March 2011

Although only one house stands today, the Mann-Simons site historically was a collection of commercial and domestic spaces owned and operated by the same African-American family from at least 1843 until 1970.

Celia Mann, a free African-American, owned the house before the Civil War, and her descendants controlled it for over a century. The Calvary Baptist Church, Columbia's first black church, held services in the basement before it found a permanent location. The property and its multiple buildings changed considerably over time to better accommodate the needs, tastes, and aspirations of this remarkable family.

The Mann-Simons Cottage is part of Historic Columbia Foundation.

One of only five National Historic Landmarks within Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, the Robert Mills House exemplifies the skill of the first architect born and trained within the United States who designed some of the nation's most prominent buildings, including the Washington Monument.

 

Today, the structure stands as a testament of its designer's architectural ability and the preservation efforts of generations of Columbians.

The museum collection displayed within the Robert Mills House contains decorative arts of the early 19th century, including American Federal, English Regency, and French Empire pieces. The basement features service rooms with objects used for food storage, preparation, and consumption.



The Mills House is part of Historic Columbia Foundation.

One of Columbia's oldest remaining historic houses, the Hampton-Preston Mansion was home to many people for 150 years. The city residence of Columbia's Hampton and Preston elite planter-class families, this historic site featured gardens nationally renowned for their size and variety of plantings.

This classical revival mansion was constructed by Ainsley Hall, a successful Columbia merchant, in 1818. Wade Hampton I, a wealthy planter and War of 1812 general, soon purchased the house. At times his son, Wade Hampton II, and grandson, Confederate General Wade Hampton III, lived in the house, but the Preston family took ownership of the house. Union Major General John Logan used the houst as his headquarters during the Union occupation of Columbia in 1865.

The Hampton-Preston Mansion is part of Historic Columbia Foundation.

Historic Columbia Foundation serves as the steward of seven historic sites within the city center, including over 14 acres of landscapes featuring gardens that range from an expansive park-like setting with an elaborate formal garden to a traditional 19th-century African-American swept yard.



Follow the people, places, and progress of Columbians over three centuries within five downtown historic sites. Hear the stories of nationally and regionally important people whose lives during the earliest days of settlement to the modern Civil Rights era marked their special places in history. Learn how the city's diverse past is likely to influence its future.



Historic Columbia Foundation maintains a permanent collection of over 6500 historic artifacts. The collections span the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and form the basis of interpretation at our historic houses. Objects vary in composition, size, and value with major categories in the permanent collection including textiles, decorative arts, fine arts, tools, and historic images. 

 

In this house, Wilson's father, Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, and his mother, Jeannie Woodrow Wilson, raised the young man who would come to hold the United States executive office and guide the nation through World War I as the first modern world statesman.



Standing at the southeast entry to the Robert Mills Garden District the Woodrow Wilson Family Home is a tangible link to the watershed Reconstruction era. Its history is embedded in the story of a southern community struggling to rebuild following the Civil War.



At this historic site, experience From Dreams to Visions and Hopes to Purposes: Woodrow Wilson and Columbia, which addresses the Reconstruction era environment; the development of Thomas "Tommy" Woodrow Wilson from boy to man; and the historic preservation movement as experienced in South Carolina's capital city.

The Woodrow Wilson Family Home is part of Historic Columbia Foundation.

We are honored to publish here the recollections of front-line combat in the Pacific theater by James MacGregor Burns, one of America’s most accomplished living historians.

Readers of this magazine will be familiar with Burns, who has appeared many times in these pages over the past several decades and won a Pulitzer for his biography of FDR. At a recent Society of American Historians meeting, during which he received a lifetime achievement award, Burns spoke eloquently about his formative years just out of Williams College as an Army combat historian, helping to complete two “green book” official histories of Guam and Okinawa. Afterwards I asked him if he’d ever written up his personal recollections of that time. He said no—and I knew right there that we needed to apply the resources of American Heritage to bringing this important story to our readers.

 Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America

by Eric Jay Dolin

Through the prism of the fur trade, this topical approach relates a quite comprehensive history of the North American continent from the first Dutch voyage here in search of furs in 1611 to the signing 300 years later of an international treaty that banned pelagic sealing. In the course of those three centuries, fur was an economic engine and driving force as European nations vied to control New World territory in order to reap its wealth in pelts—first beaver, later bear, otter, deer, ermine, skunk, and buffalo. Author Dolin also deals with some of the derring-do of such iconic characters as the fabled mountain men and the mariners who sailed new routes to find the furs and deliver the goods. (Norton, 464 pages, $29.95)

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches,

the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S. C. Gwynne

On December 21, 1928, President Coolidge signed the act authorizing construction of a civilian engineering project, the likes of which the world had never seen: a 726-foot-tall concrete structure that would dam the wild and flood-prone Colorado River at a cost of $49 million. By 1931, as the Great Depression continued to erode national confidence, the dam came to symbolize American resilience, its can-do spirit, and know-how. On this, the 75th anniversary of the year of its dedication, Hoover Dam requires no major repairs and is universally acknowledged as one of the great examples of engineering prowess.