Harriette Kershaw Leiding Explained

Harriette Kershaw Leiding
Birth Date:26 June 1874
Birth Place:Sewanee, Tennessee, U.S.
Death Place:Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.
Occupation:Writer, gallery director, local historian, clubwoman
Relatives:Joseph B. Kershaw (grandfather)
Wilmot Gibbes de Saussure (grandfather)

Harriette Dubose Kershaw Leiding (June 26, 1874 – March 20, 1948),[1] known socially as Mrs. H. G. Leiding, was an American writer, clubwoman, and gallery director, based in Charleston, South Carolina.[2] She wrote several local histories, including Street cries of an old southern city; with music and illustrations (1910),[3] [4] Historic Houses of South Carolina (1921),[5] and Charleston, Historic and Romantic (1931).[6] Her photographs are in the Charleston Museum.[7]

Early life

Harriette Kershaw was born in Sewanee, Tennessee, and raised in Camden and Sumter, South Carolina, the daughter of Rev. John Kershaw and Susan B. de Saussure Kershaw of the De Saussure family.[8] Her paternal grandfather, Joseph B. Kershaw, was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and later a politician. Her maternal grandfather, Wilmot Gibbes de Saussure, was also a Confederate general and a politician.[9] She graduated from the Peabody College for Teachers in 1894.[10]

Career

Leiding wrote four books of local history and folklore about Charleston, emphasizing a romantic, nostalgic view of the Southern city.[11] She also wrote shorter essays,[12] and the lyrics to a 1913 song, "Calling to Thee", with music by Eugene Wyatt.[13] Leiding was director of Gibbes Art Gallery. She donated "extraordinarily" large stone crab claws to the Charleston Museum, which also holds a collection of her photographs.[14] She was a member of the South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Society.[15]

In 1915, she was local chair of the Southern Commercial Congress, when it met in Charleston, and she was active in the Woman's Committee Council of Defense during World War I,[16] the Charleston Civic Club, the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the Art Association of South Carolina, and many other organizations. "She has been with all the big civic movements inaugurated in Charleston," noted a 1915 profile.[17] "As a patriotic and civic worker she is earnest, active, and always on the job," according to a 1918 article.

Publications

Personal life

Kershaw married Charleston businessman Herman Gustavus Leiding.[20] She died in 1948, at the age of 73, at her home in Charleston.[21]

See also

Notes and References

  1. While her gravestone gives 1878 as her birth year, newspaper obituaries consistently gave her age at 73 in March 1948; and she gave 1874 as her birth year on her 1919 passport application, via Ancestry.
  2. Web site: November 22, 1911 . The American Catalogue . A.C. Armstrong & Son . Google Books.
  3. Web site: "Street cries of an old southern city,". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.
  4. Web site: The Publishers Weekly. November 22, 1911. R.R. Bowker Company. Google Books.
  5. Book: Leiding, Harriette Kershaw . Historic houses of South Carolina . 1921 . Philadelphia, London, J. B. Lippincott Company . Cornell University Library.
  6. Flippin . P. S. . 1932-06-01 . Charleston, Historic and Romantic. By Harriette Kershaw Leiding. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1931. 293 pp. Illustrations. $3.50.) . Journal of American History . 19 . 1 . 105–106 . 10.2307/1896664 . 0021-8723.
  7. Web site: Leiding, H.K. (Harriette Kershaw), 1878-1948 . Charleston Museum.
  8. News: March 22, 1948 . Mrs. Leiding Dies; Formerly of Sumter . The Item . 1 . Newspapers.com.
  9. News: March 23, 1948 . Funeral Held for Mrs. H. G. Leiding, Charleston Writer . The Columbia Record . 16 . Newspapers.com.
  10. Book: George Peabody College for Teachers . George Peabody college for teachers. Reopening of the college, alumni lists, progress of scholarship campaign, Knapp school of country life . 1913 . University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign . 43 . Internet Archive.
  11. Web site: Dance . Daryl Cumber . November 22, 1978 . Shuckin' and Jivin': Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans . Indiana University Press . Google Books.
  12. News: Leiding . Harriette Kershaw . May 16, 1921 . The Great or Broad Seal of the Confederacy . The State . 6 . Newspapers.com.
  13. Web site: Library of Congress Copyright Office . November 22, 1913 . Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical