When Davenport Marched

Posted on February 16, 2012 by SCblogger

Davenport Civil Rights History

The Davenport Civil Rights Commission recently put together a Walking Tour of Davenport, highlighting sites important to the development of Civil Rights in the city.

Landmarks on the tour include businesses, churches . . . and the LeClaire Park Bandshell on 400 Beiderbecke Drive.

On Friday, August 23rd, 1963, about 2,000 people participated at a Civil Rights rally at the Bandshell.  The rally was a warm up to the “March on Washington” which was to take place the following Wednesday, August 28 and local delegates to the March on Washington were introduced.

Approximately 400 members of the Davenport Catholic Interracial Council gathered at St. Anthony’s Church and marched to the rally. The group was made up of representatives from six Davenport parishes, including the current Mayor of Davenport, Bill Gluba, who was a student at St. Ambrose University.

John Howard Griffin, author of the book Black Like Me was the guest speaker at the rally. Mr. Griffin talked about his experiences in France during World War II and compared Nazi anti-Semitism with the racism he experienced in the South.  About racism, he said it can affect any human being at any time, that the racist is just as dehumanized as is his victim, and that racism leads to the destruction of human beings.

“We talk about giving the Negro his rights as though they were ours t dispense, he said. “Whom do we think we are?” he asked “The Negro has his rights from God just like the rest of us”.

Rock Island NAACP Leader Mel Pettis also spoke at the rally. He listed some of the challenges in getting African-American officers in the Davenport Police Department and Scott County Sherriff’s office. He pointed out the lack of diversity in the courthouses and city halls. He criticized the realty companies, loan companies, the labor unions and other organizations. He also accused city administrations of being in collusion with absentee landlords to ignore breaches of building regulations and of maintenance standards of homes in African-American neighborhoods.

Msgr. J. D. Conway said that discrimination exists in Davenport, but that “here it is more hidden and genteel” that it is in the South. He called discrimination a moral evil that each individual is responsible for. He said that by being at the rally, everyone in the audience was now committed to the cause of racial justice.  “You know and your neighbors know where you stand on this issue now.”

For the unveiling of the Davenport Civil Rights Walking Tour, on April 18, 2011 Mayor Gluba and the Davenport Civil Rights Commission recreated the March to the LeClaire Park Bandshell.

 

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Works Cited

Brecht, Tony. “Davenport to honor civil rights movement – City to unveil plaque, host history walking tour.” Quad-City Times 16 April 2011: A1.

Dickins, John. “Rights Rally Draws 2,000: Negro Leader Cites Quad-Cities Color Bar.” Davenport Times-Democrat 24 August 1963: 1.

McConoughey, Jerry. “Negro Gets Rights from God: Griffin.” The Catholic Messenger 29 August 1963: 1.

 (posted by Cristina)

 

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Two Reasons to Celebrate!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by SCblogger


Lorraine Duncan, Library Director Lawanda Roudebush, and Pat Duncan

Yesterday was Lorraine Duncan’s ninety-first birthday.

Mrs. Duncan is a long-time member of the Scott County Iowa Genealogical Society and volunteered in our Special Collections Center for many years.   Her special interest has always been the preservation of important local records.

Her daughter Pat Duncan, in order to honor her mother’s birthday and in recognition of her mother’s efforts on behalf of the Special Collections Center, has established The Lorraine Duncan Special Collections Endowment for the Davenport Public Library.

Each year, distributions from this Endowment will be used to enhance the services and materials of the Special Collections Center.

We’re very excited about this and thank these ladies for their generosity!

 

(posted by Sarah)

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Uncovering the past: African-American Genealogy

Posted on February 1, 2012 by SCblogger

Are you having trouble researching your African-Americans ancestors before the 1870’s?  

Here are some tips for tracing hard-to- find ancestors back to the Civil War and earlier:

The first suggestion is to locate your family in the 1870 Census. Note other families in the same area and look for them in the 1850 & 1860 census slave schedule as well as your family.

