University of South Carolina Scholar Commons University South Caroliniana Society - Annual South Caroliniana Library Report of Gifts 5-17-1997 1997 Report of Gifts (100 pages) South Caroliniana Library--University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/scs_anpgm Part of the Library and Information Science Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation University South Caroliniana Society. (1997). "1997 Report of Gifts." Columbia, SC: The ocS iety. This Newsletter is brought to you by the South Caroliniana Library at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in University South Caroliniana Society - Annual Report of Gifts yb an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The The South Carolina South Caroliniana College Library Library 1840 1940 THE UNIVERSITY SOUTH CAROLINIANA SOCIETY SIXTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING U~IYERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Saturday, May 17, 1997 Mr. Harve; S. Teal, President, Presiding Reception and Exhibit... ....................................................... 11 :00 a.m. South Caroliniana Library Luncheon ................................................................................ 1:00 p.m. Russell House Ballroom Business Meeting Welcome.............................................................. Dr. John M. Palms President, The University of South Carolina Reports of the Executive Council and Secretary Address .................................................................. Dr. Carol K. Bleser Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Distinguished Professor of History, Clemson University 1997 Report of Gifts to the South Caroliniana Library by Members of the Society Announced at the 61st Meeting of the University South Caroliniana Society (the Friends of the Library) Annual Program 17 May 1997 James McBride Dabbs and the Soul of the South - 1996 Keynote Address by Thomas L. Johnson Gifts of Manuscript South Caroliniana Gifts to Modern Political Collections Gifts of Printed South Caroliniana Gifts of Pictorial South Caroliniana South Caroliniana Library (Columbia, SC) A special collection documenting all periods of South Carolina history. http://library.sc.edu/socar University of South Carolina Contact - [email protected] 2 James McBride Dabbs and the Soul of the South Keynote Address by Thomas L. Johnson Presented, 17 May 1996, at the 60th Annual Meeting of the University South Caroliniana Society Published in the 1997 Annual Program Last year the South Caroliniana Library received the papers of the late University of South Carolina English professor Frank Durham (1913- 1971), given us by his widow, Society member Kathleen Carter Durham. In this splendid collection is the history of the founding of the South Carolina Review, the brainchild of Durham and his colleague the late Alfred Reid of Furman. When they were launching this "journal of creative and critical writing for South Carolina" some thirty years ago, quite naturally they were desirous of featuring in their premiere issues the works of writers in the state who had a proven record of publication and thus some established name recognition. In a letter of November 21, 1967, Durham mentions to Reid such South Carolina-related writers as Louis Rubin, Max Steele, Walter Spearman, Lodwick Hartley, William Price Fox, John Dickson Carr, and Paul Hyde Bonner as persons to be solicited for work to be featured in the Review. And then, near the end of the letter Durham asks Reid, "What about old James McB. Dabbs?" Almost three decades later, this is the question before us on this particular night in May 1996 before an audience which purports to love its place and honor its history and identify its heroes in the larger scheme of things. Well, indeed, what about "old James McB. Dabbs?" Who was he? What shall we do with him? Perhaps by the end of this session, we may find the question turned around: What does he do with us? 3 Some of you, of course, may never have heard of him, and I've got to proceed on this assumption. This is all right—up to now, that is. From here on out, you will want to know who he is. Not primarily because any South Carolinian who considers herself or himself versed in the significant cultural or historical or literary matters of this state and region would wish to. But out of the desire to identify the sources of life and light which nourish and satisfy and edify at the deepest levels of human experience. And not just the intellectual ones, either. It's too late, and I'm too old, to fool with talking about anyone whose work does not appeal to impulses beyond cold, rational ones. I approach this subject in the spirit of the late theologian D.T. Niles, who characterized himself simply as one beggar telling others where the source of bread is. I would not touch it if it did not have some deep emotional as well as intellectual appeal. Dabbs, indeed, does not force himself on anyone. His is a benign and quiet and gentle, if vital and restless, spirit. He does not insist upon a hearing. But he is always waiting to be discovered and rediscovered by those who are looking for some still, small human voice to speak a sane, clear, humorous, eloquent word amid the nonsense and insanity and vulgarity of our day, in which the same issues of human relations are as much with us as they were with him. But why "old James McB. Dabbs" tonight, this year? Because this year—indeed, this month—marks the centennial of his birth. James McBride Dabbs was born in Sumter County (S.C.) on May 8, 1896. And because we are here. We are on the campus less than one block south of the very place where Dabbs spent four of his most formative years, and where exactly eighty years ago he graduated as valedictorian of his class (1916). He was a product of this university. He was shaped by it in essential ways: not only in terms of the liberal arts education which he received; but in the very conception of education that he gained, away from regarding it as an aristocratic privilege to viewing it as a democratic ideal—a pointing away from campus to an interest in social problems and public affairs. 4 He finished as one of the outstanding graduates of this institution in the twentieth century. The faculty and students recognized it eighty seasons ago. In a letter of May 11, 1916, Dean L.T. Baker stated simply, "We regard Mr. Dabbs as one of the best men that the University has trained. He has been an active leader in student affairs, and enjoys the high esteem of the faculty and his fellow students for his manly qualities." And on May 13 his mentor Josiah Morse wrote: "He is a young man far above the average, in every respect. Justice cannot be done to his intellect, his character and personality, his industry and qualities of leadership without a liberal use of superlatives. His fellow students have shown in what high esteem they hold him by electing him President of the student body, and recently Valedictorian of his class. He has also been President of the Y.M.C.A., editor of the several University publications, and has been a leading force in all University activities." Thus, for starters, he was one of the outstanding graduates of the University of South Carolina, taught by men here who were imbued with the democratic spirit of education and a vision of the educated man as one who would leave the university to be vitally engaged in the human and social enterprise beyond the walls of academe. What further about him? In his own biographical accounts he identifies himself as a soldier. And, I suppose, in some sense he was a soldier all his life. But he literally served as a second and then first lieutenant, field artillery, in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1919, with one year's service overseas. At the end of it, in a letter of June 2, 1919, to his wife Jessie he wrote, I swear now that it would take a war twice as big as this one to ever get me out of the United States—`God's country'—again! I will want to fall upon my knees and kiss the soil of the dear land when I return. Talk about Christopher Columbus being glad on the morning of Oct. 12, 1492, when he sighted the sandy shores of the West Indies—well, you haven't seen me yet! 5 And of course he never did leave the country again, although one of his daughters has remarked recently that he greatly regretted he was not eligible for active duty in World War II. What next? He became one of the state's outstanding teachers for two decades, from the early 1920s into the 1940s, when he taught English—first at USC (1921-1924) and then at Coker College (1925-1942) in Hartsville (S.C.). He served as head of the English Department at Coker from 1925 to 1937. Listen to the ways some of his former students identified and described a great teacher. Norma Deuel Lutz, a native New Yorker who spent her first two college years at Coker (1927-1929), has said: "I have always felt that he was the most inspired and inspiring professor I ever had." Evelyn Snider, of Conway (S.C.), who claimed that it was he more than any other teacher who steered her into the field of teaching English for over forty years, wrote: "When I think of [his] classes, one recurring theme is dominant—‘love of life.’ I am most grateful that I had the privilege of `[sitting] at the feet' of a truly great teacher whose depth of perception and enthusiasm of living have influenced me so profoundly." Dorothy Smith Jeter found that the classroom association with Dabbs was the highlight of her college experience, and that he left lasting influences.