hi, i'm jessica elephant buying and it is a pleasure to be here today with the honors college students in the university of south.

>> hi. i'm jessica, and it is a pleasure to be here today with the honors college students and the university of south carolina's 421 course with the south made exhibiting south carolina's industrial past. i want to start with a quote. this quote comes from a very prominent american historian. a guy named ed ayres who wrote, while the coal mines and textile mills have become a visible and memorable part of southern history, the south's largest industry has remained virtually ignored. lumbering is often written off as if little consequence and little dramatic interest. yet, lumbering more often than any other industry captures the full scope of economic change in the new south. its limitations as well as its impact. and we are about i don't know, a third of the way through the semester and i think you guys

are already convinced of this. but, i thought it might be interesting to share with you a little bit more about how we got to this place. so, about five or six years ago the national park service reached out to usc's department of history, and asked us to help them by writing something called the historic resource survey for the park. so, congaree national park is one of the youngest parts in the national park service. it has become a monument in 1976 during the bicentennial year, and it only became a park early in the 21st century. it really is one of the very newest parks. so, the goal of this historic resource survey is to tell the human history of the park, and its environment. how have people interacted with the natural world? and we did that. we did that in about seven or eight chapters. we called we talked about the importance of transportation.

and we talked about a lot of different topics. but, the chapter on extractive industries, particularly lumbar was one that he raised many, many questions. about the role of lumbar wood products, and far as conservation in south carolina. so, probably helpful to talk a little bit about the broad outline of south carolina's story post-civil war, post- reconstruction. and i think the way i would describe it is perfect storm. perfect storm. you're not looking at any images of storms. you're looking at images of really beautiful yellow pine, and really beautifully old- growth cyprus. but, the perfect storm was this. there of course was lots of old growth. hardwood, and yellow pine in the south. but, prior to the ends of reconstruction both because of technological implementations, and the way labor was deployed this was not the highest priority of the folks who owned the land on which the timber group.

the blood, at the same time there was a sort of a rediscovery of all of this timber. the upper midwest, and new england managed to get themselves clear-cut by lumber men who weren't particularly concerned with permits, right? so, then those folks were very interested in what the south had to offer. lumber men from those places were hungry for new timber, and lounge plant in south carolina like all other places was also devalued. it's value was something like 1/25 of what it had been pre- civil war. so, what happens? well, big lumber comes. i don't really like featuring -- i mean, these guys are our friends. but, it's the arrival of big lumber. you guys know that lumbar factors came from places like lake michigan. sort of cool thing of buying got the amalgamated small

tracks of land. big trucks of land, and then using parliaments from 2023 they flipped the land. which in turn they sold to really big lumber men like these guys here. so, benjamin franklin ferguson and francis beidler were -- they were really big lumber men from chicago. and they came down kind of lord by stories of these big traps tracks full of cypress, and yellow pine, and other great trees. and they bought up gigantic tracts of land. multiple tracts of land, but gigantic tracts of land. they were especially captivated by cypress. okay. so, they come -- these guys come. franklin, and ferguson. i mean, ferguson, and beidler came together in the late 1880s with some other partners. it wasn't just the two of them. it was a little gang. they came down by railroad.

they explored areas around the congaree, the santee, and the watery rivers. and they were very taken by what they saw. and they decided that they would start buying up the land. in time, these guys came to control something like 200,000 acres. this one company only in south carolina came to control something like 200,000 acres. most of which they owned, and some of which they only owned the timber rights to. but, in any case they controlled the tumor growing on something like 315 square miles. that is a lot of land. a lot of land. so, they built on the banks of the santee river. they built a company town, and corporate headquarters for their business. their business was called the santee river cypress come in a. and they built it for permanence. they expected to stay for a very long time. this was not a cut and run operation. they had so much land they

really thought they would stay a long time, and they started out only by cutting old-growth cypress. they left everything else, and they built this pretty sophisticated, pretty expensive, highly capitalized company town. it had a company store. that's a picture of some script that was used in the store. but, it also had lumber mills, and hotels, and company housing. at hospitals, and schools, and artesian wells, and all kinds of other things for the health and safety of workers. but, it was a segregated place. it was not a perfect place. and despite the fact that these guys wanted to be there for the long haul, the company really only operated for about a quarter century. they operated from about 1890 to about 1916. and at the peak in the ferguson , the company and the town, and everybody who was in that place was there only because of the company. it had not been atoned

previously. so, at its peak there were about 2500 people who lived and worked in ferguson. and they manufactured. they didn't just cut timber. they also manufactured a whole bunch of wood products there before cardboard they did the boxes. they did lots of roof shingles, and illustrates, and other architectural features. and then world war i came, and this company shuts down. so, the question became what happened to their land? and some of their land, and again they controlled like 200,000 acres of land. some of there's their land was leased on the clubs. that preserves the timber. another land the timber rights were sold. for various wood products. their lives became a big user of the trees. furniture became a big user of the trees. and dated terms out.sumter,

south carolina had a very special to cure your role in all of this. which were not want to talk about. some had great ambition in post- reconstruction. in the post-reconstruction south. really thought he was going to be something very, very special. and it turns out to become the center of the wood products industry in south carolina. which was no small thing. it was a major, major industry. and the timber industry today continues to be a major industry in our state. so, i'm going to turn over the mic to graham duncan. who oversees the manuscript collection at carolinian the library. a world-class special collections library that has been a very, very helpful in getting processed the papers of the williams furniture corporation. which is one of these sort of beneficiaries of the land that had been assembled. at least indirectly by people like francis beidler, and benjamin

ferguson. and all the workers who were there. and i would be remiss if i didn't stop by saying that what williams furniture built was really quite unusual for the american south. we will talk more about in a few minutes. but, it was a major, major, major, major employer. and it had an interracial workforce, and a unionized workforce. and this was in sumter, south carolina. and that's really interesting. but, there's a very good set of reasons why almost nobody knows this story. in the story of the archives will help us to better understand. so, graham. carolinian, the lib. so just briefly, the southe lib. carolinian library, as she >> all right. my name is graham duncan. i'm the head of collections at the south carolinian library. so, just briefly. the south carolina library she

mentioned was one of the special collections units here at the university of south carolina. we particularly collect markable research material about the state of south carolina, and its inhabitants. documenting its history, geography, culture. so, those sorts of things consist of manuscript materials. which might be personal papers, organizational records. right? like these types of materials. business records. that sort of thing. we also have a published materials collection. books, newspapers, magazines. things you would expect. maps. then a large visual materials collections. that includes both photographs, and owed old photographic processes. postcards, and fine art. that sort of thing. so, the south carolinian building you can see here. through most of its history has kind of engaged its research audience in a kind of

traditional manner. we are a special collections library. so, we are close to circulating. that means you can't just go into the stacks like you could in thomas kuyper library. look up and down the shelves. look at the book you want. check it out, and go home. you must tell us what you want to see. we will play for you. you come sit in the quite gorgeous reading room, and use it. and that's a plug. we are reopening our builder on october 6. everyone come check out the building. none of you were here when it closed for renovations. that's exciting. so, yes. we engaged folks in a kind of traditional manner. you let us know what you want. you come here. you look at the materials. kind of the work we do behind this with collections is -- in some ways it's very kind of tedious set of things. we take large amounts of material. we organized in a way that makes sense for researchers who say this is the folder of material i want to see. been kind of a hierarchal goal

arrangement on there. what made this a project really interesting. this is not a product that was held by the south carolinian library. we were able to kind of lend some expertise in helping stevie, who you will see here in a minute do some of the physical arrangement of the material. make a finding. make a list. a box list so people know what the request is when they want to use this. but, the large part of this project is digitization of a lot of the materials. i don't think it's going to encompass the entire collection. so, digitization of course makes things available online. so, we take these physical records that are only available in the library. in between 8:30, and 5:00 under our supervision and we make them freely available online. it's a lot of work. the scanning is one part of it. scanning all the materials. but, stevie will talk about letter data creation.

which is a lot of work compared to just the scanning. it's not as simple as taking all these boxes come in scanning, and putting them online. but, the amount of labor required in projects like this is worth it. right? because we can really engage with audiences outside of usc. and it's not just through our own kind of content management system that usc hosts here. we are also kind of harvesting out through south carolina digital library. just harvested through the national digital library of america. all of these things are searchable beyond, and in different portals than just these things here. i'm not going to talk for too much longer about archives in general. i could go on for a while. if anyone wants to talk archives come find me later. we can do that. but, i do want to say this project has been very satisfying for me, and i think i can speak for my usc colleagues too. as a large estate, flagship university. it's very nice what we can

partner with institutions like the sumter county museum to kind of leverage some of the resources, and capacity we have to make their collections more discoverable as well. this is a collection that is held by the sumter county museum. and thanks to the resources that came through the various grants. that i was able to get, but also usc's faculties, and experts here kind of working. it's been a really great partnership. i hope it's something we do more of. i'm going to let stevie talk for a while now. or, i don't know how long he's going to talk. it may not be for a while. but, he will tell you more of the nuts and bolts he's been doing on this project. yeah. >> okay, awesome. hello. as many of you know i am stevie malinowski. i am the guy who's actually gone through these many boxes

we have here. so, my plan right now. i'm going to talk a little bit about what we've done here, and how we do it. then were going to talk broad strokes of what we have here. as many of you have seen again, we have a lot of stuff here. talking very specific. we would be here all day. to start off, we went through a few stages in this process. first, we started by reading just about everything here to see what we have. it got dry at times. you know? you can only read the same 1920s tax returns so many times before it starts to get old. but, that helped us get a good idea of what needed to be digitized versus what we can get over. when not going to digitize everything here. such is the box of letter has over there. would i need to digitize 40 copies of the exact same

letterhead. that gave us a good idea of what we had. we did some reorganization. there's actually two collections here in a weird way. we have the old williams collection. it's scattered through the wins right now. but, we have the ol williams collection. which encompasses stuff pre- williams furniture company, and then we have the williams furniture company collection. which is post-1931, 1932. we did some cleaning, and rehousing. that put a picture up there is what my desk has looked like for the last week at the end of the day. a lot of this has not been cared for in a few years. so, we have to remove paperclips, and staples. it's going to write the paper. we have to switch over some of the folders. a lot of stuff. there is boxes here that were completely unprocessed. so, we had to do some reorganization. had to make sure they found their homes in places that made sense. a little cleaning up to do before we ever got into digitizing. when we did get into

digitizing, these are the machines were used. two on the left are what we primarily used. one of the right i think i only ended up using wantz. but, it's so cool. so, i figured i'd throw it in here to show you guys the whole scheme of what's going on. the one of the left, good luck picking looking it up. is this massive overhead scanner. we use it for oversized materials. something like a large map or one of these big, thick books right here. they don't fit in a regular scanner. we up to you something oversized to do it. that thing on the right there is just a normal flatbed scanner. that's where we put most of the stuff through. you just like something into it, close the top, scans, done. then this thing here, again i only used it once. but, it's a kyle dennis. it's like two camera straps at either side to take pictures of books. i think it's the coolest thing ever. i wanted to let you guys see it. but, yeah. so, we have to choose which of these things is going to suit

the needs of the documents we have. we have a lot of documents of varying sizes, materials, colors. photo negatives, photo positives. totally insane amount of things here. so, we can't just use one object. we can just use one technology. this is what we do next after we are done actually physically scanning it. this is called metadata. some of you guys crossed different disciplines, and have interacted with metadata before. i don't know about my business students. but you probably have a good idea of this. it's basically just large amounts of data. this is how we make sure that you are able to find what we scan. so, we put in the title. we at the date. yet anyone who contributed to the making of the object. length. any sort of thing that's going to help in your search for these objects goes here. and it looks very overwhelming. but, this is what gets turned into this. which is what you see on the library's website.

it obviously gets only endowed. the next to it is what a traditional skin looks like. how many of you have looked to the library's website, you're going to be used to this. this was produced by those scanners we went through. so, then going into kind of what we have to start with. we have things that the company's operations behind-the- scenes stuff. this is the vast majority of what we have in the collection. i have some objects in going to show along the way. we have company operations like this from really going on. these big huge ledgers that contain a variety of materials in them. we also have stuff like this. we talked about this in class yesterday. this is the sale to georgia- pacific. so, if anyone wants to go through that and find the handshake agreement. he will operate the plant for 15 years, be my guest. so, we have a lot of these up here. we have the marketing material that shows exactly how they want you to market with the furniture.

there's timber deeds, and showing executive acreage, and footage of the amount of timber they have on hand throughout their entire time. talking more about the timber, and the lumber. we talked about different things there. we have a lot of pictures of what the lumber operations looks like. we have land plots showing where the timber is physically located. then to go back to company operations, we have stuff where they are estimating -- oh, we want to buy this bit of land. how much is on it? we have stuff like that i believe right here. this is a traditional -- it was about $1 billion of postage on it. a title to real estate. we have a lot of deeds in here. there's whole boxes filled with about 200 land deeds. all which encompass different land sales that they're making. they bought a lot of land. i think as we've said in class this as his vice. so, we have a ton of these if you're interested.

talking more about the land. there's a lot in how they use the land we have. mainly in that map there being the location of the factories. so, you get a good sense of what sumter was set up like. that newspaper clipping there. we have a lot of these talked about how they are using the forest. their impacts on it. whose it being sold to? talking more about the land. we have stuff like this as well. let me pull it out. it's kind of weird at first why this matters. it's an insurance policy to their entire crop of timber. it unfolds very large. i don't know if anyone knows of lloyd's of london. but, they ensure large, large objects. so, you can kind of get a sense if they are ensuring -- i forget the famous thing they insured. i believe they insured love canal for all my history people out there. you can get a sense of the scale that williams was operating on their timber.

going off timber we have stuff on the equipment that they were using. i believe we talked about this yesterday in that a lot of the sales whims involve access to equipment. we have so many pictures. so many pictures of old equipment they were using. materials. guys using them. manuals on how to use them. people breakdown their jobs, and saying i use this piece everyday. i don't use this much. interest if you're interested in the technology, we have so much on it. to the people who used the technology, we have a good amount on workers. as i mentioned yesterday, this was a management centered collection. so, we don't have as much on workers as we would probably like. there are still some really neat things in here. we have some really cool documents that workers were printing, and they were showing exactly what they were doing in their free time. what company life was like. how workers interacted with each other. so, we do get some good -- as

to what a worker life was. we also have some pictures. these are two of them. we have a lot more on the actual faces that we know, and the workforce themselves. it is an integrated workspace. it is overwhelmingly black, and this was reflected in all the pictures. whenever we have 35 year awards, thirty-year awards, even forty-year awards it's overwhelmingly black workers. again, pretty unique for the south. going off workers we have a lot of the labor stuff. that on the right is one of about 10 to 15 photos that we have. which are containing -- or, centered around strikes in 1974. we also have stuff like that in the middle which are the contracts that workers were making with williams. when strikes did happen, i think i mentioned this yesterday. important people from around america would come, and help protest with williams.

i don't know if you guys recognize the name in the middle of caretta scott king. martin luther king's wife. oh, there are big international faces showing up in williams. going off of ideas of labor. this is the thing i spent the most time with that i find very interesting is the marketing concepts. we mentioned this in class that williams is kind of pick for doing these innovative market ideas. a few of you guys found the marketing magazine over here. the huge pullout cover photos. it was just so advanced compared to everything else in the magazine. these were the brochures we have that show how they were marketing their object. they got famous for doing house like settings where the rest of the industry was not at that yet. it feels common today. this was really advanced for the time. that photograph shows a traditional williams sales room. the majority had it set up to look like houses with different themes. very western themes were common. that blueprint for your open house brochure on the right.

almost got my hands mixed up. that shows exactly to a salesman how they wanted their set up. what their ads are going to look like. it's a really, really good source for showing how williams is physically marketing their materials. going off of that more are these brochures. we have, again so much on the actual furniture. a few of you guys saw these earlier. but, i'll bring them out for everyone. we have these large-format -- oh, we have a quad document here. these large-format, kind of like test photos of the actual furniture itself. so, you can actually see the furniture. this was made before they went to the brochures. when furniture did make the brochures, we had colored photographs. we had these really interesting brochures like this one.

which i believe if i flip to the right page, you can kind of see this weird design. how the pages get smaller, and smaller. and they are all colored photographs with these really interesting drawings of the furniture. full-page ads. it's really awesome in terms of the brochures that we have. looking at the brochures they have really interesting themes. if anyone here is interested in studying -- again, studying the marketing of these things. they market them in these really masculine, pro-america ways. up here we have a fireside. recalling of old ideas. amal and paul around the fire. the apollo catalog for the apollo missions. forefathers for the founding of america that was for the bicentennial. then kind of old world european ideas. lamont show which is marketing for vikings. which was an odd way to sell furniture. in the italian casuals. your renaissance living in a verbal south carolina.

this is what the inside of them looked like. again, if you guys saw this. again, full-page color ads. absently gorgeous. bright photos. you can see where they were such a successful company when you look at their marketing. it's just a cut above other companies. that one on the right or left as well as a village square piece. probably the most notable line. it's designed by charles horton. it's on the price is right for a few seasons in a row. it's very popular. it's like setting the tone in terms of colonial america styling in this period. we have a good amount on the village square stuff. they also have these tiny little pamphlets. we showed a few of these in class. i just want to go over these quickly. again, same ideas as published in the sales catalogs. but, dialed down to these tight locations. we have tons of these. once for every single furniture line that they had practically. again, same idea.

