This past Saturday, Dr. Hayer, Kellen, and I went to the annual meeting of the South Carolina Historical Association. The meeting was held at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia.

There were three sessions of paper presentations. During the first session, Kellen and I heard papers about religion’s role in South Carolina. Particularly interesting were papers about the relationship between mill churches, mill owners, organized labor and about the efforts of the National Temperance Society after the Civil War. Dr. Hayner, more experienced at such meetings than we, went to watch a film. In the second session, a professor from USC presented a very condensed version of his soon-to-be-published book about Latvia during World War II; his presentation was perhaps the most interesting of the day. After him, I presented my paper about St. Thomas Aquinas’s epistemology. After me, another professor from USC presented a paper about discussion among British intellectuals and politicians during World War I about national self-determination.

Following the second session, we had lunch, a good opportunity to meet some of the historians there. After a five-minute business meeting (the members are very cordial), came the keynote address. The director of the South Carolina Archives and History told the story (part of a book he is writing) about the first director of his organization: Mr. Alexander Sally. Following the keynote address, he took those who were interested on a tour of the archives. Seeing their document storage and preservation facilities was fascinating; I should have liked to have seen some of the documents being restored. He showed us some interesting documents: an agreement of the proprietors of Carolina, signed on the back by John Locke as a witness; the original of the South Carolina declaration of secession, called by the archivist the fourth most important document in American history.

It was a little difficult to pay attention during the third session, and we were soon on the road. The trips to and from the meeting were great opportunities to talk to Dr. Hayner about history, historians, and historiography, but also more important things like churches and faith.