Francis Butler Simkins (December 14, 1897 – February 8, 1966) was a historian and president of the

Southern Historical Association The Southern Historical Association is a professional academic organization of historians focusing on the history of the Southern United States. It was organized on November 2, 1934. Its objectives are the promotion of interest and research in Sout ...

. He is best known for his highly praised history of the Reconstruction Era in South Carolina, that gave fair coverage to all sides, and for his widely used textbook ''The South, Old and New'' (1947) and his monographs on South Carolina history. He was a professor at

Longwood College Longwood University is a public university in Farmville, Virginia. Founded in 1839, it is the third-oldest public university in Virginia and one of the hundred oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. Previously a college, Lo ...

in Virginia, Simkins was a leading progressive in the 1920s and 1930s regarding race relations but became a defender of segregation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Career

Born in

Edgefield, South Carolina Edgefield is a town in Edgefield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 4,750 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Edgefield County. Edgefield is part of the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area. Geography Edgefield is l ...

, Simkins received his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from the University of South Carolina in 1918 and his

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

(1921) and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(1929) from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York. He spent most of his academic career as a professor of history at the small

in Farmville, Virginia. Simkins also taught at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

, where he was a mentor of

Charles P. Roland Charles Pierce Roland (April 8, 1918 – April 12, 2022) was an American historian and professor emeritus of the University of Kentucky who was known for his research field of the American South and the U.S. Civil War. Roland was a Captain in th ...

, another historian of the South and the Civil War.

Scholarship

Simkins published eight history books, numerous scholarly articles, and an abundance of miscellaneous work including book reviews and encyclopedia articles. His obituary in '' The Journal of America History'' in 1966 said that Simkins was "an emancipated critic of the old order" and that "he came to stress the distinctive characteristics of 'the everlasting South', and to question the validity of much that passed for progress in the modern South." Simkins' most famous work covers South Carolina history. In ''South Carolina During Reconstruction'' (with Robert Hilliard Woody) (1931) he broke with the

Dunning School The Dunning School was a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history (1865–1877), supporting conservative elements against the Radical Republicans who introduced civil rights in the South. It was na ...

and gave a well-balanced history. It was an objective study of Reconstruction and "represented an important step forward" in its study. Howard K. Beale praised it: "With refreshing freedom from prejudice and special pleading, the authors picture honest, unselfish carpetbaggers, respectable, well-meaning scalawags, and Negroes with intelligence and political ability."

W.E.B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...

wrote that the book "does not hesitate to give a fair account of the Negroes and of some of their work." In ''Pitchfork Ben Tillman'' (1944) Simkins covered the highly controversial politician Benjamin Tillman who served as the violently anti-black white supremacist governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894 and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918, known for his numerous speeches. A colorful if eccentric professor at

in Virginia, Simpkins was a leading progressive in the 1920s and 1930s regarding race relations, but became more conservative in the 1950s and 1960s, in part because his wife taught nearby in the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools, which became a companion case to

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

and thus a touchpoint of Massive Resistance. Simkins in the 1920s could cross racial lines in his scholarship and challenge the "

Lost Cause The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. Firs ...

" theme in the 1930s. When

desegregation Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...

began in the 1950s Simkins discovered much he thought should be preserved, and he became a spokesman for preserving it as a tradition. In a 1954 address to the

he said that historians of the South "should accept the class and race distinctions" of the region and "display a tolerant understanding of why in the South the Goddess of Justice has not always been blind, ndwhy there have been lynchings and Jim Crow laws." By 1964 David Potter says he was, "almost the only practicing historian of the South who defends the major and historic Southern institution of segregation." In 2015, after Harper Lee released her novel ''

Go Set a Watchman ''Go Set a Watchman'' is a novel written by Harper Lee before her Pulitzer Prize-winning ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' (1960), her only other published novel. Although ''Go Set a Watchman'' was initially promoted as a sequel by its publisher, it i ...

'', historian David B. Parker called him "The Historian Who Evolved the Same Way as Atticus Finch". Simkins was one of the authors of the seventh grade textbook "Virginia: History, Government, Geography" used in Virginia public schools from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

columnist

Dana Milbank Dana Timothy Milbank (born April 27, 1968) is an American author and columnist for ''The Washington Post''. Personal life Milbank was born to a Jewish family, the son of Ann C. and Mark A. Milbank. He is a graduate of Yale University, where he wa ...

published excerpts and summed up the book as " storically wrong and morally bankrupt — but for tender White minds, discomfort-free." One of the excerpts reads:

Life among the Negroes of Virginia in slavery times was generally happy. The Negroes went about in a cheerful manner making a living for themselves and for those for whom they worked.

Major works

The contributions of Simkins in the field of southern history were extensive: *1926 - ''The Tillman Movement in South Carolina'', a thesis published by Duke University
online
* 1926 - "The Tillman Movement in South Carolina," ''Journal of Negro History'' (1926) 11#3 pp. 538–53
in JSTORread online
*1927 - "The Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, 1868-1871," ''Journal of Negro History'' (1927) 12#4 pp. 606–64
in JSTOR
*1931 - ''South Carolina During Reconstruction'' (with

Robert Hilliard Woody The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

)) (University of North Carolina Press). won th
Dunning Prize
of 1931 as the first revisionist work on Reconstructio
read online
*1936 - ''The Women of the Confederacy'' (with James Welch Patton) — one of the first serious scholarly studies of women in southern history. Reprinted: Scholarly Press (1971), *1937 - "Ben Tillman's View of the Negro," ''Journal of Southern History'' (1937) 3#2 pp. 161–17
in JSTOR
* "New Viewpoints of Southern Reconstruction," ''Journal of Southern History'' (1939) 5#1 pp 49–6
in JSTOR
*1944 - ''Pitchfork Ben Tillman: South Carolina''. University of South Carolina Press (reprinted 2002),
read online
* 1947 - "The Everlasting South," ''Journal of Southern History'' 13 (Aug 1947), 307-22. *1947 - ''The South Old and New: 1820-1947'' - later (1957) revised: ''A History of the South'', Publisher: Random House; 4th edition (1972), . * 1955 - "Tolerating the South's Past," ''Journal of Southern History'' (1955) 21#1 pp. 3–1
in JSTOR
his presidential address to the Southern Historical Associatio
read online
*1957 - ''Virginia: History, Government, Geography'' - a seventh-grade textbook used in Virginia public schools until the 1970s from which Simkins said bureaucrats made him remove some of the more embarrassing features like descriptions of the filth of the towns. *1963 - ''The Everlasting South'' - a group of essays emphasizing the region's deep-rooted conservativism,

Honors

The

triennial An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...

Francis B. Simkins Award is awarded by the

for best first book about the South.Southern Historical Association , Awards
In addition to the Dunning Prize, Simkins held research fellowships at the

Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...

and the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, delivered the Fleming Lectures at

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

, and the Centennial Lectures at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

. He was president of the

in 1953-1954.

References

External links