Another hint is to further research the slave owner and their family if that is known or can be located in census information.

Slave owner’s business and personal papers may include: Deeds, Tax records, Probates, Wills, family bibles, Plantation Daybooks, etc. Slave owners may have kept records of supplies given to slaves, such as clothing, blankets, tools, etc. Slaves were considered property, so they may have been mortgaged, rented or insured and that would have been recorded. Plantation owners may have registered slave births or had them baptized.

Not all former slaves wanted to be associated with the Plantation owners. Only about 15% of former slaves took the surname of their last slave owner. Many took the surname of people they admired (Lincoln or Douglass) or for other associations (Freeman).  There is also the chance they may have changed their names afterwards, so focus on first names and ages.

Another thing we have noted is African Americans may not have been listed in some indexes, so always look though records even if the name is not on the index.

Freedman’s Bank and Freedmen’s Bureau

The mission of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Land was to provide relief and help freedmen become self-sufficient. Records include marriage registers that provide the names, addresses, ages and complexions of husbands and wives and their children. Other registers give names, ages, and former occupations of freedmen and names and residences of former owners.

The Freedman’s Savings & Trust Company was a private financial institution with a federal charter.  Between 1865 and 1870, they had 37 banks in 17 states and DC.  They collected an enormous amount of personal information about each depositor and their family. Files can contain information such as age, complexion, place of birth and place raised, name of former owner and plantation, place of residence, occupation, parents, spouse, children, brothers and sisters, remarks and signatures. Some entries include death certificates. Available on Heritage Quest (search from home with your Davenport Library card). Other sources for information are on LDS Family Search and Ancestry.Com which are available to patrons and visitors at our library.  Fold3 has many documents relating to the government and Freedman’s Bank and Freedmen’s Bureau. That is also available online in our library to patrons and visitors.

Following are more sources to help in your search:

Books:

 Blockson, Charles S. Black Genealogy. Black Classic Press, Baltimore, MD, 1991. SC 929.1 Blo

Braxton-Secret, Jeanette. Guide to Tracing your African Ameripean Civil War Ancestor. Heritage Books, Bowie, MD, 1997. SC 973.7415 Bra

Burroughs, Tony. Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2001. SC 929.1089 Bur

 Fears, Mary L. Jackson. Slave Ancestral Research: It’s Something Else. Heritage Books, Bowie, MD, 1995. SC 929.1 Fea

Gates, Henry Louis. In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past. Crown Publishers, New York, NY, 2009. 973.0496 Gat (available to check out)

Rose, James D. Black Genesis: A Resource Book for African-American Genealogy. Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore, MD, 2003. SC 929.1 Ros

 Smith, Franklin Carter. A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering your African-American Ancestors: How to Find and Record your Unique Heritage. Betterway Books, Cincinnati, OH, 2003. 929.1 Smi (available to check out)

 Thackery, David T. Finding your African-American Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide.  Ancestry Publishing, Orem, UT, 2000. SC 929.1 Tha

Tregillis, Helen Cox. River Roads to Freedom: Fugitive Slave Notices and Sheriff Notices Found in Illinois Sources. Heritage Books, Bowie, MD, 1988. SC 977.3 Tre

Washington, Reginald. Black Family Research: Records of Post-Civil War Federal Agencies at the National Archives. United States National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, 2010. SC 929.1 Uni

Woodtor, Dee Palmer. Finding a Place called Home: A Guide to African-American Genealogy and Historical Identity. Random House, New York, NY, 1999. 929.1 Woo (available to check out)

Magazine & Journal Articles:

Berry, Kenyatta D.Tracing Slave Ancestors. Family Tree Magazine, Vol. 10, Issue 4, July 2009.

Hait, Michael. Breaking the Chains: Tracing Former Slaves. Family Chronicle, Vol. 13, No. 3, Jan/Feb 2009

Nordmann, Christopher A. Tracing African Americans during the Civil War. NGS NewsMagazine, Vol. 31, No. 3, Jul-Sep 2005

Online:

Family Search’s Quick Guide to African-American Records: https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Quick_Guide_to_African_American_Records

Finding Records of Your Ancestors, 1870-Present: http://net.lib.byu.edu/fslab/researchoutlines/US/AfricanAmerican.pdf

Fold3 African American Collection (search from home with your Davenport Library card) http://www.davenportlibrary.com/Page/Do_Research_Online.aspx#Genealogy

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces

Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City: http://www.blackarchives.org/

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/

 (posted by Cristina)

 

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Say (and spell) What?: Tricky research words

Posted on January 26, 2012 by SCblogger

Genealogy words can be tricky—ahnentafels, anyone?—and words that look or sound alike don’t help much.

In order to facilitate communications and understanding—and humor, of course—we’ve collected a few of the most frequent mix-ups we’ve encountered, with definitions and examples:

____________

 Cavalry — an army component mounted on horseback. Ex: Company M of the first regiment of the Iowa volunteer cavalry mustered out of Davenport on September 12, 1861.

Mt. Calvary —  A cemetery in Davenport named after a hill in Jerusalem. Ex: Antoine LeClaire is buried at Mt. Calvary cemetery.

In other words, cavalry can be buried at Mt. Calvary, but not the other way around, even if the horses are really hungry.

—

Ordinance — a law set forth by a governmental authority; specifically a municipal regulation. Ex: Revised Ordinances of the City of Davenport.

Ordnance — military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment. A service of the army charge with procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance. Ex: The Ordnance Museum at Rock Island Arsenal was opened to the public on July 4, 1905.

There are many ordinances for ordnance in Davenport, but not—we hope—the other way around.  Hey, we just work here!

—

Decedent — a person who has died. Ex: Death record indexes include the name of the decedent, death date and county of death.

Descendant — A person, plant, or animal that is descended from a particular ancestor. Ex: The Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants

All decedents are descendants of someone, but not all descendants are decedents yet.

—

Patent (invention) — A government authority to an individual or organization conferring a right or title, esp. the sole right to make, use, or sell some invention. Ex: The Patent and Trademark research computer is located in the Special Collections Center.

Patent (Land) —pronounced “pay-tent”—evidence of right, title, and/or interest to a quantity of land, usually granted by a central, federal, or state government to an individual or private company.  Ex: a Land Patent is the only form of proof of absolute title to Land in the United States of America.

You can patent something to prove you invented it or show a patent to prove you own a parcel of land.  But since you can’t invent land, don’t even try patenting a patent!

—

Statute – A written law passed by a legislative body. Ex: Revised Statutes of the Territory of Iowa

Statue – A carved or cast figure of a person or animal, esp. one that is life-size or larger. Ex: A statue of Bix Beiderbecke is located on the corner of River Drive and 4th Street.

Statutes have been passed to regulate statues . . . but most statues don’t bother writing their legislators  about statutes regulating pigeons.

—

Tract – An area of indefinite extent, typically a large one. A defined area of land. Ex: Land Tract books

Track – Follow the course or trail of (someone or something), typically in order to find them or note their location at various points. Ex: Using census information to track your family

You can track your family by finding their patented tracts of land.  We call that tract-tracking.

—

Abstract – A summary or statement of the contents of a book, article, or formal speech.   Ex: Abstracted Names from the Davenport Democrat.

Extract – A short passage taken from a piece of writing, music, or film. Ex: Extract of Sexton Records.

The names listed in our Abstracted Names index were extracted from the Davenport Democrat.

—

And finally, Ahnentafel, which doesn’t sound or look like anything else, but is still a problem for many of our patrons.  It’s the German word for ancestor tables!

 Ex: I want to look up my surnames using the library’s Ahnentafels, but I can’t find the books in the catalog because I can’t spell it.

 (posted by Cristina & Sarah)

 

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Cool Donations: The Priester Collection

Posted on January 19, 2012 by SCblogger

The Priester Construction Company has been a part of Davenport, Iowa since Walter and Oscar Priester, both native Davenporters, founded it in 1919—in fact, the company seems to have helped build most of it, from schools to companies to the Scott County Courthouse . . . to a certain public library on Main Street.

The above image shows over sixty of the local projects Priester Construction completed between its founding and 1967.  In the forty-odd years since this map was published, the company has completed many, many others.

And in 2009, Priester passed many of their archived project drawings, shop drawings, specs, and blueprints to our Special Collections Center.

We immediately started a project of our own: humidifying, unrolling, identifying, measuring, classifying, indexing, and shelving the project packets.*

It wasn’t a quick process, but it was fascinating.

The majority of plans we retained are for additions or renovations to existing buildings and in most cases, a complete set of blueprints, schematics, and/or shop drawings aren’t available—but what is available offers glimpses into the familiar buildings and landmarks of Davenport and the planning behind them.

So if you’re researching the history or construction of a commercial property or landmark in Davenport, don’t forget to check our Priester Collection.  We may be able to get you in on the ground floor!

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*Most of the organization work for this project was done by our own Karen O., but everyone took turns feeding the humidification chambers!

___________________________

Sources Used:

Advertisement, Priester Construction. Times-Democrat, December31, 1967, p. E7

 

(posted by Sarah)

 

 

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Bird’s Eye View: The aerial photography of Phil Hutchison

Posted on January 9, 2012 by SCblogger

Phil Hutchison was the chief photographer for the Davenport Daily Times, Times-Democrat and Quad-City Times for 30 years. He succeeded Joe Boll, who left the Times to become advertisement manager of the Bureau Farmer, in March of 1946.

He took the job at the times shortly after his release from the Army in February 1946, after 27 months service, where he was a pilot and was attached to an aerial photographer unit.  On October 27, 1951, he won the Iowa Associated Press Newsphoto Contest in the “spot news” category for a photograph of the Mississippi River moments after it burst a levee near Muscatine, Iowa.

Phillip M. Hutchison was born on April 11, 1920 in Decatur, IL. He married Jean L. Dunlap in 1941 in Moline. He enlisted in the Army air corps on September 23, 1943.  Phil Hutchison died in Rock Island, IL on December 3, 1995.

 The Davenport Public Library Photograph Collection includes several images taken by Phil Hutchison while he worked at the Times. A lot of the images are aerial views of recently constructed buildings and landmarks. Here are some examples of Mr. Hutchison’s work from our photograph collections: 

Scott County Courthouse, 18 Oct 1956

 

Village Shoping Center, 20 Oct 1955

 

Davenport Municipal Airport, ca. 1950s

 

I-80 Bridge at LeClaire, IA, ca. 1966

 

Railroad locomotive, ca. 1940s

 
____________________________
 Works Cited
“Boll Leaves Times to Take Magazine Work; Successor is Named”. The Daily Times, March 16, 1946
“Phil Hutchison, 75”. Quad-City Times, December 5, 1995, p. 2M
 
(posted by Cristina)
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Our “Special” Visitors for 2011

Posted on January 2, 2012 by SCblogger

In 2011, genealogists and history researchers came from all over the country to the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center, to use our wonderful resources.

They came from far away to fill in the blank branches of their Family Trees. They found copies of birth, marriage and death records of their Scott County, Iowa ancestors. They came to do research on the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, Colonel George Davenport and Bix Beiderbecke. They looked at newspaper articles on microfilm, online databases we subscribe to and our photograph collection. Their searches were made easier by the many indices that have been prepared by our volunteers from the Scott County Iowa Genealogical Society.

Last year we had visitors from Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, Alabama, North Carolina, Maryland, Florida, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, California and Canada.

Our superlatives were: Galveston, Texas in the south; Napa, California in the west; Chesapeake Beach, MD in the east; and our furthest traveler, from the north was from Highland Ranch, Alberta!

Check out this map with all of our visitors for the year 2011, as recorded in our Guest Book. Pretty cool, huh?


View Special Collections Visitors 2011 in a larger map

We thank our guest for visiting us this past year. We hope to see you again soon! And if you came in to visit but did not sign our guest book, let us know in the comments, so we can add you to our map!

Are you planning to visit us this year? We look forward to helping you!

(posted by Cristina)

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Auld Lang Syne . . .

Posted on December 28, 2011 by SCblogger

2011 has been a good year around here.

We’ve received many new resources from family histories to land records, Shakers to Palatines.  We’ve even added a few new databases to our arsenal.

We’ve had great programs, like our Specifically for Seniors genealogy class, Genealogy Nights, and visiting speakers like Lori Cox-Paul from the National Archives.

We became Iowa’s first patent and trademark resource center, on behalf of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

We wrote a year’s worth of interesting, heartbreaking, and extremely silly posts.

And we’ve helped over thirteen hundred people with their historical and genealogical needs.

But we have a feeling 2012 could be even better!

More images will be added to the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive, and we’ll be offering even more interesting programs and posts.

And the 1940 Census will be arriving in April!

You have the next eleven months to work on your family tree before next Thanksgiving—it’s never too early to start.

Won’t you join us?

 

 

 

 

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Happy Holidays from Special Collections

Posted on December 22, 2011 by SCblogger

The staff of the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center would like to wish you and yours a joyful and genealogically successful holiday season.

Don’t forget to ask your relatives for family information, stories, and copies of photographs!

If you’re planning a trip to our Center in the next few weeks, please note that the library will be closed December 24, 25, and 26 this year and also December 31 and January 1 and 2.  Otherwise, we will be open our regular hours.

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Just Skating By . . .

Posted on December 20, 2011 by SCblogger

The river frequently froze over smooth, and made wonderful skating, particularly distance skating.  A favorite stunt was to skate from Davenport downstream as far as Rock River—a matter of five or six miles.  Sometimes, if there happened to be a strong west wind, we could open our overcoats and sail way back to Davenport, at fairly good speed, without taking a stroke with the feet . . .
(Edward Kunkel, “I Remember This . . .” Davenport Daily Times, 26Sept1961, p.123)

Ice skating has been popular in these parts since people discovered ice is slippery.

The pre-dammed Mississippi, of course, was the earliest and biggest “rink.”  Edward Kunkel, whose memories are quoted in this post, was born in 1871, when residents had to use their common sense (or lack of it) to judge when the skating season was open.  But by the 1920s, the city had the responsibility of testing the ice near Credit Island for safety—if it passed the test, the snow would be cleared away for fun and games.

 

Other popular skating places were the pond . . . the Fair Grounds and a privately operated open air ice rink occupying the square block between Brady and Main and 17th and 18th Streets . . . where you could skate as long as you wished for a nickel, except on band concert night when he had a band playing in a bandstand at the center of the rink.
(Edward Kunkel, “I Remember This . . .” Davenport Daily Times, 26Sept1961, p.123)

The Fair Grounds, which were used to establish Central Park in 1885 and renamed Vander Veer Park in 1912, has been the skating venue of choice for many years.  The annual Silver Skates races were often held there as well, with children and adults competing for prizes and bragging rights.

The lake in the Park was so popular that in 1924, the skaters asked the Park Board to have a checking booth installed so that all the boots, sweaters, and skating bags could be more easily managed.  Losing one’s boots in the middle of an Iowa winter is no joke!

It’s been too warm for ice so far this season, but Iowa winters rarely pass by without freezing temperatures, so there’s still hope for skaters.  Of course, nowadays one can skate indoors year ’round,  but as Mr. Kunkel might have told you, it just isn’t the same!

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Sources Used:

Davenport Public Library photograph collections

“Ice Skating in the Harbor Again Popular.” Davenport Democrat, 11Jan1925, p. 9)

Kunkel, Edward. “I Remember This . . .” Davenport Daily Times, 26Sept1961, p.123.

“Skaters at Parke trying to get a Checking Booth.”  Davenport Democrat. 4Jan1924, p.13.

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