Levy family miniature portraits
Collection Overview
Two miniature portraits of Chapman Levy, a Jewish lawyer, legislator, and landowner from South Carolina and later Mississippi. Also included are portraits of his mother, Sarah Moses Levy, and his sister, Eliza Levy Anderson. The portrait of Sarah Moses Chapman shows her wearing the miniature pendant of her young son, Chapman.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1789, circa 1835
Language of Material
Materials in English
Access Restrictions
This collection is open for research.
Copyright Notice
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The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
Biographical Note
Chapman Levy was born in 1787 to Sarah Moses Levy (d. 1839) and Samuel Levy (1746-1842) of Camden, South Carolina. Legislator, lawyer, soldier, landowner, Mason, and expert on the practice of dueling, Levy is listed as a founding member of the Camden Protestant Episcopal Church, though it is unclear if he converted to Christianity. Levy was one of the largest Jewish slaveholders of his era, owning thirty-one slaves, twenty of whom worked in his brickyard near Columbia Canal in 1820. In the mid-1930s, Levy resettled in Mississippi where he appears to have prospered. Chapman Levy died at the age of sixty-two in 1849.
For more information about Chapman Levy, please see pages 118-119 of A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life edited by Theodore Rosengarten and Dale Rosengarten (2002).
Extent
0.4 linear feet (1 document box)
Abstract
Two miniature portraits of Chapman Levy, a Jewish lawyer, legislator, and landowner from South Carolina and later Mississippi. Also included are portraits of his mother, Sarah Moses Levy, and his sister, Eliza Levy Anderson.
Collection Arrangement
Materials are described at the item level.
Acquisitions Information
Materials donated in 2000 by Lane Dinkins and in 2001 by Thomas W. Crockett in honor of Loraine Crockett.
Processing Information
Processed by Deborah Kingsbury with Sarah Dorpinghaus, December 2011.
Subject
- Anderson, Eliza Levy, 1794-1839 (Person)
- Levy, Chapman, 1787-1849 (Person)
- Levy, Sarah Moses, 1768-1842 (Person)
- Levy family (Family)
Source
- Dinkins, Lane (Donor, Person)
- Crockett, Thomas W. (Donor, Person)
- Crockett, Loraine (Honoree, Person)
- Title
- Inventory of the Levy Family Miniature Portraits, circa 1789, circa 1835
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by: Deborah Kingsbury with Sarah Dorpinghaus; machine-readable finding aid created by: Sarah Dorpinghaus
- Date
- 2012
- Description rules
- Dacs
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Sponsor
- Funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources supported the processing of this collection and encoding of the finding aid.
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections Repository
Special Collections
College of Charleston Libraries
66 George Street
Charleston South Carolina 29424
(843) 953-8016
(843) 953-6319 (Fax)