Guest Blogger: Marshall Bursis on “Davidson during Reconstruction”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Marshall Bursis is a senior political science major and history minor. He is from Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania. 

Handwritten childhood reminiscences of Lucy Phillips Russell during reconstruction in Davidson, North Carolina. Contents of the letter is discussed in following paragraphs.
Letter written by Lucy P. Russell in 1920 about life in Davidson, NC immediately following the Civil War.

Davidson College is a fundamentally Southern institution. Its antebellum founding and setting within the former Confederacy intimately connect the college and the town to the social context of Southern life in the 19th century. This may seem like a truism, but it is an essential acknowledgement. If we hope to more fully understand the history of the school and the town, we must interrogate the parts of the Southern experience that we may wish to overlook—like the systems of slavery and Jim Crow. Included in this more complete history is how the town reconciled with the realities of Reconstruction.  

The writings of Lucy Phillips Russell, daughter of professor Charles Phillips, provide a description, albeit incomplete, of Davidson College during Reconstruction and the childhood of the local elite. Lucy Phillips moved to Davidson in 1869, where she lived until 1875. Her recollection of her childhood at Davidson includes stories about the workings of the college and the town and a subtle assessment of her own experience as a young girl navigating the norms of the post-war South.  

Her account makes clear that religion dominated the lives of the students and those in the town. She describes religion and the church as “the shining element of the college and village life.” Russell characterizes her childhood in Davidson as “singularly monotonous and centered around the church.” Furthermore, her recollection of a single-mother living in the town is especially compelling. The exact source of the estrangement between the mother and father is unclear, but she implies that he abandoned her. Writing from 1920, Russell decries the “medieval times” that trapped this woman and made her miserable. “A modern woman” she writes, “would fly to a divorce court and make a joke of the whole situation.” It is clear that divorce, even for legitimate reasons like prolonged abandonment, were socially unacceptable in the Davidson of the 1870s. Russell’s characterization of this woman’s struggle indicates the significant transformation in marriage norms over less than fifty years.  

However, despite the source’s usefulness at examining the religiosity of the community and the town generally, it only tacitly acknowledges the broader context of Reconstruction. Russell remembers that during her childhood “every body was poor, because the whole South was.” Russell, however, makes no recognition of the source of this widespread condition—the destruction of war and the emancipation of slaves that previously provided incalculable amounts of free labor. 

From this believed universal poverty, Russell perceived her community as radically egalitarian, where “every body lived in charity with every body else, nurse each other in sickness, wept with each other in times of sorrow and death, enjoyed with each other when fortune smiled.” It is natural that Russell would hold nostalgia about her childhood, but her conception of an idyllic Davidson ignores the tension that remained in the South between the white community and newly freed blacks. Russell’s failure to adequately reckon with this troubled history mirrors our modern struggles with the problematic portions of our past.  

Bibliography:

Russell, Lucy Phillips. Letter, “Lucy P. Russell 1920 Letter,” 1920. http://libraries.davidson.edu/archives/digital-collections/lucy-p-russell-letter-1920#Works.  

Guest Blogger: Mads McElveen on “Dancin’ in Davidson: A Glimpse of Female Deviance in the Old South”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Mads McElveen is currently a senior at Davidson College. She is pursuing a major in German Cultural Studies and a minor in Health and Human Values. 

Back in the day, being a church-goin’ Christian who enjoyed kickin’ off your Sunday shoes and dancing was regarded as immoral, and thus, deserving of discipline. On the eighth day of the sixth month in year eighteen forty-four, a woman name Margaret White attended a “dancing party” at Davidson College. White, a member of the Davidson Presbyterian Church, was “admonished” for her crime, as the church strictly prohibited dancing.1 Getting any 1984 Footloose vibes?  

Handwritten minutes of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church from June 9, 1844. Digitized microfilm.
Minutes of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church from June 9, 1844. Digitized microfilm (right image).

