Volante del Festival Hispano patrocinado por Tri-County Hispanic American Association y Charleston Parks and Recreation Commission detallando información acerca del evento. / Flyer for the Hispanic Festival, sponsored by the Tri-County Hispanic American Association and Charleston County Parks, providing event information.
Fotografía en color de un bolso floreado perteneciente a Juana Torres. Ella trajo los documentos de su familia en ese pequeño bolso cuando cruzó la frontera en 2005. / Color photograph of a floral handbag. Juana Torres brought her family documents on this purse when she crossed the border in 2005.
Carolee Rosen Fox, born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, relates some of her Charleston family history. Her maternal great-grandparents, Caroline Goldstein and Isaac Belitzer, lived at 344 East Bay Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Carolee describes the home, known as the John Falls Walker House. It was passed down in the family to her great-aunt Gertrude Belitzer who, in turn, left it to the interviewee’s mother, Selina Leidloff, daughter of Blanche Belitzer and photographer Herman Leidloff. The house, featured in the Historic American Building Survey collection in the Library of Congress, was torn down in 1961. Carolee briefly discusses how her mother, Selina, met her father, Abe Rosen, a New York dress manufacturer.
Fotografía en color de Juana Torres en una fiesta de fin de año organizada por sus empleadores. Torres está con su jefe, la esposa de su jefe y una amiga. / Color photograph of Juana Torres in an End of the Year Party organized by her employers. Torres is with her boss, his wife, and a friend.
Fotografía en color de Juana Torres, su hermano y su hijo mayor, Kevin sentandos en un futón. En la fotografía se ve una mesa y sobre ella un pastel de cumpleaños con el número veintidós. / Color photograph of Juana Torres, her brother, and her oldest son, Kevin. They are sitting on a futon. A nearby table holds a cake with the number twenty-two.
Fotografía en color de los hermanos Orozco, trabajadores migrantes que residían por temporadas en Wadmalaw Island. El hombre que se ve sentado en el centro rodeado por tres hermanas y dos hermanos había sufrido un accidente mientras arreglaba un automóvil. / Color photograph of the Orozco siblings who were migrant workers and used to labor on Wadmalaw Island. The man who is sitting down surrounded by three sisters and two brothers had an accident while fixing a car.
Joan Weisblum Steinberg Loeb, born in 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, married Matthew Steinberg and moved to his native city of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1936. Joan, a daughter of Elsie Aleskowitz and Philip Weisblum, recounts some of her family history, and describes how she met Matthew, who earned his M.D. from the Medical College of South Carolina, and their wedding in the Weisblum’s Brooklyn home. Her mother-in-law, Anna Bell Kaminski Steinberg, taught her how to keep a kosher home. The interviewee, who had no formal religious upbringing, recalls attending High Holy Day services at her husband’s Orthodox congregation, Brith Sholom. She notes that Matthew served as mohel for the congregation following Reverend Feinberg, who was also the cantor and the shochet. Interviewer Sandra Rosenblum reports that her husband, Raymond Rosenblum, a urologist, later assumed the role. In 1947, Joan and Matthew left Brith Sholom and joined roughly seventy families in becoming founding members of the Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El. Joan points to the leadership of Charleston native, Macey Kronsberg, the congregation’s first president, as pivotal in organizing the faction that was dissatisfied with Orthodox practices. Joan notes the source of discontent: “It was the fact that the women were not part of the service at all, and the families did not sit together. This didn’t satisfy this generation. They wanted the children to be part of it and to learn and to have an interest, and not to have to just be banged over the head in Hebrew school to learn enough for a bar mitzvah, and goodbye Charlie.” Joan and Matthew donated the first sanctuary, an army chapel, for Emanu-El’s Gordon Street property. Joan lists many of the names and professions of the charter members. She discusses the differences among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism, and some of the changes that have taken place in her lifetime. Participants recall the mid-twentieth century practices and attitudes of Charleston’s Reform congregants (Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim) and the two Orthodox congregations, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel, and they examine their own, and others’, experiences of keeping kosher—or not. Joan briefly mentions the three women’s organizations she joined in Charleston: the National Council of Jewish Women, the Daughters of Israel, and the Happy Workers. She goes into some detail about why her father thought U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the “biggest hypocrite and enemy of the Jews.” Matthew Steinberg died in 1968. Three years later, Joan married B. Frank Loeb of Montgomery, Alabama, where she was living at the time of the interview. She provides a brief history of Montgomery’s Reform congregation, Temple Beth Or.
Conie Spigel Ferguson was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the daughter of Geneva Fulk and Julian Spigel. She talks about her great-uncle Joel Spigel and her grandfather David Manuel Spigel of Prussia, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. The brothers, who were jewelers, lived for a time in the Newberry-Columbia area, where David met and married Theresa “Daisy” Mittle. The Spigels, Joel included, moved to Spartanburg in 1903, where they opened a jewelry store. Conie’s father, Julian Spigel, was pushed to go to medical school by his parents. He met Geneva at a hospital in North Carolina where she was working as a nurse. Geneva came from a family of Moravians and was expected to leave school before completing her education to work on the family farm. However, she left home, took a job and a room with another family, graduated from high school, and earned a nursing degree. She married Julian in 1941, and they moved to Texas where Julian, an M.D., worked at a hospital before being called home to Spartanburg by his father in 1947, shortly after Conie’s brother, Joel David, was born. Julian helped out with the family jewelry business and took over after David Spigel’s death in 1949. He did not work again in medicine. Although Geneva did not convert to Judaism, she raised Joel and Conie in a Jewish household, insofar as they observed all the holidays. The children attended Sunday school, and Geneva was active in the B’nai Israel Sisterhood and B’nai B’rith. As the daughter of a gentile mother, Conie discusses how she was received by the rabbi and members of the temple. She recalls Rabbi Max Stauber who was hired in 1955 and served the congregation for nearly 30 years, noting that he was “like a second father” to her. The interviewee describes her devotion to Jewish religious observance and what she values in a rabbi. She relates incidences of antisemitism she experienced while in secondary school and at Spartanburg Junior College (now Spartanburg Methodist College). Conie responds to questions about race relations in Spartanburg, and reports that she never witnessed any conflicts between black and white students in her high school.
Isidore Denemark was born in 1910 in Mayesville, South Carolina, the son of Eastern European immigrants Sara Lee “Lizzie” Siegel and Jacob Denemark. Jacob arrived in New York and, at some point, moved to Georgetown, South Carolina, where he worked for the Fogel Brothers in their general merchandise store. Isidore doesn’t know when or where his parents married. He describes a number of moves the family made after Jacob left Georgetown. They ran stores in Mayesville, South Carolina, Sumter, South Carolina, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They returned to Sumter around 1935 where Jacob went into business with Sara’s brother Harry Siegel on Main Street and Sara opened the Smart Shop, which sold dresses. Isidore recalls his father packing up his merchandise and following the tobacco workers around during harvest season in the Carolinas and Tennessee. The interviewee talks about his family’s religious observances as Orthodox Jews when he was growing up and his practices as an adult. He and interviewer Robert Moses are members of Sumter’s Temple Sinai, a small Reform congregation. Both men express frustration and concern about the lack of attendance at Sabbath services by members of the younger generations. They contemplate the reasons for the low levels of participation and compare the Jewish community of Sumter to the large and vibrant one in Charleston, South Carolina. Isidore earned an accounting degree at New York University and returned to Sumter in 1936 to work for Boyle Construction Company as a CPA. He was joined by his first wife, Gladys “Jimmy” Goldsmith, and they raised two children, Bennett and Adele. He talks about how he met Jimmy, who died in 1966. He married Rae Nussbaum Addlestone, originally from Charleston, who was present at this interview. Isidore was one of six or so people who put up money for a new summer camp for Jewish children. They bought more than two hundred acres in Cleveland, GA, and named it Camp Coleman, for the man who made the largest donation. Isidore and Robert discuss the absence of antisemitism in Sumter and how Jewish residents have been prominent in every part of Sumter life. Isidore addresses the issue of the Confederate flag flying on the South Carolina statehouse grounds.
Morris Rosen is joined by his cousin Dorothy “Dutch” Idalin Gelson Cohen and her husband, Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen, in this interview. Morris’s son Robert is also present as interviewer and videographer. Morris, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919, was one of four children of Annie Blatt and Sol Rosen. Sol and his siblings, including Dutch’s parents, Zelda Rosen and Louis Gelson, emigrated from Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century, following their older sister Ida and her husband, David Goldberg, to Poughkeepsie, New York, where Dutch was born in 1919. The cousins talk about the Rosen (Rachelkin) and Gelson (Getchen) families of Poughkeepsie and their ancestors in Russia. Morris briefly mentions his maternal grandparents, Mamie Wildman and Morris Blatt, who ran a bakery in Columbia, South Carolina, before moving to Charleston. Morris and Dutch describe how the Rosens wound up in Charleston. Their uncle Sam Rosen moved to the area from Poughkeepsie for reasons unknown and opened a store in Awendaw, a small settlement about twenty-five miles north of Charleston. In about 1919, Sol Rosen and Zelda and Louis Gelson followed and bought an established country store from a member of the Geraty family in Yonges Island, nearly twenty miles south of Charleston. Louis died within a year, and Sol sold his interest in the store to Zelda, who moved the business and her three children to Meeting Street in Charleston after a few years. Sol was in the grocery business and later opened liquor stores. Morris traces his father’s moves from Yonges Island to King and Romney streets in Charleston, to the town of Meggett, and back to Charleston at King and Race streets. Morris and Dutch discuss growing up in Charleston in an area of the city where there were no other Jewish families. They did not experience antisemitism and Morris blended easily with the Catholic teens who lived nearby. The cousins did connect with other Jewish children when they frequented the neighborhoods around the synagogues and while attending religious school. They didn’t notice any friction between Charleston’s Reform and Orthodox Jews and played with children from both groups. Dutch was confirmed and Morris became a bar mitzvah at Brith Sholom on St. Philip Street. The two consider the degree to which their parents were observant Jews and speculate as to why their parents and others of their generation did or did not adhere to certain Jewish traditions. Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen was born in 1916 in St. Matthews, South Carolina, where his father, Isaac, ran a dry goods store and two farms. All the general merchandisers in St. Matthews while Mortie and his two brothers were growing up were Jewish. They met for High Holiday services in the town’s Masonic temple and were joined by families from Orangeburg, Ehrhardt, and Elloree. Most of Mortie’s friends were Christians; he doesn’t remember experiencing any antisemitism in St. Matthews. Mortie recalls how he came to know the Rosens, and he and Morris describe the role of the drummers, or sales reps, who visited retail storeowners when their fathers were in business. Morris talks about how he met his wife, Ida Tanenbaum. Her brother Lou Tanenbaum came to Charleston and opened a clothing store with his brother-in-law Louis Lesser. Morris, an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, was assigned to a LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in the Pacific. The group discusses what they and other American Jews knew about what was happening to Jews in Europe under Hitler.
An essay contribution toward the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Inc. conference panel, "Labor and Race Relations in Charleston (SC), 1865-1920," by Millicent E. Brown.
Fax from Connie Barner to Dwight C. James including a draft of a document entitled, "A Fair Share Agreement Between Hyatt Regency Hotel Hilton Head and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Correspondence from Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., Governor of South Carolina, "writing to enlist your support in finding a solution to the controversy surrounding the flying of the Confederate battle flag over the State House."
South Carolina State Ports Authority memorandum from W. Don Welch to Dwight C. James, President of the Charleston Branch of the NAACP, regarding the State Ports Authority passenger terminal.
1993 South Carolina State Board of Education pamphlet entitled, "The Architects of Education," providing information on the South Carolina State Board of Education and short member biographies.
Boletín informativo de Sea Island Habitat for Humanity, Inc. El boletín contiene una nota referida a la ceremonia de dedicación de una casa construída por los miembros de la iglesia John Wesley. / Sea Island Habitat for Humanity, Inc. newsletter featuring the "Dedication Service for the House That John Wesley Church Built."
Programa de la ceremonia de dedicación de la casa de Jesús y Maria Bordallo y sus hijos Cindy, Jesús Jr. e Israel, editado por Sea Island Habitat for Humanity, Inc. Incluye el programa, la letanía de la dedicación y los nombres de los voluntarios. La casa fue construída por miembros de la iglesia metodista unida John Wesley. / Sea Island Habitat for Humanity, Inc. booklet. A Dedication Service of the Home of Jesse and Maria Bordallo and their children Cindy, Jesus Jr. and Israel. Includes the program, the litany of dedication and the list of volunteers. The house was built by volunteers from the John Wesley United Methodist Church.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP monthly report for August 8, 1992, submitted by Nelson B. Rivers, III, Executive Director, regarding reapportionment and a killing in Springfield.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP monthly report for December 12, 1992, submitted by Nelson B. Rivers, III, Executive Director, regarding reapportionment, the Florence School District Four debacle, and the continual struggle on Daufuskie.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from Dwight James and Nelson B. Rivers, III, Chairman and Executive Director, to State Conference Economic Development Committee regarding Daufuskie Day Celebration and Strategy Meeting.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from William F. Gibson, President, to Dwight James, Economic Development Committee, regarding the February 8, 1992 meeting of the Board of Directions.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from Nelson B. Rivers, III, Executive Director, to all NAACP Branch Presidents in South Carolina regarding 1990 census data for cities in South Carolina. Enclosed census information.
The Branch Standing Committees Handbook, revised by Nelson B. Rivers, III, the Executive Director for the South Carolina Conference of Branches for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from Nelson B Rivers, III, Executive Director, to all units regarding a Board of Directors' Meeting and Conclusion of the Freedom School Workshop.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from Nelson B. Rivers, III, Executive Director, to all NAACP Branch Presidents in South Carolina regarding the census count for cities and towns in South Carolina.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP memorandum from Nelson B. Rivers, III, Executive Director, to all NAACP Branch Presidents in South Carolina regarding 1990 census data for cities in South Carolina.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP "New Campaign 1000" document with the purpose "to increase membership in the state of South Carolina to over 50,000 members."
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP monthly report regarding the 49th State Convention, the Reapportionment 1991 Committee, CRA and Fair Share, SCE&G, and a Project With Tony Brown Productions.
South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP State Assessment Report providing financial information on each of the South Carolina branches prepared for a November 10, 1990 meeting.
