 Winning Spiders on the Web
At right is an illustration of a slate palette fragment recovered from the Twelve Mile Bayou site in Yazoo County. Area students in grades four through six who participated in the Demo-Dig 2005 archaeology program were invited to complete the pattern. Below are the winning entries.
Most Artistic: Bailey Weldon, 9, Northwest Rankin Elementary School, Brandon; Most Realistic: Wyatt O'Keefe, 10, Christian Home Educators of Clinton; and Most Creative: Joseph Parsons, 10, St. Richard's Catholic School, Jackson.
Old Capitol Museum Badly Damaged, Closed Indefinitely
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has officially closed the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History until further notice. The National Historic Landmark property was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. "All staff must be relocated and all artifacts removed from the building before the extreme damage caused by the storm can be repaired," said MDAH director H.T. Holmes.
High winds from Hurricane Katrina rolled the copper roof from the south end of the Old Capitol and drove rain in, damaging both building and artifacts. Because of the wet plaster and saturated insulation, the building is facing severe mold and mildew problems. A temporary felt roof and the ruined insulation, flooring, carpet, and plaster must be removed, said architect Robert Parker Adams, who is overseeing the stabilization effort for MDAH. "All these things must be done immediately before further deterioration occurs," Adams said.
All artifacts from the damaged areas-more than 3,200-have been moved to spaces throughout the building. Hundreds of artifacts were damaged, and conservation costs are expected to total up to $400,000. Among the items damaged were original paintings by William Hollingsworth and Marie Hull, textiles, firearms and swords, Choctaw baskets, and furniture, all now in need of immediate conservation.
"Nearly all of the museum's fall and winter programs, including Christmas at the Old Capitol and the Christmas by Candlelight Tour, must be cancelled," said Lucy Allen, director of the Old Capitol Museum. "While we are closed to the public we will concentrate on our outreach programs and traveling exhibits."
All planned fall and winter programs have been cancelled except for Demo-Dig 2005, which will be held outdoors on the Old Capitol Green, and the Teachers Workshop in November, to be held at an alternate location. For information on scheduling a speaker or program for the classroom or meeting, call 601-576-6920 during regular business hours.
The Old Capitol Shop will relocate to the first floor of the William F. Winter Archives and History Building, 200 North Street, Jackson, and reopen by November 1.
Group Donates $17,100 for Flag Conservation
A local historical group has donated $17,100 to the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History for the restoration of a rare Civil War battle flag. The Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans presented the check on Thursday, July 14, toward the conservation of an official national flag of the Confederacy used by the 33rd Mississippi Infantry. The group has contributed more than $52,000 for the conservation of six Civil War flags.
 Known as the "Stainless Banner" because of its white field, the flag measures 49" high by 82" wide. This particular flag was captured by the 26th Wisconsin Volunteers at the battle of Peachtree Creek, Georgia, in 1864. It was returned by the War Department in the early twentieth century and has been in the MDAH collection since.
The flag will be sent to New Orleans to be conserved by a professional textile restorer. Work is expected to take less than a year, and the flag will be put on public display at the Old Capitol when conservation is complete. Of the five flags previously restored through the efforts of the Mississippi Division SCV, three are on display at the Old Capitol and the other two are on loan to Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, in Biloxi.
"The work done by this group through the museum's flag conservation program has truly been amazing," said Mississippi Department of Archives and History director H.T. Holmes. "This generous contribution, the latest in a series, shows a real dedication to history."
"The Old Capitol Museum has a wonderful collection of historic flags," said Ron Stowers, Mississippi Division SCV chief of staff. "We are proud to have played a part in saving some of these beautiful and significant artifacts."
The Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History, a National Historic Landmark, is located on State Street at Capitol. Museum hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday; 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday; and 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. The Old Capitol Museum is administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. For more information call 601-576-6920.
Portrait of Owen Cooper Dedicated to Hall of Fame
The portrait of Owen Cooper, founder of Mississippi Chemical Corporation, was presented for dedication into the Hall of Fame of the State of Mississippi on Sunday, November 23, at 3 p.m. at the Old Capitol Museum.
 In addition to Mississippi Chemical Corporation, the largest fertilizer cooperative in the South, Cooper founded First Mississippi Corporation, a successful venture capital company. He was a leading progressive during the Civil Rights era and was active in the work of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist World Alliance.