In the mid-nineteenth century, the quaint town of Davidson, North Carolina was deeply rooted in Presbyterianism, a religious ideology that informed notions of pious womanhood. The Presbyterian Church perceived dancing as an anti-religious, impure activity that led to the premature incitement of sensual passions and permitted perverse forms of sexual pleasure.2 Women, more specifically white women, were to exist in a morally superior sphere – confined to domesticity and ascribed the purpose of reproduction. To engage in social dancing was to be labelled as deviant by the Presbyterian Church.  

The deviance of women is an area of human behavior that has been notably ignored in literature. In order to create a more comprehensive narrative of female deviance, one must learn how to extrapolate meaning from little tidbits of information. The affairs and details recorded in the 19th century session minutes for Davidson College Presbyterian Church, including the admonishment of Margaret White, exemplify the manner in which the Presbyterian Church functioned as an extra-legal determinant of social morals and surveyor of discipline. The predominant approach to female criminality was moralistic – judged against the patriarchal society’s notion of the ideal woman. Through governing appropriate behavior, institutions like the church often reinforced the socially-prescribed boundaries of normative womanhood and perpetuated the control and ownership of women by white men.  

By choosing to engage in the fashionable amusement of social dancing, women were exercising bodily agency and consequently destabilizing the very boundaries of gender that allowed institutions to exert control over female bodies and actions. So, in the words of Lee Ann Womack and in the spirit of Margaret White and other women like her, “If you get the choice to sit it out or dance…I hope you dance!” And, remember, well-behaved women seldom make history.3  

Bibliography:

Jenkins, Jane R. “Social Dance in North Carolina Before the Twentieth Century- An Overview.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina Greensboro, 1978. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing (7824302). 

Minutes of the Davidson Presbyterian Church, June 9th, 1844, Davidson Archives and Special Collections, Davidson, N.C.    

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. “Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668-1735.” American Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1976): 20.  

  

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Griffin on “The Crescendo of Women Music Teachers in Antebellum America”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Jennifer Griffin is a junior Education Studies major from Polk County, North Carolina.  

Picture this, it’s the antebellum South in the late 1800’s in the small town of Davidson, North Carolina. The well to do white adults and parents of the town are buzzing with excitement as they get ready to attend the recital of the town’s music students that have been taught by Miss Eulalia V. Cornelius. Young men and women along with a sprinkling of married women are performing, the recital featuring an array of exciting duets and beautiful piano solos.  

The year is 1898 and as the country is on the verge of celebrating the turn of the century, certain shifts have taken place nationwide that contributed to the production of this recital performed on March 21st. One of these shifts to note is the growing presence of women in the field of teaching. This shift can be attributed to the increasing focus on the instruction of morality, a concept bestowed upon women as they were then seen as the “more moral” sex (Laud). Along with this, Miss Eulalia Cornelius is probably also permitted by the community as a music teacher since music instruction was viewed as more suitable a profession than the instruction of other subjects such as math or physical education. 

Scanned program for a music recital led by Eulalia Cornelius in 1898. Recital features solo singer, solo piano performances, and duets.
Program for a music recital led by Eulalia Cornelius in 1898.

Despite limitations, the encouragement women received as music teachers paralleled their increasing opportunities in the overall American society (Hinely). It is important to note that this specifically references middle- and upper-class white women. Enslaved people’s work allowed for white slave owning women to spend more time away from the home and in the job field.  

Looking over the recital, I observed the fact that Miss Cornelius’ pupils were a combination of young men, young women, and married women. The co-education of young men alongside both single and married women is a progressive notion for southern culture of the 1800s, something I was quite excited to see.  I also enjoyed recognizing Miss Cornelius’ name alongside those of the performers, noting that she was skilled enough to feel confident in performing to the community a number of times, including both a solo and being involved in the final performance of the recital.  

In short, Miss Eulalia V. Cornelius’ occupation as a music teacher marks a specific example of the shift towards white women’s increasing opportunities and influence within American society as the 20th century approached.  

Bibliography: 

DC0324s, Music Program of Eulalia Cornelius in 1898, Davidson College Archives . 

Hinely, Mary Brown. “The Uphill Climb of Women in American Music: Performers and Teachers.” Music Educators Journal 70, no. 8 (1984): 31-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3400871

Laud, Leslie E. “MORAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA: 1600s-1800s.” The Journal of Education 179, no. 2 (1997): 1-10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42741719.

Guest Blogger: Isabel Padalecki on “Dancing, Deviance, and Davidson Presbyterians”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Isabel Padalecki is a sophomore at Davidson College. She is majoring in Gender and Sexuality Studies and History. 

Handwritten minutes of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church from June 9, 1844. Digitized microfilm.
Minutes of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church from June 9, 1844. Digitized microfilm.

In 2019, dancing in Davidson is not unusual. From Fall Fling to Friday night parties, dancing is a normal and healthy part of the social fabric of Davidson. This, however, has not always been the case. On June 9th, 1844, the Davidson College Presbyterian Church minutes (displayed above) stated the following: “Margaret White…had taken part in…a dancing party. It was agreed upon that the Pastor should confer with and admonish her.”1 The members of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church found Margaret’s attendance at a single dancing party noteworthy enough to merit both punishment and notation in the Church records. Clearly, dancing was not widely accepted for nineteenth-century Southern women like Margaret. 

Clipping of a digitized copy of the May 24, 1837 edition of The Biblical Recorder. Article titled “From the Presbyterian: Dancing.”
May 24, 1837 edition of The Biblical Recorder. Article written by T. Meredith, editor of The Biblical Recorder.

We can learn a lot about deviance and womanhood in nineteenth-century Davidson from Margaret’s story. During the nineteenth century, the town of Davidson defined itself as morally superior to its surrounding areas because of the extent to which it embraced strict Presbyterian moral values.2 Among these values was the idea that “worldly amusements,” like dancing, were deviant acts that pastors should discourage.3  North Carolinian Presbyterians condemned dancing as an impure and impious exercise of bodily autonomy. For example, T. Meredith, editor of The Biblical Recorder, wrote the following in 1837 (displayed above): 

“It can easily be conceived that a simple, harmless action…may become criminal. In the case of dancing, we conceive this to be true.” 4 

Presbyterian leaders did not criminalize dancing equally for all citizens; rather, they primarily targeted women with accusations of criminal dancing.5 This is because dancing represented sexual and bodily agency, and powerful institutions like the Presbyterian Church during this era defined normative and moral womanhood in ways that excluded women who used their body to produce pleasure rather than children. 

By participating in a dancing party, then, Margaret didn’t just break the church rules. Rather, she pushed against the boundaries of normative womanhood, claiming ownership of her body and its usage in a society that told her she should only find pleasure through marriage and motherhood.6 Through her dancing, Margaret engaged in an everyday act of resistance, deconstructing the boundaries of gender that institutions used to justify control of her body and problematizing the ideology that women existed as a pure and pious counterpoints to men.7 Margaret’s story, while one of punishment and silencing, is also a story of agency and pleasure, shining amongst the darkness of patriarchal oppression that exists in the archived history of women in the nineteenth-century South. 

By finding power in small, everyday stores of resistance like Margaret’s that appear to us in the archives, we don’t just empower women like Margaret as active and important historical agents. We also give ourselves, the feminist historians in the present, permission to see ourselves as powerful activists even when it seems that our work can only make small interventions in large structures of power. 

Bibliography:

Blanks, W.D. “Corrective Church Discipline in the Presbyterian Churches of the Nineteenth Century South.” Journal of Presbyterian History 44, no. 2 (June 1996): 89-105. 

Blodgett, Jan and Ralph B. Levering. One Town, Many Voices: A History of Davidson, North  Carolina. Davidson, NC: Davidson College Historical Society, 2012.   

Bynum, Victoria E. Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.  

Jenkins, Jane R. “Social Dance in North Carolina Before the Twentieth Century- An Overview.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina Greensboro, 1978. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing (7824302). 

Meredith, T. “From the Presbyterian: Dancing.” The Biblical Recorder (New Bern, N.C.), May 24, 1837. 

Minutes of the Davidson Presbyterian Church, June 9th, 1844. Davidson Archives and Special Collections (Davidson, N.C.). 

Guest Blogger: Hannah Maltzan on “Mary Graham Morrison: Her Story Written after Her Death”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Hannah Maltzan is a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina. She is a Political Science major and History minor and her involvements include: Senior Class Gift Chair, Orientation Team Leader, Tour Guide Executive Committee, and Warner Hall Eating House.

Even in death, Mary Graham Morrison gives historians and their readers a glimpse into the life of a college president and minister’s wife in the mid-19th century. As historians move to fill in the gaps in the narrative, especially around women’s history, case studies are necessary. Because women have largely been written out of the story, finding out what different types of women did during their lives can help us draw more general conclusions. Obituaries are a fantastic source of information because not only do they outline someone’s life but also what the social norms were and what other people thought of them.  

Typescript of Mary Graham Morrison's obituary as published in the North Carolina Presbyterian on June 1, 1864.
Typescript of Mary Graham Morrison’s obituary as published in the North Carolina Presbyterian on June 1, 1864.

Mary Graham Morrison passed away in Lincoln County, North Carolina on April 27, 1864. She was the wife of the Rev. R.H. Morrison, the first president of Davidson College.1 What is clear in Morrison’s obituary is how all-encompassing the Presbyterian Church was for her. Not only does it spell out her role in the Church, but also attributes all of her social accomplishments to God and her faith. She is praised for her many children and supporting her husband. The entire obituary praises her for her service to others which implies a lack of allowing women to take ownership over their own identity, with their own agency and desires outside of their families and communities.  

Obituaries can be incredibly useful. Not only do they tend to give us an understanding of the jobs and lives that people led, but also what others thought of them. Obituaries can be even more useful for women, especially in the period that Mary Morrison lived because of the lack of material on those women. Obituaries can aid in filling in the holes of women’s history by giving personal testimonies and actual examples of what these women did and were known for in their communities. By bringing a woman to the forefront of society, obituaries served as a tool to place women in the public eye in a time where they were supposed to stay in the private sphere of the home. And as historians look back at this era, they can use obituaries to round-out the narrative they choose to tell of the past.  

Bibliography:

Obituary of Mary Graham Morrison. North Carolina Presbyterian. June 1, 1864.

Guest Blogger: Gretchen Pearson on “Missionary Societies: Liberation and Restriction”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Gretchen is a Junior History Major and Communications Minor from Chicago, Illinois. 

Religion played a central role in the formation of social boundaries at Davidson College. Female members of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church occupied distinct roles: leading Sunday school, supporting husbands, attracting new members or nurturing the current ones, and most importantly, running women’s prayer meetings and church organizations.1 In August 1885, 18 women of the Davidson College Presbyterian Church met to establish the Ladies Missionary Society. Although The Missionary Society provided women more agency within the church and represented progress for females in general, it limited its admission to wealthy white females.  

Scan of a handwritten page from the minutes book for the Ladies Missionary Society of Davidson College Presbyterian Church dated 1885. The needed content is described in the next paragraph.
Page 17 of the minutes book for the Ladies Missionary Society of Davidson College Presbyterian Church, 1885.

The image above, found in the Davidson College Archives, is just one of many minutes from the minute book of the Ladies Missionary Society. All of the meetings took place in the Church, once a month, at the time designated by the members. Mary Lafferty, secretary and treasurer of the society, provides a description of the formation of the society as well as a detailed account of the first meeting. The first paragraph begins by addressing the change from The Ladies Benevolent Society to The Ladies Missionary Society and then shifts to discuss the election of leaders within the society – the ladies of the society elected Mrs. Dupuy as president and Mrs. Knox as vice president.

