Artifacts

Civil War Sesquicentennial: Today in 1862

On April 6, 2012, in Artifacts, by Amanda
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The Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial continues and in the coming months we will be highlighting Museum Division collections related to 1862 and the Civil War. Special thanks to Nan Prince, Asst. Director of Collections, for writing this series.

Civil War battle flag. Accession Number: 1960.202.1 (Museum Division Collection)

Civil War battle flag. Accession Number: 1960.202.1 (Museum Division Collection)

The Battle of Shiloh in southern Tennessee began on April 6, 1862, and became the bloodiest battle of the Civil War up to that point with almost 24,000 casualties. This flag, which has been stored in the candy jar since before it was sent to the Department of Archives and History in the early 1900s, was reputedly carried by the 6th Mississippi Regiment during the battle. A label inside the jar with the flag states that seven color-bearers were killed or wounded while carrying this flag during the battle. The 6th Mississippi sustained horrific casualties during the first day’s fighting at Shiloh. According to General Cleburne’s report in the Official Records, the 6th suffered 300 casualties of the 425 men it carried into the battle, earning the unit the nickname of the “Bloody Sixth.”

Sword of scabbard of Col. John J. Thornton, carried at Shiloh. Accession Number: 1960.131.1ab (Museum Division Collection)

Sword of scabbard of Col. John J. Thornton, carried at Shiloh. Accession Number: 1960.131.1ab (Museum Division Collection)

Colonel John Jones Thornton commanded the 6th Mississippi at the Battle of Shiloh. A Unionist, Thornton was sent by Rankin County to the Secession Convention  in January 1861, and, though it overwhelmingly passed, he refused to sign the Ordinance of Secession. However, once Mississippi seceded, Thornton was an ardent supporter of his state. He reorganized the Rankin Guards into the Rankin Greys and when they joined the 6th Mississippi, he was elected colonel of the regiment and led them into battle at Shiloh. While carrying the sword and scabbard pictured above, Thornton was critically wounded on the first day of the battle. The scabbard has been patched where it was perforated by a bullet. Due to his injuries, Thornton was forced to resign his commission on May 25, 1862.

Now on Display

This flag is currently on display through April 29, 2012, in the exhibit A Walk Through History in the Old Capitol Museum. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 9-5 and Sunday 1-5 p.m.

Artifacts from the Museum Division collection that are not on exhibit are available for viewing by appointment. Please contact Nan Prince, Assistant Director of Collections, by email to schedule an appointment.

Sources:

Grady Howell, Jr., “Col. John Jones Thornton, M.D.: A Sparrow Along Upon the Housetop” (1988), from the personal papers of the author.

Robert N. Scott (United States War Dept.), The War of the Rebellion, Series 1: Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, vol. 10, part 1 (Gettysburg, PA: The National Historical Society, 1972), 580-84.

National Park Service, Shiloh National Military Park website, http://www.nps.gov/shil/historyculture/shiloh.htm.

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Women’s History Month: Mrs. Luther Manship and the Confederate Monument

On March 30, 2012, in Artifacts, Museums & Historic Sites, by Amanda
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March is Women’s History Month so we will be showcasing exceptional Mississippi women and related collections on the blog. This post was written by Marilynn Jones, director of the Manship House Museum.

Marble boot, given to Mrs. Luther Manship for her efforts toward construction of the Confederate Monument. Accession Number: 2009.6.29 (Museum Division Collection)

Marble boot, given to Mrs. Luther Manship for her efforts toward construction of the Confederate Monument. Accession Number: 2009.6.29 (Museum Division Collection)

Marble boot, given to Mrs. Luther Manship for her efforts toward construction of the Confederate Monument. Accession Number: 2009.6.29 (Museum Division Collection)

Mary Belmont Phelps Manship (1862-1898) was an instrumental force in the construction of the Confederate Monument in Jackson, Mississippi. Born in Huntsville, Alabama and educated at Whitworth College in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Mary Belmont Phelps and Luther Manship were married in 1881, in Magnolia, Mississippi. Luther Manship, the ninth of fifteen children of Charles Henry and Adaline Manship, was a prominent lecturer who served as Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1908 to 1912. Both Luther and Belmont Manship were concerned for the welfare of the Civil War veterans.

On June 16, 1886, Mrs. Luther Manship and several other concerned women met in the Senate Chamber at the Old Capitol and organized the Confederate Monument Association of Mississippi.1 Their mission was to raise funds for a monument honoring the Confederate dead of Mississippi, to be located on the south Capitol Green, an area that is now the front lawn of the Charlotte Capers Archives and History Building. The first funds for the monument resulted from a concert organized by Mr. and Mrs. Luther Manship that featured a variety of songs and recitations performed by local talent. For several more years, the ladies of the Confederate Monument Association continued their struggle to raise funds, and in 1888 the legislature passed a bill appropriating $10,000 to complete the monument.

Confederate Monument today.

Confederate Monument today.

The birthday of Jefferson Davis, June 3, 1891, was chosen as the date for the official dedication the Monument. A parade of Civil War veterans, the Mississippi National Guard, officers of the Ladies’ Monument Association, members of the family of the late Jefferson Davis, and other dignitaries, processed from the City Hall to witness the unveiling by Jefferson Davis Hayes, grandson of Jefferson Davis. It was estimated that twenty thousand people from fourteen states witnessed the unveiling of the Confederate Monument.2

For over one hundred years, the Monument has honored the Confederate dead of Mississippi and the efforts of the Ladies’ Monument Association.

Artifacts from the Museum Division collection that are not on exhibit are available for viewing by appointment. Please contact Nan Prince, Assistant Director of Collections, by email to schedule an appointment.

1 John Ray Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990).

2 The Daily Clarion-Ledger, June 3, 1891, Jackson, Mississippi.

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Women’s History Month: Caroline Benoist

On March 14, 2012, in Artifacts, Photographs, by Amanda
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March is Women’s History Month so we will be showcasing exceptional Mississippi women and related collections on the blog.

"June 1986 at Caroline Benoist's Home, 410 S. Union, Natchez, Miss." Edna Roberts and Caroline Benoist look at photo albums and reminisce about their times as Public Health Nurses. Call Number: PI/2001.0008, item 4 (MDAH Collection)

"June 1986 at Caroline Benoist's Home, 410 S. Union, Natchez, Miss." Edna Roberts and Caroline Benoist look at photo albums and reminisce about their times as Public Health Nurses. Call Number: PI/2001.0008, item 4 (MDAH Collection)

Caroline Benoist (1896-2000) was a public health nurse and educator. Benoist did not begin working as a public health nurse until 1936, but the occupation itself began in Mississippi around 1915, when the American Red Cross and National Tuberculosis Association jointly sponsored nurses in several Mississippi counties. In 1920, the Red Cross persuaded the Mississippi Board of Health to place a state nurse in their offices to facilitate statewide public health nursing activities. The state nurse determined that maternal and child care, tuberculosis, and communicable disease were the most pressing health problems in the state. Public health nurses were then dispatched to both care for and educate Mississippians about these health issues. The new Public Health Nursing office soon focused much of its efforts on maternal care. It produced the Manual for Midwives in 1922 and thereafter sent out public health nurses around the state to train lay midwives and conduct classes and clinics.1

Maternal and child health were areas in which Caroline Benoist specialized as a public health nurse. A Natchez native, Benoist acquired extensive education and training at several institutions, including Miami University (Ohio), Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Vanderbilt University.2 She returned to Mississippi in 1936 to work as a public health nurse in Sunflower County. Benoist said, “I’d never even been to the Delta before, but I liked the Delta, even though the experience was quite different for me. I wasn’t young, but I had always worked indoors. I had worked in Baltimore, but never outdoors.”3

Benoist conducted classes on hygiene and nutrition for local people. She described these “shade tree clinics,” saying:

After we got the plantation people interested and educated, we conducted shade tree conferences, with little folding tables and chairs. We actually took our clinics to the plantation, and hundreds of people would come. While the secretary wrote the patient cards, we nurses would give the shots. The need was so great; we saw vicious typhoid, polio, and an awful lot of VD.4

In addition to the conferences, Benoist designed various items that people could build themselves. Examples of a baby incubator, crib, and potty that she designed are now in the MDAH Museum Division Collection. They were donated by her colleague Edna Roberts, former director of nursing at the Department of Health, in 2001.

Incubator designed by Caroline Benoist. Accession Number: 1990.46.1 (Museum Division Collection)

Incubator designed by Caroline Benoist. Accession Number: 1990.46.1 (Museum Division Collection)

Benoist’s work took her to the front lines of the struggle to improve Mississippi’s health outcomes. She faced many challenges but met them with energy and compassion. The tradition of education and prevention established by Benoist and other public health nurses improved the health of Mississippians in the 1930s and continues to have an impact on healthcare today.

