Holloway family scrapbook

Collection

Identifier: AMN 1065

Staff Only

See scrapbook on the Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL)

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Scope and Contents

The Holloway Family Scrapbook contains legal documents, personal and business correspondence, receipts, ephemera, clippings and photographs pertaining to the Holloway family, a prominent free family of color in Charleston, SC. Series 1: "The Scrapbook," holds a variety of documents: Highlights include legal documents with deeds (1806, 1821, 1871), a conveyance (1811), slave bills of sale including one for the slave "Betty" (1829), an agreement (1829) to apprentice the slave boy Carlos in the carpenters and house joiner's trade, exhorter licenses to preach and a photograph of a 1797 document declaring patriarch Richard “Holliday” [Holloway] a free mulatto. Personal and business correspondence include letters concerning the hiring out of slaves, an offer (1837) to buy the "Holloway Negroes,” a letter (1831) from Samuel Benedict about emigrating to Liberia, agreements for carpentry work, and information about the Brown Fellowship Society, the Century Fellowship Society, the Minors Moralist Society and the Bonneau Literary Society. Also included are invitations, Confederate and corporate tax receipts, receipts for general merchandise, and Confederate scrip. Other letters and newspaper clippings, including letters to the editor written by James H. Holloway, concern Negro taxes, Negro slaveholders, the Liberia movement, the Methodist Episcopal Church, civil rights and related topics. James H. Holloway's niece, Mae Holloway Purcell, preserved the scrapbook after his death and added to its contents. The bound scrapbook was microfilmed by the South Caroliniana Library in 1977 but was later disbound and reorganized. Using the microfilm as a guide, this archive attempts to recreate the original order and this digital presentation of the scrapbook reflects those efforts.

Dates

Creation: 1776-1977, undated

Creator

Holloway, James H. (James Harrison), 1849-1913 (Person)
Purcell, Mae Holloway, 1891-1982 (Person)

Copyright Notice

The nature of the Avery Research Center's archival holdings means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The Avery Research Center claims only physical ownership of most archival materials.

The materials from our collections are made available for use in reseearch, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of materials, including but not limited to, infrigement 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

James Harrison Holloway (1849-1913), compiler of the family scrapbook, collected these materials in the early twentieth century to preserve a record of his family’s legacy as free, prosperous African Americans in Charleston, dating to the arrival of Richard “Holliday” [Holloway] in the late eighteenth century. In the wake of Reconstruction and the dawn of Jim Crow, Holloway sought to assert his family's legacy against the economic, social, and political decline forced on even prominent African-American families after the failure of Reconstruction.

James Harrison Holloway was born in May 1849 in Charleston, South Carolina, married Harriet Huger Hampton in 1872. He worked as a postmaster and teacher in Marion, South Carolina, and later operated harness shop on 39 Beaufain Street in Charleston. Holloway passed on October 29, 1913 in Charleston.

The Holloway Scrapbook, by the efforts of James H. Holloway and later his niece, Mae Holloway Purcell, represents a family who occupied a prominent niche in Charleston: free African Americans, or “free people of color.” Members of the family joined and established charity and benevolence societies, served in the church and the militia, owned property—real estate and enslaved persons. The failures of Reconstruction and the onset of Jim Crow threatened and levelled the status and legacy of the Holloway family. The scrapbook was James Holloway’s attempt to interpret and assert that status and legacy against the facts of the family’s economic and social decline in Charleston.

Extent

4.0 linear feet (3 oversize boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

James Harrison Holloway, compiler of the family scrapbook, collected materials in the early twentieth century to preserve a record of his family’s legacy as free prominent African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, from their arrival in the late eighteenth century. In the wake of Reconstruction and the dawn of Jim Crow, Holloway, whose vocations ranged between preacher, postmaster, and harness maker, sought to assert his family's legacy against the economic, social, and political decline forced on even prominent African-American families after the failure of Reconstruction.

Entitled "Negroes During the 17th and 18th Centuries," the Holloway Family Scrapbook contains legal documents, personal and business correspondence, receipts, ephemera, clippings and photographs pertaining to the family. James H. Holloway's niece, Mae Holloway Purcell, preserved the scrapbook after his death and added to its contents. The bound scrapbook was microfilmed by the South Caroliniana Library in 1977, but was later disbound and reorganized. Using the microfilm as a guide, this archive attempts to recreate the original order of Holloway’s scrapbook.

This Scrapbook is digitalized and accessible on the Lowcountry Digital Library: https://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:20264