The second paragraph describes what occurred in the first meeting: Mrs. Dupuy read a psalm and offered a prayer, Ms. Helper gave the article “the Present Dominion of Islam,” and the other ladies of the society assigned Ms. Thompson to present on American missions and Ms. Andough on Asia. Before the meeting concluded, however, the women decided to require each woman to pay 10 cents in order to be a member of the Ladies Missionary Society.2  

The Ladies Missionary Society allowed women the opportunity to make a meaningful impact in the Presbyterian Church of Davidson College – but only if you could pay the membership fee. It also provided the nominated women an opportunity to hold a leadership position, demonstrating to the other members of the church, specifically the males, that women could be in charge of important matters such as fundraising, financial planning and budgeting, roles normally set aside for men. Although the women in The Society experienced more agency in their role than at any other time within the Davidson College Presbyterian Church, the entry fee created limited access. By the mid 19th century, women in the Presbyterian Church started to find more spaces for their voices to be heard, but often times these women came from white, affluent backgrounds. The Ladies Missionary Society was a step forward for women in general, yet it would take decades before underprivileged women began to hold some form of power within the Presbyterian Church.  

Bibliography:

R. Brackenridge , Douglas and Lois A. Boyd. “United Presbyterian Policy on Women and the Church—an Historical Overview.” Journal of Presbyterian History 1962-1985 59, no. 3 1981.  

“Women of the Church,” Minutes, 1885-1889, DC023.  

Guest Blogger: Francis Resweber on “Understanding the History of Davidson through the Helper Family”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

I am a senior Biology major and Hispanic Studies minor from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. While enrolled in HIS 306, Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870, I was interested in investigating the role of women in the town of Davidson as well as the college. 

Women’s history has been left out of the majority of historical narratives for all of time, and the history of the town of Davidson is no exception. However, by reading between the lines of available historical resources with the lens of a women’s historian, these gaps can start to be filled in. The records in the Davidson College Archives can be a tool for filling in those gaps, and proved to be useful when researching Hanson Pinkney Helper and his family.  

The Helper family owned both the general store and the hotel in Davidson beginning in the mid-1800s. Their family was one of great influence at the time, but most of the documents in the Helper files only mention H.P. Helper and his multitude of roles in the town. Helper’s obituary is one of the only documents that explicitly mentions the women in his family: his two wives and three daughters.1 Being part of a prominent family in the town, it is unlikely these women had no roles in the town as many records would suggest. Closer examination of H.P. Helper’s obituary shows that of his surviving children, his daughters are the only ones who remained in the town of Davidson.2 It is probable these daughters contributed to running the multitude of Helper businesses in the town. 

Snippet from the October 2, 1902 Charlotte News featuring H.P. Helper's obituary. The relevant content is referenced in the paragraph, below.
Portion of H.P. Helper’s obituary featured in the October 2, 1902 edition of the Charlotte News.

H.P. Helper’s obituary mentions his daughters, Mrs. W.D. Vincent, the wife of a Davidson College professor, and Mrs. M.J. Wilson and Miss Essie Helper who all lived in Mecklenburg County. His sons seem to have moved away to Texas and Kentucky, with only one remaining nearby in Charlotte. At this time, stores and hotels were mostly run with multiple family members helping out to make the businesses run smoothly. The Helper businesses were likely no exception, and the obituary says only the daughters remained in the town. Thus, the obituary provides interesting information in that while the sons have moved away from Davidson, the daughters were still around to help their father with his prominent business operations in the town. 

Although credit for women’s crucial roles in running businesses would never be explicitly given in this time period, a woman was most likely the hotelkeeper of the Helper Hotel.3 It was commonly understood in this time period that men owned the hotels, but the work inside of them was mostly domestic and therefore work for women.4 The Helper family was likely no exception with H.P. Helper owning the hotel and his wives and daughters performing the majority of the labor to keep the hotel running. History often excludes these women from the record, but reading between the lines of the archives makes these women’s roles difficult to deny. 

Bibliography:

Obituary for H.P. Helper. Charlotte News, October 2, 1902. 

Gamber, Wendy. “Tarnished Labor: The Home, the Market, and the Boardinghouse in Antebellum America.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 2 (2002): 177. https://doi.org/10.2307/3125179

Guest Blogger: Eoin Mills on “Mapping the Plantation World Around Davidson”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Eoin Mills is a Junior Political Science Major and History Minor at Davidson College. His work for HIS 306 Women and Gender in the US until 1870 centers around how enslaved women interacted with Davidson College during the Antebellum Period. 

