Village Branch Library, 430 Whilden Street, Mt. Pleasant. Caption on back: "1954. Thursday, July 12. Reading game exercises Mt. Pleasant Lib. (Sullivan's Is., Isle of Palms, and Mt. Pleasant)."
A pamphlet by A. E. Salley using Washington's travels through South Carolina to highlight genealogy of South Carolinian families and the histories of their plantations. Salley also uses the footnotes to correct errors other historians made when interpreting Washington's travel diary.
Melissa Moore (pronouns: They/Them) discusses their personal life and the various roles they played in numerous social causes and organizations, many being LGBTQ related. Born in Mt. Pleasant, SC, they identified as male, and, denied that self-expression, Moore details the impact it had on their school years and the numbing escape made possible by drugs and alcohol. In passing Moore also describes a run-in with religious demands at Vacation Bible School, and being exposed to, and fascinated by, female impersonators at an early age. At the College of Charleston, Moore joined such groups as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, and the Women’s Forum, engaging intellectually and socially with new people and ideas. Coming to see that societal norms aid in controlling conformity and denying diversity, Moore was strongly affected by a billboard supporting LGBTQ rights put up by the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA). That prompted them to begin volunteering, and eventually working, for AFFA under the direction of Warren Redman-Gress. Moore later went on to work with Linda Ketner and SC Equality to attempt to defeat the movement within the state of South Carolina to define marriage as between a man and a woman. That was unsuccessful. In the process, Moore came into contact with other organizations such as Southerners on New Ground and worked with activists including Mandy Carter and others, creating opportunities to learn grass root organizing skills and to work with groups like Africa House in Orangeburg, SC. Moore notes the reluctance or refusal of national and other LGBTQ organizations to fund work in the South, assuming it “unwinnable” and also speaks to the lack of funding for social service agencies in lieu of political ones. Working with the Abortion Access Project, later called Provide, gave Moore further experience and they eventually became director of We Are Family, an organization in Charleston for LGBTQ youth. Moore details how under their management and planning the organization and its programs grew. They describe the plan to fund the organization through the creation of a thrift store and Moore notes how three LGBTQ organizations in town, Charleston Pride, AFFA and We Are Family recently moved to the same building in North Charleston. After touching on subjects like transphobia, the new management of We Are Family, and naming many people in the field they admire, Moore finishes the interview describing their new position with the city of Mount Pleasant, working on sustainable and equitable city planning.
Village Branch Library, 430 Whilden Street, Mt. Pleasant. Staff presenting child with summer reading certificate. Caption on back: "From left to right: Mrs. Julien T. Melchers, Mrs. Virginia D. Chasteen, Miss Cathy Dodds."
Village Branch Library, 430 Whilden Street, Mt. Pleasant. Caption on back: "Some of the 22 who completed the reading game at the Mt. Pleasant branch library shown at closing exercises Aug. 27, '57. Charleston S.C. County Library. Mt. Pleasant."
Correspondence from Maxine S. Martin, Public Information Specialist for the Office of Alumni and College Relations at the College of Charleston, to Karen Amrhine of WCIV regarding an upcoming symposium, "Culture and Health: Implications for Health Policy in Rural South Carolina."
Laura Lesburg (pronouns: She/Hers) was born and raised in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. She begins her interview discussing her childhood, coming from a lower middle-class milieu in the assumed-affluent Mount Pleasant area and struggling with her relationship with her family members. She details the ways that she found safety and comfort outside of her family home through a network of now life-long friends, and she details other struggles with religion throughout her childhood. She attended Wando High School, but then moved with her family to Indianapolis, Indiana, finishing high school there and beginning college there. She then lived in Los Angeles, California where she began the process of gradual process of coming out, noting that, coming back to Charleston, she found lesbian roles more stereotypical in the Lowcounty than the West Coast. Her complete coming out, after some difficult conversations with her mother, consisted of just being frank about her life. It coincided with her decision to get sober. Those actions freed her from thoughts of suicide, internalized homophobia, and a numbing of her real feelings. She compares the freedom and the acceptance of herself as a sort of second adolescence, becoming excited about figuring out directions to take in life. Lesburg discusses her family and friends’ reaction to her coming out as well as the difficulties of navigating life as a recovering alcoholic. She also references her limited exposure to queer people as a young person in Charleston, recalls silence on the topic, and negative and/or no responses to the coming out of Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell and the murder of Matthew Shepherd. She refers to the positive impact of shows like Will and Grace and the Russian women’s music group, Pussy Riot. One of the first times she became aware of a large number of lesbians was attending a Women’s National Basketball Association game in Indianapolis; and she also goes into great detail on the gay disco Pantheon, in Charleston, describing its mostly gay male clientele, music, lighting, dress, etc. With respect to the greater LGBTQ+ communities and their challenges, she mentions issues confronting people of color and trans people and describes the idea of “femme invisibility”. Being lesbian, she concludes, has given her insight into what it means to be a minority, out of the mainstream, and it has benefited her in her work as literacy instructor in mostly people of color communities.
Andrew Becknell, sometimes known as Andrezia (pronouns: they/them, but also she/her) describes growing up in the Charleston area as a bigender or two-spirit person. They grew up in a conservative Catholic family, moving from West of the Ashley to Mount Pleasant. Becknell's parents divorced when they were young, and they became close to their mother, and has only recently begun to renew ties with their father. Becknell has Tourette's syndrome, misdiagnosed early on as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), leading to bad reactions to drugs and an unhappy year at Blessed Sacrament School. Later attending Wando High School, Becknell, who always sensed they were different, began experimenting with high heels and other forms of feminine attire, eliciting a range of both negative and positive reaction, the former from his family and the latter from a church youth group leader. Attending Trident Technical College, Becknell served as Vice President of Gay/Straight Alliance, which they helped found and later had both positive and negative experiences in a different work environments. Now working as a car-detailer, a job much enjoyed, Becknell discusses being out, "blending in," and also moving into "survival mode." Becknell mentions attending some Charleston Area Transgender Support (CATS) meetings, notes being more attracted to women, describes the impact of certain albums and musicians on them, declares that "The binary must die," and speaks of their attraction to Norse Polytheism. They also muse on the rigidity of the older generation, both straight and gay, in viewing of sex and gender roles, mentioning a lesbian "takeover" of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), making the organization more accepting. Becknell also discusses work with a number of therapists, and how a gender therapist has been most helpful.
A multipurpose ax that was used for digging, clearing and breaking ground. According to Mrs. Gold, it was used in Mount Pleasant before saws and machines were available to clear land to plant crops. The long side was used for hewing trees or bushes and the short side for cutting tree roots.
Bookmobile visiting Mt. Pleasant library branch. Caption on front: "May 15, '48. Mrs. Melchers and Mt. Pleasant Building (old)." Caption on back: "Snyder, Melchers."
Historic Charleston Foundation information sheet regarding split room divider for the dining room of the Buncum home for Philip Simmons Documentation Project
