “A Dhia nan fras, am fas sinn vile, mar sinn?” (O God of mercy, are we well going to turn black like that?)
Last but not least, our famous Jacobite, Flora McDonald came to Cape Fear and lived in Cameron’s Hill, she attended Barbeque Church, but her stay was short due to her husband being arrested for being a Loyalist on the brink of the Revolutionary War. Flora and her children went back to Scotland.
Written by Stephanie Cruz
Taken from The Highlander Scots of North Carolina 1732-1776 By Duane Meyer
You can read another article by her at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...les/cruz02.htm
Building great historical collection at Chapel Hill
The President’s speeches, the publication of thousands of countless investigators, books and plays have labelled the South a “depressed area,” assailed by the apocalyptic horsemen of tenancy, industrial serfdom, and political self-complacency.
A scholar reasoned that before the remedies for the ills which beset the South could be discovered, the soil from which those ills sprang must be analyzed. So came into being the Southern Historical Collection, to make possible, for the first time, research into the problems of a region in the midst of economic and social revolution.
With the aid of a Model A Ford capable of “making” the steepest red clay hill in Dixie, and the patience-lending habit of “rolling one’s own,” the scholar set about to remove what he considered the chief handicap of those seeking to interpret the South and to guide its growth. That handicap was ignorance, enforced ignorance due to absence of available facts.
Three generations ago the South lost her place in the sun. The efforts of its leaders to restore it in the old fields of politics and agriculture, to create a place for it in the new fields of industry, finance and education, demanded a reliable source of information about the Southern background of those and related subjects. No such source existed until the founding of the Southern Collection.
The predicament of those who sought to grasp the background of the South so dominated the thoughts of Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton of the University of North Carolina that he conceived the idea for a collection that would be to the South what the Bancroft Collection is to California, the Burton Library to the Middle West, and the library of the Wisconsin Historical society to the Northwest. But its scope was to be greater than these.
This was Dr. Hamilton’s plan: to gather anything, everything, every piece of writing of any kind written in the South or by a Southerner which would throw light upon the problems of the whole region fiom Maryland to Texas and from Missouri to Florida.
Nowhere else in the United States has there been projected anything of the kind so inclusive for so large an area and population, bound together and differentiated from other sections by unifying economic and political interests and institutions.
The cost of the collection Dr. Hamilton estimated at a million and a half dollars. There was no such sum available. But Dr. Hamilton’s grandfather, James Hamilton, nullification Governor of South Carolina, coined a phrase to which his descendant heartily subscribed—“He who dallies is a dastard, he who hesitates is damned.” So the historian disregarded lack of funds and plunged into the work with all the energy of a zealot.
“I started on faith and a shoestring,” he admits. And the Southern Collection has been built on that.
Although without money, he was not without encouragement. Since the days of Henry W. Grady, that eloquent man of vision who interpreted the broken South to the North after the Civil war, there have always been Southerners working to make the dream of a New South reality.
The University of North Carolina released Dr. Hamilton from class-work, contributed his traveling expenses and granted him part of its new fireproof library to house the collection. Several interested people made contributions, none of them large, but all helpful. From scholars the country over come letters of approval and offers to help. Southern newspapers commented favorably, as did the national press. In 1928 the work began.
Chapel Hill, seat of the University of North Carolina, was a fortunate choice as center for assembling this material. It is conceded to be the cultural center of the South. The career of its university has been long and distinguished, its work impressive. For many years it had acted as a clearing house of information to North Carolina and the South concerning many important questions. Geographically and scholastically, it was the logical home for the Southern Collection.
At the university was already the nucleus for such a collection: a great body of Carolina touching in part upon the development of other Southern states; the results of investigations by the department of rural social science dealing with the economic and social aspects of the South; an extensive collection of bound periodicals; the Kenan Collection of Civil war material, and the collection of the North Carolina Historical society.
Today the Southern Collection includes over two million items, with three times that number promised. In protecting vaults are rare documents that extend back to the beginning of Southern history, unclassified letters and papers packed in wicker baskets which contained magnums of champagne in old days, factory records, plantation account books, personal cash books and family records in iron-clad trunks and old valises.
Where the material has been classified, row upon row of files contain the records of the South’s families, records of the masses of the people as well as of the statesmen, soldiers and sailors.
In those files is the data which lends flesh and blood to history, which reveals the life and thought of a people. There are diaries, unpublished reminiscences and other autobiographical writings, letters of every description, stud books, and the ledgers and records of industrial undertakings.
Behind this manuscript material are divers state publications, general historical works, biographies, local histories, genealogical works, essays, poetry, fiction, sermons, maps, broadsides, statistics, the reports, proceedings and minutes of educational bodies and institutions, fraternal orders, professional religious, social, patriotic and scientific organizations, and the files of newspapers.
In index files are listed thousands of published works with prices current at the time printed, a great Southern bibliography in the making. Rows of heavy leather-backed volumes line the walls of the collection quarters, and under glass for public inspection are specimens of particularly famous letters and books. On film are photostatic reproductions of unavailable material.
Many important proposed studies in Southern history are now possible; many abandoned projects will be resumed. The South has been inadequately portrayed in the nation’s history, the background of her political, social and economic life dimly drawn, the life and thought of the masses of the people scarcely known at all.