Upon first entering the Rare Book Room, one cannot help but catch themselves in the stern glare of Rev. Drury Lacy, former president of Davidson before the Civil War. However this may be fitting as the area around Davidson College is steeped in history from the Antebellum period of American history. Its ties to plantation life and slavery run back for generations and the College was heavily integrated in the norms of the period. This semester, I have become immersed in the sources about this time period contained within the Rare Book Room and College Archives for my course Women and Gender in the United States until 1870. Specifically, the maps which the archives hold meticulously document the families and plantations of the area and how they interacted with the college on a daily basis. While there are many gaps in the record in reference the experiences of enslaved women, the topic which I am performing research on, the documents available provide strong context to a tumultuous period of America’s history. 

Scan of a supplemental map of 
portions of mecklenburg and iredell county described in the post. Numbered circles note plantation homes and churches.
This map is a supplement found in The Plantation World Around Davidson by Dr. Chalmers Davidson.

The most important document which launched my research was Chalmers Davidson’s map of the Davidson area that documents all the major plantations and families which existed from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. The map extends from the South of Iredell County, where the college used to be before county lines were redrawn to northern Mecklenburg County. Over 25 separate historical sites are noted on the map, many of which were large plantations. Upon closer examination of the archives, many of the plantations have detailed files on the families who lived there. Many of the families, such as the Brevard and Potts families, were wealthy slaveholders who had been established as North Carolina’s elite social class.  

This map, while not comprehensive provides necessary insight into the dynamics of the world around Davidson. When examining the map at first glance, one cannot help but realize the scale which plantation life dominated the area. It notes how the area was based on the characteristics of a slave society. The sheer volume of plantations emphasizes the extent to which this dictated daily life. There is also a deep-rooted connection to the confederacy as many of the families represented on the map had sons and husbands who were officers. Upon researching the names which the map displays, one can find how deeply ingrained the families and plantations were not just as soldiers but also as suppliers to the confederacy. In addition, the founding family of Davidson is represented. This displays how the past of enslavement is integrated into the history of the college.  

Overall, even at a quick glance, the map allows for one to draw inferences regarding the former dynamics of the area, along with providing an integral guide for further research by providing names, locations, and time period to focus one’s search. 

Bibliography

Davidson, Chalmers G. The Plantation World Around Davidson. Rev. and enl.ed. Davidson, N.C.: Briarpatch Press, 1982.

Guest Blogger: Elsa Conklin on “Intersections of Davidson, Liquor, and Slavery”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

My name is Elsa Conklin and I am a sophomore History and Hispanic Studies major from outside of Seattle, Washington.  

Many, many years ago, Davidson College held a strict and vastly different policy that likely irked the students: alcohol was banned throughout the entire campus. This caused conflict throughout the years, yet was a multifaceted issue that gave way to other issues around the area. Alcohol was something that intersected race, student life, and also the lives of the women of Davidson.  

Mary Lacy was a woman of the town of Davidson in the 19th century, the wife of Rev. Drury Lacy who served as president of Davidson College from 1855 until 1860. A faithful step-mother to her formerly widowed husband’s six children, she wrote several letters to her step-daughter Elizabeth, casually referred to as Bess. She confided in Bess, and her letters are a window into the world surrounding Davidson College from the year 1856 to 1859. Her unique perspective provides a glimpse into what life was like in Davidson at this time, as she discusses everything from health and childbearing to her slaves to friendships and familial relationships.  

In her letter to Bess in February of 1859, Mary relates a conflict that occured in Davidson recently that touches upon multiple issues. She writes, “Yesterday they caught a wagoner hanging about the woods to sell liquor to the students & some bought of him, so they sent him down to jail at Charlotte.”1 Continuing this thought and giving the modern reader insight as to the relations between enslaved persons and white women in this time, she details, “You have no idea what a lawless community this is… We are much in hopes these two events will strike terror into the negroes & the whiskey sellers”.2 

Scan of the second page of Mary Lacy's February 1859 handwritten letter to her step-daughter, Bess. The last two sentences are referenced in the paragraph, above.
This is the second page of Mary Lacy’s February 1859 letter to her step-daughter, Bess. The last two sentences are referenced in the paragraph, above.