Artifacts from the Museum Division collection that are not on exhibit are available for viewing by appointment. Please contact Nan Prince, Assistant Director of Collections, by email to schedule an appointment.

1 Margaret Morton and Edna R. Roberts, with Kaye W. Bender, Celebrating Public Health Nursing: Caring for Mississippi’s Communities with Courage and Compassion, 1920-1993 (Jackson: Mississippi State Department of Health), excerpt at “1920-1929: Beginnings and Focus of Public Health Nursing in Mississippi,” Mississippi State Department of Health, accessed March 2, 2012, http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/4,10786,204,493.html.

2 Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, “Caroline Benoist Collection: Biographical Information,” University of Virginia School of Nursing, accessed March 2, 2012, http://www.nursing.virginia.edu/research/cnhi/collection/individual/benoist/.

3 Office of Public Relations, Mississippi State Department of Health, “Claim to Title V Funds ‘Poignantly Justifiable,’” Mississippi’s Health 3, no. 2 (Summer 1986), 6-7 [on file with MDAH Museum Division].

4 Ibid., 8.

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Artifacts: WREC Radio Microphone

On March 6, 2012, in Artifacts, by Amanda
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Nan Prince, Assistant Director of Collections in the MDAH Museum Division, wrote this post about interesting artifacts in the collection.

WREC Radio microphone. Accession Number: 1975.11.2 (Museum Division Collection)

WREC Radio microphone. Accession Number: 1975.11.2 (Museum Division Collection)

On September 22, 1922, KFNG Radio began broadcasting out of the home of S.D. Wooten in Coldwater, Mississipppi. Started by his son, Hoyt B. Wooten, using a handmade 10-watt transmitter, KFNG was the first commercial broadcasting station in Mississippi. In 1925, the Wooten family opened Wooten’s Radio Electric Company in the lobby of the newly constructed Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, where they sold radio equipment during the week, and broadcast from Coldwater on the weekends. A year later they moved KFNG to the Memphis suburb of Whitehaven, Tennessee, and changed the call letters to WREC after the name of their store. WREC continued to grow and expand and became an important part of mid-south communications through radio and later television.

Artifacts from the Museum Division collection that are not on exhibit are available for viewing by appointment. Please contact Nan Prince, Assistant Director of Collections, by email to schedule an appointment.

Source: Sign-On: The First 50 Years of WREC Radio (Memphis, TN: WREC Radio, September 22, 1972).

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Winter Blog Roundup

On February 28, 2012, in Artifacts, Digital Archives, Maps, Photographs, by Amanda
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Blank 1940 United States Census form (Source: National Archives and Records Administration website)*

Genealogy Notes

Resources for getting a head start on your 1940 census research are available via the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library “Local History Announcements” blog. The 1940 census will be released on April 2, 2012 (the federal census remains closed for 72 years for privacy reasons).

Read some interesting facts about the 1940 census at NARAtions, the blog of the U.S. National Archives.

For researchers tracing families in North Carolina: the North Carolina State Archives recently digitized their WPA Cemetery Surveys. Read about it in this blog post and view the cemetery records here.

Martin Luther King Day

The Arts

The work of Mississippi artist Theora Hamblett is the subject of this blog post from the Mississippi Library Commission.

The Mississippi Museum of Art discusses its upcoming exhibition, Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H. A. Rey, in this blog post.

Fans of the television series Downton Abbey will appreciate this exploration of that period’s popular music by the Library of Congress “In the Muse” blog.

Can a Stradivari violin be duplicated? Apparently so, using CT scans and advanced manufacturing equipment. Researchers used an instrument from the Library of Congress collection to make the replica.

Of Interest

This blog post describes an interesting function of the Library of Congress: selecting twenty-five films that merit permanent preservation for their “cultural, aesthetic, and historical value.” See this year’s list at http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2011/12/the-registry-and-beyond/.

The United States Copyright Office is now blogging at http://blogs.loc.gov/copyrightdigitization. They discuss issues surrounding the digitization of nearly seventy million pre-1978 copyright records.

The Library of Congress just digitized the 30,000th map for its online collection. Read more at http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2011/05/the-view-from-30000-maps/.

The National Archives wants you! …To help transcribe and tag documents in order to make them more accessible to the public. Check out the “Citizen Archivist” initiative at the NARAtions blog.

*Image from National Archives and Records Administration, “1940 Federal Population Census, Part 1: General Information, 1940 Census Forms,” http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/general-info.html#form (accessed February 17, 2012).

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