Local historian to head state archives

Local historian and author W. Eric Emerson is stepping down as executive director of the Charleston Library Society to take the helm of the agency that holds and preserves every official South Carolina document from the constitution to the Ordinance of Secession.

Emerson is expected to start his new job as director of the S.C. Department of Archives and History in early August.

"It's difficult to leave Charleston, but this is a great opportunity," Emerson said. "It's a great old agency. It is really the depository of the state's public records."

Archives and History was created in 1905 to preserve and promote the state's documentary and cultural heritage. Among other things, the Columbia-based agency oversees records management for state government and controls the State Historic Preservation Office.

Emerson will become the agency's sixth director. The current director, Rodger Stroup, is retiring after 12 years. He said the greatest challenge Emerson faces is to keep the agency operating in the face of steep budget cuts. In the last decade, Archives and History has been cut from 95 full-time employees to 51.

"And no one is asking us to do less work," Stroup said. "I think Eric is ideally suited. He knows the state's history. It is the top history job in the state in the public sector."

Emerson, a native of Charlotte, has a Ph.D. in history and is the author of "Sons of Privilege: The Charleston Light Dragoons in the Civil War." A former director of the South Carolina Historical Society, he was hired by the Charleston Library Society in December 2006 to fill the new position of executive director.

The Charleston Library Society, a membership library that opened in 1748, is perhaps the South's oldest cultural institution. Emerson spent his tenure modernizing the King Street icon and raising its profile while trying to attract new members. The society is searching for a new director.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.