colorful photographs. interesting marketing concepts. unique descriptions. i don't know if you can see the one up there. the adventure series. one of the taglines for it was sold with a real treasure chest. so, young boys conflict pirates. they sell it by these pirates venturing off the ship like sword in hand ready to go. again, same idea of the vikings. it's like, dude your selling bedroom furniture. let's tone it down. what is this? last thing i want to talk about that we have a lot of is the georgia-pacific relationship. we bought a whole box on the georgia-pacific's company, and what their ownership entailed. it's a very interesting relationship. i really want someone to study this. have a lot of stuff like this. this is a letter sent to every single georgia-pacific subsidiary. it appears that they are really pushing -- we want this company to behave in this manner. oh, we want to send you this brochure that talks about, we need to open up the redwoods for paper coveting. it's very heavy-handed in their

management of williams. there is some interaction between them. some correspondence between them where you can tell that georgia- pacific is mad at williams for going about things a different way than their other suppliers. where they go, hey. why are you using our competitors varnish? do we have a problem here? it is really telling the line in terms of business speak. like, into do you want to fight right now? really interesting material. so, think about what we've looked at here. think about the stories that exist. there are a lot of them. and, yeah. i'm going to turn it over to linda robertson. and she's going to talk more about what we do with these big stories, and what stories we have. so, yeah. thank you. >> thanks, stevie. >> of course. >> well, as you can see there's a lot of stuff.

and the endpoint of this class, since all of you signed up for it is you all know to come up with an exhibition. i think we are all kind of surprised that what we found during the class so far. these are stories, you know that i knew nothing about. certainly. so, i would like to think that a good exhibition does two things. the first thing is that it gives people information about something they probably didn't know about. that's kind of where we are all at right here at this point. and a good exhibition also gets people to think, and feel differently about the subject that they've learned about. and that's always a much more settled thing. so, why don't we start with the beginning, and all of this information that you've had from dr. alvin brian, and the information that stevie has given to us. and i think one of the things we found in this course is

because this is kind of a secret history that we have to use unconventional resources. this isn't a kind of do it quick, read three big books and we can do this exhibition. were going to have to learn how to use the archival materials. and we will talk a little bit later in the class about doing oral histories of people who were actually there to get the other side of the management story. but, what are some of the things -- if you wanted to put all this together, say as chapters as a of a book. what do you think are the important parts of this story that people wanted to know about? that they would walk through this exhibition. which is going to be, because we have so few big objects. it's going to be primarily as what we call in the business of panel exhibition. what are the stories you want to tell that people don't know about that they can go, wow. that's really cool.

and how do you think that we can tell this story so they think this was really important? gee, i didn't know about that. now, here comes the interactive part. i'm up here, but you're giving me the answers. so, some of you. come on. >> i think something that's important to be able to convey through the panels is that there is -- that there was a furniture industry in south carolina. i think a lot of people, especially people who might not be from columbia or sumter or justin lin south carolina in general are not as aware of how big the industry was. making sure that people are aware of how many lives are touched. how much it impacted the local economy. how much development it drove. things like that. those are things that are important to convey during the expression. >> right. so, what you're saying that maybe the study existed. but, it was more than just three chairs and a bed.

the scope of it that it had economic impact. what are some of the other things you think we ought to talk about? yes. >> i feel like a really good way to end the exhibition might be bringing it into modern day. like what you told us on the first day of classes like williams brice stadium. the williams comes from williams furniture company, and that's kind of what sparked my interest in this topic in general. because i'm not really like -- i've never been interested in the lumber industry at all. but, being a student in the university of central and obviously i love williams brice stadium. ringing in that connection. >> it had a lasting impact. >> eddie was here today on impact campus. it affects all of us. we just haven't been told. >> it's funny. i had lunch today with an old friend who used to be in the legal office here. and she asked me what i was doing. she thought, and she said you

connection to the football stadium. and i said, yeah that's all school of nursing is. it's a beneficiary for the williams company. so, what else? so, we want to tell people that there was a company in some turned, south carolina that was very large. and had a dramatic economic impact on the state, and on the city. but, what else? let's go all the way back to the beginning. what about the trees? what about beidler, and ferguson, and things like that? >> i mean, i know will be primarily talked about in congaree was just the enormity of these old cypress forest in the state of south carolina. and how these corporations from chicago came down, and started this enormous industry that employed thousands of people. but, also decimated the native environment. this old backcountry of south carolina was just swept away.

reduced to about 15 trees on a stretch of 30 foot. so, just the environmental impact. her for talking about the scope. also, the environment impact. >> just before we started you were looking at one of the journals that talked about what? >> oh, the shipment of wood from up north as well. and imported wood. >> right. it was the types of wood, and how much was coming in. that's another way of using archival resources to kind of get an idea about what were they making? and what were they making enough ? and what's maybe another thing we want to talk about in addition to what they were making, and -- >> that it was interesting. in the more recent readings how they were able to cut back on the types of materials they're using to make it cheaper, and cater more to the everyday citizen. when we talked about at first it was very expensive.

then they started making it out of other materials, and able to cut cost. and really drive up their margins. >> right. and what have been the impact -- of what we talked about the depression, and that kind of place. it a little bit of what you're saying, right? okay. so, we've got what they were making. how big they were. what they were making it out of. oh, very good. >> we will have the oral histories of just kind of sharing -- it's probably limited as to who were able to talk to. but, as the company evolved over the course of its 50 some years. what they were making, how they were making. the immunization aspect, the integrated workforce. things that didn't really exist in south carolina in the 20th century. it still doesn't really exist now. telling the stories of the people is kind of a way to tell a story of everything else. >> what is one of the other

things that the doctor mentioned that's kind of in the news today that was unusual for south carolina when wellings was operating? >> the strikes, and the union is. >> right. >> and the history about organized labor that didn't happen so much in the south. especially, south carolina for it to come to be in such a rural location like sumter. >> yeah, know exactly. and that's one of the things that stevie talked about that was in one of the documents. here it was in terms of when management was very, very conscious of what was going on. in terms of workers, and strikes. of course, they have a particular viewpoint. which as historians as we put the exhibition together, we have to think about who is a voice. and sometimes more questions

than answers, upon when you are reading documents, and doing things like that. okay. so, we've been talking about giving people new information that south carolina had an incredible number of trees after the civil war. they were important for the economy. they had been important for the economy for a long time. but, we had reconstruction. the devaluation of the land. and people in chicago going, so they got big trees down there. we don't have any trees left here anymore. so, you know the connection of that and the growth of what becomes this very large, and mostly now forgotten company in sumter. so, okay. were going to talk about trees, and cutting trees. and making things out of trees, and who makes the things? williams, and they were the only people in whatever you

learned about other things that were going on. oh, sorry. i should've -- >> i guess the next step in who makes the things would be after the reconstruction, and the depression. your next up would probably be globalization. in the 70s and 80s all the mill towns were going down. even just pictures of the current site today would be a powerful contribution to the exhibition. we put up pictures of ferguson, and the drowned brick wall sticking over the water. but, i think the crumbled and charred remains of williams were the stark contrast to the photo shoot. >> yeah. and whether other companies in sumter? were they the only one? and i think -- some of you? come on.

>> there was also a preclinical bridge. which made barrels. under the cabinets. sumter cabinets? >> yeah. which when we go out. when were putting the exhibition together it's going to be primarily paneled. but, were also going to try to find those big bulky objects these people were making. and that's probably what you were going to be able to find the most of. the furniture. because they stamp their furniture. it is a sumter cabinet on there. but, we will look for some things from williams as well. okay. were trying to tell this series corey. in the way, kind of linear progression of the war after the war. yeah. >> jumping back before that, actually. because the way that williams got started in sumter was also a unique economic developer

initiative by local boosters, and people who looked around and said we need to have an industry here that's not just agriculture. much to the scuffing of people that are partly right from usc office this is all that sumter can do is agriculture. these guys are like, no. we need to bring in manufacturing. that's the future. they made a community invested effort with stockholders to recruit this company to start manufacturing in sumter. so, that's a unique part of the story as well. the economic development efforts, and recruitment. and we can still see that economic development is still happening today with the way that the state recruits companies to move here. >> exactly. so, okay. we talked a lot about how we tell this story. the part that is getting people to know something that they didn't know about. oh, that's cool. i didn't know about that. only that the only thought there was 10 stone mills and

south atlanta. but, what about the other story? the other story that the the most important part of that. when someone walks out of an exhibition, your goal is to get them to think about something differently, or to feel differently about it. what are some of the things we've talked about that you think will make any emotional or an intellectual impact that people will say, oh. that's a carryover. you have an idea? >> well, obviously it's from all the stuff we've pointed out i feel like it's an obvious point. but, just the fact that all of this was spurred out of sumter south carolina town of 30,000. not one of the towns like charleston or columbia. it's kind of like a prospective changing thing coming out of the exhibition. you would think that all this growth in post-civil war would have come out of one of the bigger towns in south carolina. >> so, what was happening in the environment?