Research for any one institution or person entailed too great an expense of effort, time and money. Collections of southern material before the work of Dr. Hamilton were widely scattered, relatively inaccessible and fragmentary.
Properly extended and maintained, the Southern Historical collection will make it possible for an investigator to study any phase of southern life. Already it contains a wealth of information as to politics, economics, war, industry, agriculture, commerce, religion, education, family life, slavery and the freedman. In all fields are gathered hitherto unknown facts making possible new and more accurate conclusions in relation to the past.
It is possible to foresee important changes in the concept of southern history, the clearance of misunderstanding which resulted from the un-awarenes of the south to its written history. Unlike posterity-minded New England, the South never saw the importance of saving its records, letters, and diaries. Family-conscious and sectional-minded, it yet depended on word of mouth to preserve its story. Historians, confronted with an astonishing dearth of material, naturally misunderstood and slighted. Now Dr. Hamilton believes the collection will make her a more just, saner, less sectional interpretation of American life.
The huge collections of personal letters, some of them extending back for four generations, will make it possible to recreate the atmosphere of the past and will reflect the manners and morals, the civilization of the South.
“Famous men were always conscious that their letters might see print; they wrote guardedly,” says Dr. Hamilton. “In the letter of a son to his father there is no concealment. Lack of other means of communication necessarily made the letters more detailed. Thus these ordinary family letters are the most important single item throwing light upon the way of living, the thoughts and actions of southerners.”
Plantation records upon slavery and agriculture, coupled with the revelations of business and industrial records will furnish a more genuine economic history of the South.
“In this period when the South is so rapidly shifting its emphasis from agriculture to industry,” wrote Dr. Hamilton in preparing his plan, “and is attracting to itself for investment so much of the nation’s capital, it is of supreme importance for it to remember and study the past, and to save the records of today, in order that the South of the immediate future may wisely chart its course.
The myth of moonlight and magnolias has long been discredited. There remain many other fallacious ideas about the South which this collection will thoroughly explode, among them the conception of the masses of southern people as being politically inactive, and that picture of an unrelenting and impenetrable caste system which has figured so largely in most writing about the South. The collection will doubtless rectify other misconceptions, but many years will be required before such an assemblage can be catalogued, much less digested.
Little money has been available for the purchase of materials. Yet from New York, Falls River, Chicago, St. Martinsville, San Francisco, Wetum-pka, Philadelphia and Miccosukee matter has poured in—and from hundreds of towns scattered through Southern states. From Charlotte came 12 valuable plantation record books contributed by E. L. Baxter Davidson. Listed according to years, and extending from 1838 to 1890 they include both day books and ledgers for Rural Hill, Ingleside and Rural Retreat. Also coming from Charlotte were some of the papers of Col. E. L. Baxter.
During the last decade, Dr. Hamilton has traveled 275,000 miles in the South and has worn out six cars. The diaries of his trips are the saga of a scholar turned adventurer.
Courteous, persuasive, eloquent, he has lured tons of documents from the garrets, closets, trunks and outhouses of the South. Many of his most important items have been discovered in the junk room of some courthouse or plantation home.
There have been disappointments, of course. Famous letters have been destroyed by families which considered them worthless. Flood has ruined priceless items, fire has taken more. Invading armies played their part in the havoc. Deadlier than these have been energetic housewives and rats.
In spite of the holocaust of records, Dr. Hamilton has secured a mountain-range of documentation. He has succeeded where mere money might have failed. Some purchases have been necessary. Somtimes individual collections have been given under seal, to be broken only after the donor’s death or at his instructions. By far the larger part of the southern collection, however, has been given outright.
Once secured, this material must be put in condition for use. Books in bad condition must be mended and rebound; manuscripts must be repaired, and all materials receive the most modern treatment for their preservation. Every item must be classified, catalogued and made available to researchers. A good deal of it ultimately will be edited and published.
Far from wilting under the difficult task he has set for himself, Dr. Hamilton seems to have subtracted rather than added 10 years to the 50 at which he began work on the collection.
Nationally known as an historian, editor and author, Dr. Hamilton is a graduate of the University of the South, received his doctor’s degree from Columbia and has been on the staff of the University of North Carolina for 32 years. His friends know the director of the collection as a good companion with dogs and guns or around the fireplace, boast that he knows more genuine people in the South than any other man.
He is the moving spirit of the Southern Historical Collection and has done most of its work single-handed. Now it has so expanded that he would like to see a collector in every state, and an addition to the university’s beautiful and imposing library. If need be though, he will make out with his “faith and a shoe-string.”
The Southern Historical Collection is sectional but Dr. Hamilton considers it national in purpose, character and scope. The collection is open to all investigators. It is his belief that from it will be drawn greater and more accurate knowledge of an important section of the United States; that it will make possible a fresh interpretation of the nation’s history, a better and easier building of the New South.
The University officially established the Southern Historical Collection on 14 January 1930, with Dr. Hamilton as director. Sarah Graham Kenan provided an initial endowment. When Hamilton retired in 1951, the SHC held approximately 2,140,000 manuscript items. Today the total has grown to over 15 million items organized in more than 4,600 discrete collections.
See http://library.unc.edu/wilson/shc/ for more about this organisation.
I also added a couple of books to the foot of our Sketches of North Carolina page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/nc/ where there is one of the issues of the Uplift publication, some 1600 pages, and also a book about the institution that published it.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair