MDAH Director Hilliard
To Retire at End of Year Elbert
R. Hilliard, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History since
1973, has announced his plans to retire December 31, 2004. Hilliard had planned
to retire January 1, 2004, but postponed his retirement at the request of the
board of trustees.
"Elbert Hilliard leaves a legacy of service as director of the Department
of Archives and History that is almost unprecedented in state government," said
MDAH Board of Trustees president Willial Winter, "not only for the length of that
service but for the professional leadership that made him such a universally respected
figure." H. T. Holmes, director of the MDAH Archives and Library Division since
1988, will assume the position of MDAH director January 1, 2005. Elbert R. Hilliard,
a native of Nitta Yuma in Sharkey County, received his bachelor's degree from
Delta State College and his master's degree from Mississippi State University.
After teaching history for six years, he began working at the Department of Archives
and History in 1965 as curator of history at the State Historical Museum. He became
director of Historic Sites and Archaeology in 1970 and Department director in
1973. When Hilliard became MDAH director in 1973, the MDAH staff comprised
fifty-one people and the annual budget was less than one million dollars. Today
the Department employs more than one hundred fifty people and operates on an annual
budget of more than eleven million dollars. When Hilliard became director of the
Historic Sites Division, the Department administered only one historic property:
the Old Capitol. MDAH now has seventeen historic properties, six of them National
Historic Landmarks. Six of these properties are fully interpreted historic sites,
attracting thousands of visitors each year. Under his leadership important new collections were added to the MDAH
archives including the papers of Jefferson Davis, Judith Sargent Murray, and Medgar
and Myrlie Evers. The state records management and local government records programs
were established. During Hilliard's tenure, the fledgling state historical museum developed
into one of the finest museums and most popular tourist attractions in the state;
the Old Capitol Museum was designated a Smithsonian Affiliate, the first in the
state, in 2001. Hilliard worked with the members of the Mississippi Legislature to strengthen
and clarify Mississippi's laws governing historic preservation, with the result
that the State Antiquities Law, amended in 1983, is widely recognized as one of
the strongest preservation laws in the country. He has worked successfully with the Legislature not only to secure authorization
and funding for the Department but also for a series of grant programs that have
been of great benefit to historic properties and programs around the state. The MDAH director serves as secretary-treasurer of the Mississippi
Historical Society. Elbert Hilliard provided a constant to the Society over the
years, working on Society/Department partnerships on many ambitious projects,
including the Heritage of Mississippi Series and the Mississippi History
Now online educational publication. He has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Mississippi
History throughout his term as director. During that time it became a refereed
journal with an editorial review board of distinguished scholars. Hilliard helped spearhead funding efforts for the construction of the
state-of-the-art William F. Winter Archives and History Building, dedicated in
2003. A public reception will honor Hilliard on Thursday, January 27, 2005,
at 3 p.m., in the Old Capitol Rotunda. PHOTO
GALLERY>>
Eudora
Welty Foundation's National Advisory Board Meets
The Eudora Welty Foundation's National Advisory Board (NAB) met October 9 in Charlottesville,
Virginia, for updates on fundraising needs for the Eudora Welty House, which is
scheduled to open in April 2006. Hosts for the meeting were Dan and Lou Jordan;
Dan Jordan is the director of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville.
Twelve of the twenty-one NAB members attended, as well as nine of the eleven Welty
Foundation Board members, five MDAH staff members, and Eudora Welty scholar and
biographer Suzanne Marrs. PHOTO
GALLERY>> |
Mark Your CalendarsWinterville
Mounds Museum, Greenville During November (Native American Month),
school groups can make field trips throughout the month to Winterville Mounds
for special programs focusing on the native foods of the Americas. Reservations
are required. Free of charge. On Saturday, November 6, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Native
American Day will feature demonstrations of traditional Native American
cooking, basket-making, and flint-knapping, along with tours of the mounds and
museum. Free of charge; some crafts will be for sale. For information call 662/
334-4684. Old
Capitol Museum of Mississippi History, Jackson The Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra
will perform a free concert of classical and baroque music on Sunday, November
14, at 2 p.m. For more information call 601/576-6920. |
Old Capitol Museum
Wins AwardsThe Old Capitol Museum
of Mississippi History has received three prestigious awards from the Southeastern
Museums Conference (SEMC). The Old Capitol tied for the Award of Excellence (highest
award) in the 2003-04 Curator's Exhibition Competition (in its budget category)
for Two Rivers Unleashed, according
to awards chair Peter J. Baldaia, chief curator, Huntsville Museum of Art. The museum also won first
place in the Educational Package category for three annually produced brochures
and first place in the Promotional Package category for its Eudora Welty House
garden materials: invitation, program, garden guide, bookmark, and seed packet.
The awards were presented
in Winston-Salem as part of the SEMC awards ceremony on Thursday, October 21.
The
Mississippi Heritage Trust offers two events November 12-14 in Biloxi: a Cemetery
Preservation Workshop ($70 for MHT members and $95 for non-members) and Fall Insiders'
Tour of Biloxi and Ocean Springs-cemeteries, art and cultural museums, and historic
collections ($225). Call 601/ 636-5010 for more information. |
| MDAH Awarded National
Film GrantMDAH has been awarded a
grant to preserve a collection of amateur films shot in the 1940s by Robert A.
McClure, a Delta farmer. The $3,234 grant from the National Film Preservation
Foundation will fund the conservation of four black-and-white silent films that
document the state during its transition from labor-intensive manual farming to
mechanized methods. The films were shot on
8mm and 16mm film. A 1944 film of field workers in Coahoma County shows the manpower
necessary to grow cotton at the time. A 1947 film shows mechanization beginning
to replace human labor in the cotton fields. The film titled "Clarksdale Dusting
Co." shows footage of a converted military airplane that is thought to have been
the first plane used for spraying pesticides. Also documented is a rare snowstorm
that swept across north Mississippi on January 5, 1944. After conservation, the
films will be available for viewing in the William F. Winter Archives and History
Building in Jackson. The films were donated
to MDAH by McClure's daughters Joy Coker, of Munford, Alabama, and Ann Saucier,
of Laurel. Robert McClure was the great-uncle of Donna Dye, former director of
the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History. Dye first approached family members
and suggested they donate the films to the state archives. The
Mississippi Heritage Trust offers two events November 12-14 in Biloxi: a Cemetery
Preservation Workshop ($70 for MHT members and $95 for non-members) and Fall Insiders'
Tour of Biloxi and Ocean Springs—cemeteries, art and cultural museums, and
historic collections ($225). Call 601/ 636-5010 for more information.
Barry
Discusses Influenza John
M. Barry, author of Rising Tide (winner, MHS McLemore Prize), will discuss his
new book, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History,
on Tuesday, November 9, at 7 p.m. in the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation
auditorium, corner of Cherry and Crawford Streets, Vicksburg. There is no charge,
but please call (601/631-2997) to reserve a seat.
Visit
Mississippi History NOW for
"Gideon Lincecum (1793-1874): Mississippi Pioneer and Man of Many Talents," by
USM history professor Greg O'Brien. | 
Members
of the MDAH Board of Trustees traveled to Greenwood for
their fall quarterly meeting at the invitation of Fred E. Carl, Jr., Viking Range
Corporation. At a reception on Thursday, October 21, Carl and others were honored
for their outstanding preservation efforts in the city and county. At the meeting
at the Viking headquarters (above), the board formally elected H.T. Holmes as
MDAH director to succeed Elbert R.Hilliard in January. Above (l-r): Van R. Burnham,
Jr., M.D., Clarksdale; Duncan M. Morgan, Natchez; Martis D. Ramage, Jr., Belden;
Elbert R. Hilliard; William F. Winter, Board president, Jackson; H. T. Holmes,
Jackson; E. Jackson Garner, Jackson; and Lynn Crosby Gammill, Hattiesburg. | 
| Accepting
MDAH resolutions of commendation from Hilliard and Winter for outstanding preservation
efforts were (left, top, l-r) City Council members Ronnie Stevenson and David
Jordan and Mayor Harry L. Smith and (left, bottom) Greenwood Main Street Association
president Allan Hammons and manager Barbara Ingram. |
| | Subscribe
to the print version of the Mississippi History Newsletter by sending your
name and complete mailing address to Public
Information. | |
![[Mississippi History Newsletter Online.]](mhnlhead012001.gif)