Albert Einstein at Lincoln University

Two images from the Lincoln University Archives are featured in a recent publication by the Teaching Company, the DVD set of video lectures, Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian, taught by Professor Don Howard, University of Notre Dame. These are two black and white images of Albert Einstein's visit to Lincoln University on May 3, 1946, and they appear in Lecture 21, "A Lifelong Commitment to Social Justice," on the 2nd DVD, about six minutes in. One shows Albert Einstein at the blackboard in a classroom full of Lincoln University students and the other shows Lincoln University President Horace Mann Bond giving Einstein an honorary degree.

The student newspaper, The Lincolnian, June 4, 1946 has another charming image: Einstein mingling with a group of group of faculty children during his visit, as well as a brief article about the visit. This image and accompanying article are accessible, along with all the student newspapers, at www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/lincolnnewslincolnian.html

LU Archival materials contribute to new book by Andrew Billingsley

Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families (University of South Carolina, 2007) is the title of a recently published book by Andrew Billingsley, professor of sociology and African American studies and senior scholar in residence at the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina.

Robert Smalls was an African American slave, known as "the first black hero of the Civil War" because of his sensational escape to the Union troops with the confederate ship Planter in 1862, who rose to prominence after his combat service in the Civil War, becoming a political leader -- a founding member of the South Carolina Republican party, a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Conventions of 1868 and 1895, and between those two pivotal events, one of which granted blacks the right to vote, and the other of which took that right away, he served as state legislator, state senator, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Lincoln University connection to Robert Smalls is via Samuel J. Bampfield, an 1872 graduate of Lincoln University. Bampfield married into the Smalls family on April 24, 1877, when the nineteen-year-old daughter of Robert Smalls, Elizabeth Lydia, became his wife. Another Lincoln University alumnus in the same graduating class who appears in the book is Thomas E. Miller, another black delegate at the 1895 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, who along with Robert Smalls lobbied for an independent state college for blacks and eventually became the first president of the "Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College for the colored race."

At the time that Andrew Billingsley contacted me for information about Samuel Bampfield we were in early stages of our digitization efforts. By now, however, all of the materials that were helpful to him in his research are actually available online via our digital collections website, www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/digitalcollections.html.