Though the wagoner in this situation appears to be a free man, she brings “negroes” into the situation and holds them to the same accusations. This connection indicates a particular kind of thought towards enslaved people from their white mistresses at this time, a mentality reflected in Thavolia Glymph’s “Women in Slavery: The Gender of Violence”. Mistresses were often the ones designated within the household to punish their slaves, and it was usually a job devoid of empathy and respect for the enslaved as fully human. Though we don’t have specific documents detailing enslaved persons’ involvement in the trading of liquor, Mary’s letter provides an interesting insight as to how assumptions such as these created intersections between alcohol, enslaved persons, and women in the town and college of Davidson. Perhaps slaves were selling alcohol to students in the woods, but without any firm evidence, we can’t say this for certain. 

Bibliography:

Davidson College HIS 306 Spring 2017. “The Mary Lacy Letters.” The Mary Lacy Letters. Accessed November 8, 2019. https://his306sp17blog.rosestremlau.com/introduction/

Mary Lacy to Elizabeth Lacy, February 1859, in “The Mary Lacy Letters”, https://his306sp17blog.rosestremlau.com/introduction/

Glymph, Thavolia. “Women in Slavery: The Gender of Violence.” Out of the House of Bondage, n.d., 18–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511812491.002

Guest Blogger: Ellie Hudson on “Betty Tate Davis and the Legacy of Slavery at Davidson College”

In Fall 2019, Archives, Special Collections, & Community (ASCC) had the privilege of working with Dr. Rose Stremlau’s “HIS 306: Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870” course. Over the course of a semester, students researched the history of women and gender in the greater Davidson, North Carolina area using materials in the Davidson College Archives and other local organizations. The following series of blog posts highlights aspects of their research process.

Ellie Hudson is a senior from Asheville, North Carolina. She is a Communication Studies major and a Hispanic Studies minor. 

Davidson College, like many colleges in the United States, was built by enslaved people, many of whom are absent from the documentary record. Recently, there have been efforts by colleges around the country to study and acknowledge the role that slavery played in the institution’s history. In 2017, a family contacted Davidson about one of their ancestors, an enslaved woman named Betty Tate Davis, who made the bricks that were part of one of the original Davidson buildings. 

Scan of handwritten Presbytery of Concord meeting minutes from 1836 describing a large purchase of bricks made on the plantation of John Caldwell.
Presbytery of Concord meeting minutes from 1836 describing a large purchase of bricks made on the plantation of John Caldwell.

Starting in 1835, the Presbytery of Concord began meeting to discuss the founding of Davidson College. Mecklenburg locals were contracted by the Presbytery to provide services aiding in the construction of the College. In August of 1835, a committee was formed to manage the acquisition of building materials. The committee resolved to purchase bricks from the plantation of Major John Caldwell, where Betty Tate Davis may have been enslaved. The minutes read, “The committee report that they have contracted for the making of a quantity of Brick, not exceeding 250,000 to be made on the Plantation of Major John Caldwell and delivered to the kiln at four dollars per thousand.”1 

Unfortunately, we are unable to obtain details from the documentary record about Betty Tate Davis’s life in Mecklenburg County. We can infer that she was most likely enslaved on Major John Caldwell’s plantation by connecting her family’s oral history and the Presbytery minutes. Betty Tate Davis is one woman, but her absence in the historical narrative is important. There were many enslaved people that worked to construct and maintain Davidson College whose stories are missing just like Betty Tate Davis’s. The reality is that the uncompensated and often unrecorded labor of enslaved people made Davidson College what it is today. At any academic institution, it is critically important that we work to understand our past and how it informs our present. At Davidson, we must reckon with the legacy of slavery in order to complicate the historical narrative we are often presented by the College. When we look to stories like that of Betty Tate Davis and those like her, we can begin to gain a broader, more intersectional, and more realistic understanding of the history of Davidson College.  

Bibliography:

Presbytery of Concord. Presbytery Minutes. August 1835. Concord Presbytery Records.  Davidson College Archives and Special Collections.