Mabel Montgomery papers, 1904-1971.

ArchivalResource

Montgomery, Mabel. Mabel Montgomery papers, 1904-1971.

Mabel Montgomery papers, 1904-1971.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/123569840

Family letters and correspondence with publishers re publications, unpublished manuscripts, and tear sheets of published articles re S.C. history and aspects of gardening and horticulture. Places represented include Marion, Columbia, and Rock Hill, S.C.; Washington (D.C.); New Haven, Conn.; and elsewhere. Following her father to Columbia, S.C., after his election to the S.C. General Assembly in 1908, Mabel wrote a rollicking first-person column for women in The State newspaper. During a visit to New York, 29 Oct. 1911, she describes an electrical show where she beheld "miracles in the way of lightening household burdens." She accepted appointment by Gov. Richard I. Manning in 1918 to the state's first Illiteracy Commission. In this position she worked for establishment of the John G. Richards School for Boys and persuaded Wil Lou Gray to return to S.C. as the Commission's field secretary. While Miss Gray took up the literacy cause, Mabel Montgomery pursued her love for writing. In 1935, the WPA employed her as S.C. Supervisor of the Writers' Project, and during the next six years she toiled over South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State and other WPA volumes. The guide was part of a series in which most of the states cooperated. "No pattern for such a book existed," explains Mabel, 26 July 1941, "therefore the pattern had to be evolved - - sometimes through the trial and error method." After publication of the WPA volumes, Mabel returned to Marion and continued writing. She published two children's books, a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and numerous historical and feature articles. Earlier, she had co-authored with H.C. Brearly in writing of a sociological study: Facing Facts in South Carolina; also includes photographs, historical essays, greeting cards, brochures listing historical information about Marion County and South Carolina, promotional items promoting the work of the Federal Writers' Project and the WPA, and other items. Undated reproduction of photograph [ca. 1891] of group of men with bamboo fishing poles is described as the "oldest river club" in Marion, S.C.; located at a club house on the Pee Dee River called Dog Bluff; an African American man in the picture, Ben Thompson, is described as a former member of the S.C. General Assembly during Reconstruction; this image likely appeared in a newspaper in Marion or Columbia, S.C., ca. 21 Mar. 1950. Approximately half of the collection (572 letters, 8 Feb. 1943 - 3 Mar. 1945) consists of letters from soldiers stationed far from their native South Carolina, written to Ms. Montgomery as editor of The Marion Mail, a mimeographed newspaper that she wrote from the home front as part of her war effort; her publication of events in Marion County, S.C., brought hundreds of appreciative letters from local men serving in the Armed Forces during World War II. Later papers of 1950s document Montgomery's efforts to publish her fiction and non-fiction work, and correspondence reflecting her interest in history, including a letter, 9 Apr. 1955, written in reply to a request from Robert L. Meriwether, a professor at USC, in which she discusses factions within her family who had either supported or disliked Ben Tillman, and reporting her unsuccessful efforts to locate an "authentic Red Shirt" worn during Reconstruction, an artifact that Dr. Meriwether had hoped to secure for the museum collections. Montgomery's concern for her home town earned her a place on the school board and chairmanship of the Marion Planning Board. As chairman of the Marion Garden Club Council, she helped pressure the city council for beautification funds. An active member of the First Methodist Church, she was elected as the first woman on the board of stewards. In 1967, at the age of 87, Montgomery published her last book, South Carolina's Wil Lou Gray. Upon Montgomery's death in 1968, Miss Gray paid tribute to her: "Of all the people I know, I know of no one who gave more abundantly of herself than Mable - - with never a thought for herself." Bound volumes include scrapbook, 1911-1968, consisting of newspaper clippings of her column published in The State newspaper, articles re her contributions to the WPA Federal Writers' Project during 1930s, and other activities and interests (legal size; photocopy); and bound typescript, 1950, of "A Courageous Conquest: the Life Story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" (148 pp.); and works of fiction: "David's Fishing Summer" (139 pp.), and "Boy Who Hated Shoes" (58 pp.)

ca. 2 linear ft.

University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries