Eric Plaag

Since 2004, Eric has worked as a consultant on various public history projects, offering services under contract ranging from archival research to museum exhibit scripting to historic preservation advocacy. The following is a description of some of those projects, including links to resources that offer more information:

Museum Exhibits

Natural Curiosity: The University of South Carolina and the Evolution of Scientific Inquiry into the Natural World

Eric served as guest curator for this comprehensive and engaging exhibit that highlights the extensive natural science collections at USC’s McKissick Museum. Displaying artifacts that have remained unseen by the public for nearly one hundred years, the Natural Curiosity exhibit brings back on view a collection that once rivaled the natural science collections at Yale and Harvard for its complexity and scientific value. In addition, the exhibit asks visitors to consider why it is that we collect artifacts from the natural world and how such collections can help us understand the vast changes taking place on our planet as a result of climate change and a decline in biodiversity. Also included is an intriguing recreation of famed South Carolina naturalist Rudy Mancke’s office, as well as items collected by Thomas Cooper, James Woodrow, A.C. Moore, Lewis Gibbes, and other renowned South Carolina naturalists.

For more about McKissick Museum and its exhibits and events, visit their website. (Image courtesy of McKissick Museum)

Commissioned Histories

Fort Jackson Settlement History

Detail from 1946 Richland County Highway Department map

Under a grant through the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina, Eric is working as the project historian on a settlement history of the US Army and National Guard installation at Fort Jackson, located just to the east of Columbia, South Carolina. Originally established in 1917 as a World War I cantonment called Camp Jackson, the military installation sits on land that was once occupied by various rural farming communities, schools, churches, and plantations, including lands previously owned by the Wade Hampton family. The purpose of the settlement history project is to document the use of this land and its immediate surrounding area prior to the various transfers of these parcels to the federal government.

Fort Frederica National Monument Administrative History

Eric was recently hired by the Organization of American Historians to write the administrative history of Fort Frederica National Monument, a National Park Service unit on Saint Simons Island, Georgia, dedicated to the archaeological and historical interpretation of the settlements at Fort Frederica as well as two key 1742 battles between British and Spanish colonial forces. Located squarely within the “debatable lands” of colonial Georgia, Fort Frederica was both a military installation and a thriving colonial town. The Battle of Bloody Marsh, fought a few miles south of the fort, marked the final attempt by the Spanish to drive the British out of Georgia; British victory secured the crown’s control of the Georgia coast once and for all.

The administrative history project is designed to document community efforts to preserve the history at Fort Frederica, leading eventually to the establishment of the National Monument in 1945, as well as the National Park Service’s efforts to interpret, preserve, and educate the public about the extensive historical and archaeological resources at Fort Frederica.

Historical and Architectural Preservation

Eric is frequently contracted by private individuals, corporations, and government agencies in South Carolina as an historical and architectural consultant for historical eligibility reviews and nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. While Eric often shepherds Register nominations through the entire process, including preparation of the formal nomination and presentation of the nomination to the State Board of Review, he also has assisted other individuals as an advisory consultant on nominations they wish to complete independently.

The following are examples of the other projects on which Eric has served as a consultant. With the exception of the group-authored nomination for Columbia and those on which he served as an advisory consultant, Eric wrote the full text for each nomination and made the final presentation before the State Board of Review.

Manning Commercial Historic District, Clarendon County, SC

The Manning Commercial Historic District is a collection of 63 commercial buildings that contributed to the development of downtown Manning between 1890 and 1958. The district incorporates parcels that were part of or immediately adjacent to the original nine-block area defined as Courthouse Square when the city was laid out in 1856. This collection of architecturally significant buildings stands as a remarkable example of the commercial development and evolution of a small southern agricultural center during the first half of the 20th century. Unusual oblique and angled entrances, intriguing decorative cornices and corbeling, and a preponderance of parapeted rooflines give the district a clear and unmistakable association with the architecture typical of the period, and the district includes several architectural gems, including the Levi Building, Alderman’s 20 in One Store, the Clarendon County Courthouse, and the People’s Bank and Trust Building.

Eric was an advisory historical consultant on this nomination, which was officially listed in the National Register by the National Park Service on May 28, 2010.

The Union Church of Port Royal, Beaufort County, SC

The Union Church of Port Royal, which was built with donated lumber by local citizens in 1877-78 to provide the Port Royal community its only white house of worship at that time, is a remarkable example of vernacular architecture with Italianate flourishes, reflecting the influence of the prevailing architectural trends of its period and of the surrounding buildings in the community. It maintained its de facto segregation status as a white church through the 1950s, a curious counterpoint to the community’s fame as the venue for the Civil War-era Port Royal Experiment, in which occupying white northerners encouraged local black southerners to “practice” self-sufficiency through self-governance and economic independence. A site of community religious services for the entirety of its existence, the Union Church has also served as a theater and, since its 2004 restoration, as a museum and community hall. It remains a center of community life in the Town of Port Royal.

The nomination of the Union Church of Port Royal was approved by the SC Board of Review in March 2010 and is awaiting listing in the National Register by the National Park Service.

John Lawton House, Hampton County, SC

The John Lawton House in Estill, South Carolina, was originally built as the new “in-town” home of John Lawton (1830-1908), owner of the nearby plantation Jericho in the old community of Lawtonville, and its construction was completed in 1908. In 1913, the house became the venue for one of the twelve annual meetings of the Estill Wednesday Afternoon Book Club (now the Estill Book Club), a private literary club that has met continuously for the past 95 years in this small community. Originally built in the Classical Revival style, with a dramatic wraparound porch and pedimented front facade, the front portion underwent substantial alterations in 1947 according to plans prepared by John C. Lebey, the well-renowned Savannah, Georgia, architect who made a career of revitalizing older homes while also emphasizing and preserving their historic character. The house has remained continuously inhabited by John Lawton’s descendants since its construction, and since 1939 by his great granddaughter Lawton Clarke O’Cain, who opened her home to travelers as a bed and breakfast from 1984 to 2008. It is a delightful example of an historic small-town southern home that was transformed in an effort to preserve its vitality and usefulness as a grand home.

The John Lawton House was listed in the National Register by the National Park Service on July 1, 2009.

Conestee Mill Complex, Greenville County, SC

The Conestee Mill is a large mill complex located on the shores of the Reedy River in the village of Conestee, approximately eight miles south of the city of Greenville in Greenville County, South Carolina. Mill operations began here by the 1830s under the direction of Vardry McBee, including the production of paper, wood, flour, and textiles. The present mill complex includes the replacement mill building constructed in 1884, various alterations to this building (including substantial additions in 1898 that incorporate the mill race and turbine), and a free-standing company store building built between 1913 and 1920. The mill complex remains a fascinating example of a late nineteenth-century mill operation whose architecture was repeatedly altered during the early twentieth century to keep up with increasing production demands and changes in industry technology. These architectural layers of history make the Conestee Mill an excellent example of southern Progressive Era industrial architecture worthy of inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places for its local significance.

Eric was an advisory historical consultant on this nomination, which was approved by the SC Board of Review in April 2009 and is awaiting listing in the National Register by the National Park Service.

Providence United Methodist Church, Orangeburg County, SC

Providence United Methodist Church, located in the community of Providence near Holly Hill in Orangeburg County and constructed in 1919-20, is an outstanding and remarkable example of an early twentieth-century sanctuary in rural lower South Carolina. Designed by the renowned architect Charles Coker Wilson, one of the most successful South Carolina architects of the early twentieth century, it is an architecturally stunning example of a sophisticated rural church building from the early twentieth century. In particular, its impressive sanctuary windows, which church members insist were purchased from Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studio at the time of construction, make the church a noteworthy property combining Wilson’s fine church architecture with outstanding examples of early twentieth-century art glass.

Listed in the National Register on September 25, 2009.

Hope Rosenwald School, Newberry County, SC

The Hope Rosenwald School is significant for its role in African-American education and social history in South Carolina between 1925 and 1954, and as a property that embodies the distinctive features of a significant architectural type and method of schoolhouse construction popular throughout the southern United States in the early twentieth century. Like other Rosenwald schools, the Hope Rosenwald School can trace its origins to the contentious debate over the education of southern African-Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the end of the American Civil War had brought about state-initiated funding and operation of some local schools for black children in the South, the policies emphasizing racial segregation during the Jim Crow era left southern blacks with few opportunities for a truly complete primary education and even fewer secondary school options. Among those who sought a method for insuring that black educational opportunities in the South might be improved was Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears & Roebuck and a trustee of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. At the request of Booker T. Washington, Rosenwald began a school building fund to benefit southern African-Americans, especially those in rural regions, and from 1917 to 1932, Rosenwald’s program led to the construction of more than 5300 public schools, teachers’ homes, and instructional shops in fifteen southern states, nearly 500 of which were located in South Carolina.

Listed in the National Register on October 3, 2007. The full text of the nomination and additional photos are available at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH). For more on this remarkable success story in historic preservation, see the interactive slideshow from Columbia’s The State online news source. Artifacts from this school will appear in the forthcoming exhibits of the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History, scheduled to open in 2015.

Mary H. Wright Elementary School, Spartanburg County, SC

The Mary H. Wright Elementary School is significant for its association with the statewide struggle over racial equality in education during the 1950s and as a remarkable local example of how one community attempted to implement the state legislature’s initial response to the legal challenges brought against South Carolina’s segregated educational system. The school, constructed in 1951, was one of the first buildings constructed in the state with funds from the statewide sales tax used to finance the state’s equalization program of Governor James F. Byrnes and was cited in litigation from the period for its importance in relationship to this program. The school is also significant as an excellent example of International style institutional architecture in upstate South Carolina and as an important design work of W. Manchester Hudson and A. Hugh Chapman, Jr., prominent local architects of the mid-twentieth century. The school was named for a local Southside resident and black educator.

Listed in the National Register August 3, 2007. The full text of the nomination and additional photos are available at the SCDAH.

Dantzler Plantation, Orangeburg County, SC

The Dantzler Plantation House is significant as an outstanding local example of mid-nineteenth-century Greek Revival architecture with various later alterations and additions designed to emulate this Greek Revival style, as well as for its significant and intriguing interior modifications that reflect the changing fortunes of its owners and the various uses of plantation architecture throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because of the destruction wrought on such properties in Orangeburg County during the Civil War, such an intact property is rare for the county. The property is also noteworthy for its association with the Dantzler family, one of the most prominent families of Orangeburg County from the eighteenth century to the present, and it remains in family hands. The house, constructed ca. 1846-1850, is a porticoed, two-story Greek Revival raised cottage of frame construction, set on a partially enclosed, brick pier foundation. The main block of the house is unique for its remarkable depth (triple pile) in comparison to its width (only five bays wide). The two interior double chimneys and the two exterior chimneys at the rear of the main block are composed of soft brick that was made on the property and also used in the construction of the foundation.

Listed in the National Register March 1, 2007. The full text of the nomination and additional photos are available at the SCDAH.

Resources Associated with Segregation in Columbia, South Carolina, 1880-1960, Richland County, SC

Segregation in Columbia was more complicated than rigid boundaries. Throughout the twentieth century, the strict separation of races was enforced in the school system, healthcare system, churches and leisure organizations, but a more fluid system of segregation appeared in other sectors of society, including the commercial arena. The duplicate structures that whites built to enforce the “separate but equal” principle, the buildings that housed alternative businesses that blacks opened to serve their own communities, and the spaces that retain vestiges of separate facilities used to keep blacks away from whites all provide physical evidence for the various and complicated forms which segregation took.

This nomination, co-authored with several preservation advocates affiliated with the Public History Program at the University of South Carolina and approved in 2005, identified 21 existing properties already listed in the National Register of Historic Places and opened the door for at least two subsequent individual property nominations.

The full text of the nomination can be found at the SCDAH.