Owen Cooper was born in Warren County in 1908. He graduated from Mississippi State University, earned a master's degree in economics and political science from the University of Mississippi and a law degree from the Jackson School of Law (now Mississippi College School of Law). After working briefly with the State Planning Commission in the early 1940s, Cooper became executive director of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation. After World War II, Cooper developed a plan for a fertilizer company that would be owned by farmers, and in 1948 he founded Mississippi Chemical Corporation. The success of Mississippi Chemical led in 1957 to the organization of First Mississippi Corporation, a venture capital company. This company raised a million dollars of equity capital in just six months and in 1975 became the first Mississippi corporation to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Cooper served as president of Mississippi Chemical Corporation until his retirement in 1973 and continued to serve on its board of directors, as well as the board of directors of First Mississippi Corporation, until his death.
In the late 1960s, Cooper assisted in organizing a fertilizer cooperative in India. The resulting fertilizer plant remains a model for local enterprise in Asia. A leader in church and civic activities, Cooper spoke out publicly during the 1960s for racial harmony and provided personal leadership in early efforts at racial cooperation following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He helped organize and was the first chairman of the board of Mississippi Action for Progress, a Headstart program for needy pre-school children, with forty centers in twenty-one counties. He was a founding member of the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference, a bi-racial, ecumenical group originally formed to help rebuild African American churches burned or bombed during the civil rights era.
Cooper served as vice president of the Baptist World Alliance 1970-73. In 1972 the Southern Baptist Convention elected Cooper president; he was one of only two laymen to serve as president in the history of the Convention. During the Jimmy Carter administration Cooper served on the president's Personnel Advisory Committee, an eleven-member council that advised President Carter on potential government appointees, and later on the Federal Farm Credit Board and the Committee for Arms Control and Disarmament. In 1985 the Mississippi Baptist Convention named Cooper Layman of the Century among Mississippi Baptists. Owen Cooper died in 1986.
Cooper's family donated his personal papers to the Department of Archives and History after his death. The Owen Cooper Papers contain photographs, manuscripts, transcripts of speeches, and correspondence dating from the 1930s through Cooper's death. The collection deals with Cooper's business, church, and social activities. An archival guide to the Owen Cooper Papers was published in1999.
The Mississippi Hall of Fame, established by the Department of Archives and History in 1902, honors distinguished Mississippians through portraits housed in the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History. Consideration for the Hall of Fame takes place only once every five years, and no more than five people may be admitted each time. Nominees are voted on by the nine-member board of trustees of the Department of Archives and History. Cooper was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001, along with Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews, longtime president of Jackson State University Jacob Reddix, former U. S. Senator John C. Stennis, and playwright Tennessee Williams.
Portrait of Jacob L. Reddix Dedicated to Hall of Fame
The portrait of Jacob Lorenzo Reddix, longtime president of Jackson State University, was presented for dedication into the Hall of Fame of the State of Mississippi on Friday, May 9, at the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History, Jackson. The portrait was painted by Bart Galloway, Tupelo, and was presented by Jackson State University and the Jackson State University National Alumni Association.
 Jacob Lorenzo Reddix was the fifth president of Jackson State University, serving from 1940 through 1967. Born in Vancleave in 1897, the youngest of nine sons born to former slaves, Reddix served in the army during World War I (1917-1919) and attained the rank of corporal. After earning a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Lewis Institute, Illinois Institute of Technology, he did graduate work at the University of Chicago as a Rosenwald Fellow. He taught in the public schools for fifteen years. During this time his interest and expertise in the cooperative movement grew, and he was recruited to serve as a specialist in cooperatives for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
In 1940 Reddix assumed the presidency of Jackson College, as it was then known, and during his twenty-seven-year tenure guided the school through the turbulent era of segregation and racial discrimination in Mississippi. Reddix built a new academic program for the college and added a graduate program of studies. Jackson State became the primary institution for the preparation of African American teachers and administrators in the state. Under his guidance the school saw the addition of talented faculty such as noted writer Margaret Walker Alexander and the construction of twenty-seven academic buildings and two faculty housing units.
Reddix was instrumental in the founding of two financial institutions: the Hinds County Educational Federal Credit Union and the State Mutual Savings and Loan Association, the latter of which was the forerunner of the First American Bank of Jackson, the only African American-operated commercial bank in Mississippi until its recent merger with Liberty Bank & Trust Company of New Orleans. In 1948, as a consultant to the Phelps Stokes Fund, he traveled to the Republic of Liberia to study the feasibility of a teacher education program there.
He wrote two books on the cooperative movement and a volume of memoirs. Jacob Reddix died on May 9, 1973, and was buried in Garden Memorial Park, Jackson.
The Mississippi Hall of Fame, established by the Department of Archives and History in 1902, honors distinguished Mississippians through portraits housed in the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History. Consideration for the Hall of Fame takes place only once every five years, and no more than five people may be admitted each time. Nominees are voted on by the nine-member Board of Trustees of the Department of Archives and History. Reddix was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001, along with Mississippi Chemical Corporation founder Owen Cooper, Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews, former U. S. Senator John C. Stennis, and playwright Tennessee Williams.
Five Elected to Mississippi Hall of Fame
Five Mississippians have been elected to their state's Hall of Fame. On December 7, 2001, Mississippi Chemical Corporation founder Owen Cooper, Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews, Jackson State president Dr. Jacob L. Reddix, former United States Senator John C. Stennis, and renowned playwright Tennessee Williams were honored with election.
Consideration for the Hall of Fame takes place only once every five years, and no more than five people may be admitted each time. Nominees are voted on by the nine-member Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
![[Dr. Jacob L. Reddix]](/images/news/reddix.jpg) The strength of the field of candidates made the choice a difficult one for the Board, said MDAH director Elbert Hilliard. "It is tremendous for a single state to produce so many worthy nominees. We are honored by them all."
Former governor William F. Winter, president of the Board of Trustees, said these elections are one of the most meaningful functions of the board, as well as one of the most pleasurable. "These men and women elected to the Hall of Fame represent the widest possible array of leadership, with careers that have had a lasting impact on our state and nation."
Mississippians owe much of their ease of travel to the efforts of Owen Cooper. He was the guiding force behind AHEAD (Advocating Highways for Economic Advancement and Development), the group of business, agricultural, and professional leaders dedicated to building a four-lane highway system throughout the state in the 1980s. Before that Cooper had helped found both the Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and the BlueCross/BlueShield health program in Mississippi. He may be best known for another groundbreaking organization he founded in 1948: the farmer-owned chemical cooperative Mississippi Chemical Corporation. In 1957 Cooper started the First Mississippi Corporation, a venture capital group that became the first Mississippi-chartered company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He helped initiate the Mississippi Head Start program and was chairman of the Mississippi Council on the United Nations. His progressive views during the Civil Rights era were controversial and may have cost him the chance of being elected governor of Mississippi. Cooper was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1972 and was named Mississippi Baptist Layman of the Century by the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Burnita Shelton Matthews was the first woman ever to be selected and confirmed as a federal trial judge in the U.S. Born in 1894 in Copiah County, she received her law degree from Washington, D.C.'s National University Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1920. Unable to find a private firm or government service that would hire a woman, Matthews opened her own practice. She became an ardent suffragist and feminist, championing women's rights, working with the National Woman's Party, and appearing several times before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1930s she was a law professor at American University. In 1949 President Harry Truman appointed Matthews to the U.S. District Court in D.C., where she served until retiring in 1968. The next year she assumed Senior Judge status and served on the U.S. Court of Appeals and again on the U.S. District Court through September 1983. Throughout her career she presided over several noteworthy legal actions, including the bribery trial of Jimmy Hoffa and the passport denial of singer and communist activist Paul Robeson.
Dr. Jacob L. Reddix was the fifth president of Jackson State University, serving from 1940 through 1967. Born in Vancleave in 1897, Reddix was in the army in 1919 and 1920, then went on to teach public school for fifteen years. He was recruited to serve as a specialist in cooperatives for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. From there he assumed the presidency of Jackson College, as it was then known, at a turbulent time and guided it through the height of the era of segregation and discrimination in Mississippi. Reddix built a new academic program for the college, revamping and expanding the teacher education program. Thanks to his efforts, Jackson State became the primary institution for the preparation of African American teachers and administrators in the state. Under his guidance the school saw the addition of talented faculty such as former poet laureate Margaret Walker Alexander and the construction of twenty-seven academic buildings and two faculty housing units. A strong believer in financial independence, Reddix also was instrumental in the founding of two financial institutions: the Hinds County Educational Federal Credit Union and the State Mutual Savings and Loan Association, the latter of which was the forerunner of the First American Bank of Jackson, the only black-operated commercial bank in Mississippi.
John C. Stennis was Mississippi's longest-serving U.S. Senator, holding office from 1947 until 1988, and serving as chairman of the Armed Services Committee and later the powerful Appropriations Committee. Known as "a senator's senator," Stennis was respected on both sides of the aisle. His reputation for integrity was evidenced when in 1954 he became the first member of his party to challenge the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy on the Senate floor. Stennis also wrote the first code of ethics for the Senate. Back home the senator championed various improvement causes, including the Rural Electrification Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. The Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, one of the senator's proudest achievements, employs more than 4,500 people engaged in the development of rocket propulsion and remote sensing technology, while the four forestry research labs he helped establish support the state's huge timber production industries.
