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MDAH News |
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Symposium to Focus on Women and the Civil WarA symposium sponsored by the Department of Archives and History will examine the role of women during the Civil War. "Not Just a Man's War: Contributions and Experiences of Women during the Civil War" will begin at 9 a.m. and end at noon on Saturday, May 5, in the William F. Winter Archives and History Building, Jackson. Distinguished speakers will address a range of topics. Robbie Smith, a park ranger at the USS Cairo Museum, Vicksburg National Military Park, will talk about female soldiers in the Civil War. Author and preservationist Elizabeth Shaifer Hollingsworth will present "The Women of Shaifer House." Amy L. Young, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Southern Mississippi, will reconstruct the life of Jane Huffman, sold as a slave in Natchez in 1858. "We hope this symposium will raise awareness of the experiences of women during the Civil War and encourage further research," said H.T. Holmes, director of the Department of Archives and History. The program is free of charge and open to the public. For more information call 601-576-6946. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. A comprehensive historical agency, the department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, government records management, and publications. The department is headquartered in the state-of-the-art William F. Winter Archives and History Building, located on the corner of North and Amite Streets in downtown Jackson. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. For more information call 601-576-6850 or see the Web site, www.mdah.state.ms.us.
MDAH Board of Trustees to Meet July 20 in JacksonThe Board of Trustees of the Department of Archives and History will hold its regular quarterly meeting on Friday, July 20, 2007, at 10 a.m. at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson. The meeting is open to the public. Members of the board of trustees of the Department of Archives and History are William F. Winter, president; Reuben V. Anderson, Jackson; Kane Ditto, Jackson; Lynn Crosby Gammill, Hattiesburg; E. Jackson Garner, Jackson; Duncan M. Morgan, Natchez; Martis D. Ramage, Jr., Belden; Roland Weeks, Biloxi; and Rosemary Taylor Williams, Corinth. The board is scheduled to meet again on July 20, 2007. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. A comprehensive historical agency, the department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, government records management, and publications. The department is headquartered in the state-of-the-art William F. Winter Archives and History Building, located on the corner of North and Amite Streets in downtown Jackson. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. For more information call 601-576-6850.
Winter 2006 Journal of Mississippi History Published
An article from each new issue of the Journal is featured on the MDAH Web site. "Mississippi's Extraordinary Month, November 1973," by Christopher P. Lehman, is the featured article from the Winter 2006 issue. The Journal of Mississippi History is a publication of the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. New issues of the Journal are mailed quarterly to members of the Mississippi Historical Society. Back issues are available for $7.50 apiece through the Old Capitol Shop, 601-576-6921, or oldcapitolshop@mdah.state.ms.us.
Four New Members Named to Mississippi Hall of FameTwo literary giants, an internationally acclaimed potter, and a leader in the development of Mississippi's oil industry have been chosen as new members of the Mississippi Hall of Fame. Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, George Ohr, and Emmett Vaughey were elected by the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History at a special meeting on December 15.
Inclusion in the Mississippi Hall of Fame, which honors women and men who made noteworthy contributions to the state's history, is the most significant recognition granted by the state through the Department of Archives and History. Any Mississippian-native or adopted-deceased at least five years may be nominated for the Hall of Fame. Consideration for the Hall of Fame takes place only once every five years. The Hall of Fame was established in 1902, the department's first year of existence. Early inductees included U.S. Supreme Court Justice L.Q.C. Lamar, U.S. Senator E.C. Walthall, and president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis. Now the Hall of Fame contains 122 distinguished Mississippians, including Gulf Coast artist Walter Anderson, newspaperman William Hodding Carter II, civil rights hero Medgar Evers, Choctaw chief Pushmataha, early feminist Nellie Nugent Somerville, physician Felix Underwood, and federal judge Burnita Shelton Matthews. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. A comprehensive historical agency, the department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, government records management, and publications. The department is headquartered in the state-of-the-art William F. Winter Archives and History Building, located on the corner of North and Amite Streets in downtown Jackson. For more information call 601-576-6850.
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The new issue of the Journal of Mississippi History features articles on each of the past three centuries. Marika Pineda, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington, writes about her ancestor John Girault in "Preserving Good Order: John Girault of Natchez, Mississippi, 1783-1813." An interesting incident in the Civil War is the focus of "Gamecocks in Mississippi: How a South Carolina Company Came to Serve in a Mississippi Regiment," by Robert S. Seigler, M.D. Finally, St. Cloud University professor Christopher P. Lehman takes a look at twentieth-century Mississippi in "Mississippi's Extraordinary Month, November 1973: The Demise of the Sovereignty Commission and of Unprofessional Leadership at the Mississippi State Penitentiary." Each issue also contains reviews of recent books pertaining to Mississippi History.
Eudora Alice Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, on April 13, 1909, and lived in Jackson all her life. In 1936 when she was twenty-seven, Welty published her first short story. A Curtain of Green, a collection of stories, followed a few years later. During the 1940s she began to win major literary prizes, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, published two novels and two more collections of stories, and wrote many book reviews for the New York Times. During these years Welty traveled in England, France, and Italy. The 1950s saw a third novel and a fourth collection of stories. In 1964 she published a book for children. During the late 1950s and '60s Welty balanced travel with work and caring for her mother-years that bore fruit in the early '70s with the novels Losing Battles and The Optimist's Daughter, the latter earning her the Pulitzer Prize. The collected essays, photographs, and memoirs of Welty's last decades were published to high acclaim, garnering large international audiences. Eudora Welty died on July 23, 2001, at the age of 92. 
Richard Nathaniel Wright was born September 4, 1908, on a farm near Roxie, Mississippi. After a troubled early childhood, Wright moved in with his grandmother in Jackson and began attending Jim Hill School. He wrote his first story in the eighth grade at Smith Robertson Junior High School. The next year Wright finished as valedictorian of his ninth-grade class at Smith Robertson, then left school. Wright spent years in Memphis, Chicago, and New York. In April 1931 he published his first major story, "Superstition." In 1938 four of his stories were collected as Uncle Tom's Children. He then received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to complete his first novel, Native Son. That work and his fictionalized autobiography, Black Boy, are regarded as classics of American literature. Wright wrote many more novels and short stories as well as nonfiction and poetry. He died in 1960.
George Edgar Ohr was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1857. Ohr's groundbreaking work in the field of ceramics is recognized internationally. In 1882 Ohr built his first pottery in Biloxi. In 1890 he opened the Biloxi Art and Novelty Pottery. With his long moustache and offbeat sense of humor, the self-proclaimed "Mad Potter of Biloxi" developed an eccentric persona that was in contrast to his strong work ethic. From the end of the nineteenth century forward, Ohr produced extraordinary art pottery that would be appreciated and remembered for generations. His pinched, folded, and twisted pots exhibit a technical facility that has been rarely matched. Ohr died in 1918. In his lifetime he did not receive much attention for his art. It was only at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair that he received any official awards, the silver medal. Today Ohr's pots sell for tens of thousands of dollars and are in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and many others.
Emmett Alexander Vaughey was born in 1908 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1927 he began his career in the oil business and in 1936 began operating in Mississippi. In 1940 Vaughey moved to Jackson and his company became a major player in the state's young oil and gas industry. In addition to developing several large oil fields, Vaughey worked with the Mississippi Legislature to establish conservation laws that became models for other oil-producing states. Vaughey served on several regional and national boards and during the Korean War was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior to serve as the Director of Production, Petroleum Administration for Defense, in Washington, D.C. Vaughey died in 1987.