Helping researchers step back into past

The wealth of manuscripts, images and other treasures at the South Carolina Historical Society makes it a fascinating place to work, says Jane Aldrich, its archivist.

After 10 visits to Charleston in two years, the city's history and charm prompted her to move here in 1985. Hurricane Hugo and its associated devastation, however, caused her to leave the Lowcountry in 1989.

She had worked here as a managing accountant for Dallas-based Club Resorts on Seabrook Island. She moved on to a position as the company's associate controller in Dallas, then controller in Key Largo, Fla.

But she missed being in Charleston.

"I had nothing but that job," says Aldrich. "You go in and fix things. You work seven days a week. And when the problem is solved, they send you somewhere else to fix another problem."

A chance viewing of "Family Across the Sea," a PBS documentary on a group of Gullah/Geechee people on a historic visit to Sierra Leone in 1989, made her reflect. The Ohio native who grew up in a house adjacent to cornfields decided to return to the Lowcountry and find work helping to educate people about South Carolina's history.

"I was going back to Charleston to see what was left of charm and grace in this world," she says, paraphrasing Rhett Butler in "Gone With the Wind."

For Aldrich, whose favorite reading material includes John Colcock's eloquent description of Colonial patriot Isaac Hayne's demeanor of heroic fortitude as the British led him to the gallows in Charleston, the Holy City was the place to be.

Once here, she worked on history projects with organizations such as the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture, Boone Hall Plantation, Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program (College of Charleston), Drayton Hall, Historic Charleston Foundation, Old Slave Mart Museum (city of Charleston) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

She also earned a bachelor's degree in historic preservation and community planning at the College of Charleston in 2001 and a master's degree in American history, focusing on Lowcountry and African-American history, from the College of Charleston and Citadel's joint program in 2006.

David Shields, McClintock Professor of Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina, has known Aldrich since 2001. Shields was executive director of the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program at the College of Charleston and Aldrich was his staff assistant.

One of the program's functions was organizing conferences and symposiums.

"She was a very take-charge person and knew how to deal with lots and lots of people. She had this tremendous interest in African-American history in particular and South Carolina history in general ... Charleston and South Carolina are of great interest to an international array of people.

"As a scholar and public historian, she makes sure that the people of the community get access to the materials that matter most to their pasts," he says. "She is a very forward and aggressive person in opening up collections to scholars and citizens."

Aldrich finds it very easy to promote use of the society's collections.

"We have an immense collection of plantation records, probably one of the least-known and under-used in the country. But that's changing as patrons have gone beyond studying the white elite and including the enslaved blacks, doctors, ministers, overseers, overseers' wives and others. It's looking at the whole picture. It's amazing to see them used for so many sources."

The number of society collections continues to grow as Aldrich works to acquire letters, diaries, blueprints, images and other materials that researchers are seeking, she says. About half of the society's researchers are studying family history and half of them, social history.

"Acquiring collections can be an experience," Aldrich says. "I've gone out to the shed, under the bench, next to the lawn mower, and have had to clear off the cobwebs before touching papers. I have been in all kinds of attics. I've seen my share of dead mice and cockroaches. That's OK, we have a freezer where we put materials that come in with critters and other infestations."

People don't always recognize the importance of things their family owns, she says. A few family letters may not have monetary value, but may have information a researcher can use to provide a better understanding of some aspect of the broader social history.

Aldrich, a very hands-on archivist, has worked with:

--Richard Porcher, retired Citadel professor and author, to map his ancestors' lands, which are now under Lake Moultrie, as he writes a book on rice.

--Lowcountry Africana, an online genealogy project, to research Michelle Obama's family history for the Obama Campaign and to research comedian Chris Rock's ancestry for Henry Louis Gates' "African-American Lives 2," broadcast on PBS.

--Paul Brown of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to identify Civil War burial grounds and get state historical markers placed at those sites.

--Donors of several noteworthy Civil War manuscript collections to identify people mentioned in them.

"I will speak to anybody, anywhere at any time about anything related to this organization, its building or its collections," she says. "It's exciting to be at the South Carolina Historical Society at a time when we are very open to welcoming everybody's research. A lot of people have been pleasantly surprised to see us stepping up to this."