in the natural environment that plays into this story that we talked about? >> we talked about how like the came through. is it like 50% of the content had been wiped out of sumter. so, they were using losing a lot of their economic upward movement. so, they had to find something else. they were like, hey we have a lot of these trees. they return to figure out how they can use all of that. kind of moved them in a different path where they were still heavily focused on agriculture. even still cotton., now they had another outlet to make their money. >> okay. so, we tell people that part of the story. that this is a natural occurrence. this is a natural challenge. a natural disaster. what are some ways that maybe we can get the audience to make a connection between their lives today? what's going on in the world in terms of people trying to adapt to natural disasters?

nash. >> i know it's pretty inevitable. but, i do remember that we just kind of name dropped covid in there. and it came up in our discussion for sumter as well with the chamber of commerce. or, the council of commerce about how covid, and our current industrial world is changing sumter again. about work from home, and other labor movements in the south being affected. also, i think we talked about some of the industries that came into charleston. you have bmw in greenville, and other things that are kind of echoing the evolution of williams in sumter. >> yeah. >> that's a really good point. i think the other thing we touched on is moving some of the manufacturing back inland. given some of the supply chain issues that have resurfaced in

the recent years. so, i think that's a promising aspect we can really sell on for sumter who was really trying to stimulate the economy organically. >> yeah. so, their natural disaster isn't climate change. natural disaster is a weird little bug with buggy eyes, and a big beak. but, the way in which a community says, oh maybe this isn't going to work anymore. let's have been innovative, something that is a really different decision. let's look at real retooling what we do instead of doing the same old thing the same way. and the way we read at heirs, he was talking about there was a lot of resistance in the south. following the civil war. in terms of we've had a very rich economy based on agriculture. we are going to have the plantation system. and about the evolution of that. and i think one of the stories we need to tell is how imaginative, and innovative these guys are.

instead of just one person opening williams furniture. they go out, they sell shares. those are your finance majors. you know, they looked at a new way of putting together the resources they needed. they got four people within the community to buy shares, and put up the resources that they need. maybe that's a lesson maybe we want people to walk out of the exhibition, and say wow. when the chips were down they thought of a new way of doing things. maybe that's -- you know, that's a challenge for us. maybe we need to think of news ways new ways of doing things. what are some of the other kind of takeaways in terms of -- that people would say there's a relationship to what's going on? we mentioned, it was already mentioned before in terms of the labor movement. and the resurgence of the labor movement in the united states

right now. natural disasters. what are they making out of trees today? not furniture. but, we talked about most of the trees in south carolina are being turned into paper pulp now. and that it is still -- there was just a statistic on national public radio that south carolina cuts more timber per square foot basis than is being cut in the brazilian rain forest. that we are still one of the major producers in the united states september. but, most of it is what kind of timber? pine. and it's being used for paper products. and what's different from the way they are using timber today in terms of pine from what they were doing in terms of earlier cutting all that cypress for architectural

detailing? okay. >> oh, hi. i didn't even see you. one thing they are doing is they are replanting the pine afterwards. so, it's more of a crop where you planted. it's a 20 year cycle. you harvested, and then you can replant it. so, you're able to have your tracts of land, and relocate which pine your harvesting. so, it's a lot more sustainable than the cypress harvesting. which is taking these trees that are hundreds of years old , and whacking them down. then they take so long to grow back but it's not really a crop that grows like pine where you can do that. so, they are doing it more in a way where you are reforesting as you are cutting timber. >> right. it's the whole idea that it's crop like wheat or cotton. it just takes 10 years to grow

the bindery, and not other things. we've got renewable resources to tell. we were talking about may be inventive ways of dealing with climate change or other things that are going on. >> the first conversation that we had is how does any of this impact us? i think making that connection for people that have come to the expedition. most of us came, and didn't really see the connection between what was happening in the timber industry here versus our own lives. so, being able to use -- the people used what was happening as as opposed to, this is something interesting to learn about, this is something that affects every person, something i use. >> that is a good point. when we went out to to the park

and looked at the cypress trees and looked at one downed one. how did you respond? what was your response to that? to me, the size of what you're dealing with was quite impressive. as you said, that as part of how it is relationship -- what are your questions? after we talked a lot about the content. what are the questions you have? if you walked into this exhibition, what would be your question? >> i was wondering, history is cyclical, what do we do now? agriculture is not the option,

post globalization, factories are closed, part of the exhibition could be, what do we do now? where do we go from here, but businesses do we attract? how do we feed people and give them jobs max >> a good point. flip it on, what is the lesson learned we could take away today? as i said, i think it is an important part of an exhibition. we learn something new, really cool, one of the things that interest me, these images of furniture being made. why did it look the way it looked? showing what america and the styles and philosophies were. what was the social life of that particular time? so -- [ laughter ] stevie, you have looked at the material.

what would be your thoughts in terms of this as we develop the exhibition? >> a really big question because there is so much we have. >> you have to boil it all down. this is not the miniseries of six episodes of two hours each. what did you find, first of all, that you did not know? second of all, what did you find that was emotionally or made you think about things differently? >> the thing i did not know, how a company like this operates. i feel confident i can run my own is your company. i can start a fortune 500 company now. [ laughter ] in terms of a

exhibit, most important thing, especially for you guys, you all come from different backgrounds, when i went up there, it is so varied. if you are a business person, we have so much of the business. if you are in the arts, we have so much about how they are drawing the furniture and marketing it. environmental person, we have the environmental impact of all this stuff the most important thing you need to do is follow what interests you and what your personal background is. no matter what, no matter what you're passionate about, it will be the best product. don't chase something you're not passionate about. we have something for all of you. if we all contribute something you are really into and you absolutely love, the exhibit will be awesome. >> very good advice. also, follow the questions you have. why did they do that?

what happened? why did they go out of business? why did they sell to a different company? >> if you could just brainstorm, we are not committed to any ideas you may have. at this very moment, what most interest you? piggybacking on what stevie suggested, what has interested you so far and what might you like to pursue? >> challenge everybody who has not said anything yet, you have to come up with an answer. >> in a recent reading, a section interesting about the addition of women into the workplace, especially in these factories that were male- dominated a section of the reading about balancing the concept of eating a housewife but also wanting to pursue working a real job. which i found interesting, especially during this time when women were struggling in general, but through the lens of

sumter, south carolina , not the most historically kind to minorities. like that kind of struggle and how it played out specifically in this company. >> related to that, you can sense, looking at some of the advertising, they take on the sense that, who they are selling the stuff to is women, women who make the choice -- yes ? >> what was mentioned, it was american dream, hunting and fishing, all of the stuff that is geared towards little boys and men, when i was looking at that magazine catalog, there was a lot of advertising that i was drawn to. i am a visual communications major. i was interested in all of the ways they would gear furniture towards women and having rocking chairs with women holding their children. that resonates with women

versus the guns and fishes and the horns on the walls. >> it took them a while to figure out that women were buying the furniture. guys wrote the check. who else has a passion? something that interested you and what we have been doing? >> one of the things that got my interest was held local city managers, local business owners, local courts, approached the changing industry in the south following post reconstruction. because agriculture, they saw that, from the bowl we will, from new -- from mining come in different industries, agriculture was slowly losing its hold on the south. how the law treated these new industries like iron, furniture, lumber, that was

interesting. >> very true. any others? >> i am enjoying learning the biographies of the people who started it. i found stuff on ol williams. buxton, jb3, in another reading , i am enjoying the personal aspect of looking at each of the people and why are they here? why did they choose to do this? buxton came down from north carolina. why did he choose to go here and not up to michigan or wisconsin? where that furniture empire was happening. >> what is the role of the charismatic leader? >> and how they felt about their business, how did it affect the people? did their personalities affect why the unionized? was it the big personalities made them feel better about how they were working?

that is what interests me. >> one of the thing to close with, something interesting, we talked about williams and at one time how von bassett purchases williams when it has been sold to several other people and on the way down. if you get on the website for von bassett, still manufacturing in north carolina, not in sumter anymore. you look at what you're telling -- the furniture industry today , a renewable resource, they plant a tree, for every tree they cut using the furniture, it is a stable workforce that pays good wages, and is diverse, and that people work for them for a long time. it is american made, solid wood furniture, will last several lifetimes, we have talked about

this company that starts in the 20s and sales in 1967 -- sells in 1967. it is a cyclical thing in terms of going back to selling american, buying american, stable workforce, we are carbon neutral, all the ways in which today is influencing an old and traditional way. we look forward to the next ffew sessions where we put together what this exhibition that we are going to do looks like. so, thank you all. [ applause ] >> if you are enjoying american history tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive lectures

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>> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2 , exploit the people and events that tell the american story, 7:00 p.m. eastern, we continue with free to choose, produced by milton friedman and his wife in 1980, this episode is titled "who protects the worker?" on lectures of history, texas women's university history professor talks about the federal government's efforts to explore and control the american west from the early 1800s through the civil war. 9:30 p.m. eastern on the presidency, polish president gives a speech marking the 113th anniversary of ronald reagan's birth and his legacy and support of poland and the solidarity movement. at 10:30 p.m. eastern on historic campaign speeches,