The playwright and poet Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams III) was born in Columbus in 1911. Soon after his birth his family moved to Clarksdale, where Williams spent his early years. He began to write poems, fiction, and plays while in college and began winning prizes for his plays in 1940. He went on to achieve worldwide acclaim with such works as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He was awarded two Rockefeller Fellowships, four New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, and countless other honors. Some of his characters, such as Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, have become international icons. Tennessee Williams festivals are held the world over, including annual events in Clarksdale, Tupelo, and New Orleans.
Only Mississippians, either native or adopted, who have been deceased for at least five years, are eligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame. Election requires a unanimous affirmation by the members of the Board of Trustees.
The Mississippi Hall of Fame, established by the Department of Archives and History in 1902, honors distinguished Mississippians through portraits housed in the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History. The first ten members, determined in 1902 by a newspaper vote, included the former president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and United States Supreme Court Justice L. Q. C. Lamar.
The 1996 inductees were Delta Democrat-Times publisher William Hodding Carter II, Choctaw chief Greenwood Leflore, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal publisher George A. McLean, U.S. Senator Hiram R. Revels, and Mississippi Board of Health director Dr. Felix J. Underwood.
Dr. Felix Underwood Portrait Enters Hall of Fame
![[Dr. Underwood and Parchman inmates during a 1933 encephalitis experiment.]](/images/news/underwood1.jpg) Felix Joel Underwood came to be Mississippi's most influential physician. He was born November 21, 1882, in Nettleton, a small railroad town on the border of Lee and Monroe counties in northeast Mississippi. When he was ten, he watched helplessly as his mother died of childbirth fever. The experience was crucial in his decision to dedicate his life to the study of medicine. In 1904 he married and soon entered the University of Tennessee in Memphis, from which he received his medical degree in 1908. Underwood returned to his hometown to practice "horse-and-buggy" medicine for twelve years. Early in his career he displayed an interest in both public health and politics. In 1919 he was elected president of the Mississippi State Medical Association. He also served as president of the Southern Medical Association and represented Mississippi at most American Medical Association meetings during his long career.
![[Dr. Underwood examines Parchman inmate during a 1933 encephalitis experiment.]](/images/news/underwood2.jpg) In January 1921, his full-time public health career began when he was appointed director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene and Welfare. He left Monroe County and moved to Jackson, where he remained the rest of his life. Underwood distinguished himself in his new positions, and in 1924 was designated executive officer of the Mississippi State Board of Health, a position he held for thirty-four years.
Dr. Underwood was tireless in his efforts to improve public health practices. Under his leadership the number of physicians and hospitals in the state was increased, a four-year medical school was created in Jackson, free immunization was instituted, and public water was fluoridated. He organized training stations for public health workers, county health units, and mental health units, and he battled syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, diphtheria, maternal mortality, and tobacco abuse. On the national level, Dr. Underwood actively contributed to the formulation of national health policy during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also wrote two books detailing the history of public health in Mississippi.
After his death on January 9, 1959, he was praised in the state and national press as "the man who saved a million lives." Underwood remains perhaps the most outstanding physician Mississippi has ever produced.
Funding for the portrait of Dr. Underwood was raised by the Mississippi State Medical Association and the Mississippi Public Health Association.
Pushmataha Portrait Unveiled at the Old Capitol
![[Portrait of Pushmataha on display.]](/images/news/pushport.jpg) A portrait of Pushmataha, Choctaw warrior and statesman, was presented to the Hall of Fame of the State of Mississippi on Sunday, April 1, in the House of Representatives chamber of the Old Capitol. The portrait was painted by local artist Katherine Buchanan.
Participating in the ceremonies were Chief Phillip Martin, Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians, and the Honorable William F. Winter, president, Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Pushmataha was one of the most influential Choctaws of his time. Born around 1764, he gained the respect of his tribe through his skills as a warrior, diplomat, and leader. He was an orator as well, known for his eloquent speeches on behalf of his tribe. He was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Doak's Stand and successfully changed the terms of the agreement to reflect new land boundaries and to include education for the Choctaws. Pushmataha marshaled Choctaw support for the United States in the War of 1812 and in the Creek War. He was Southern District Chief of the Choctaw from around 1820 until his death. He died in 1824 in Washington, D.C., where he is buried in the Congressional Cemetery.
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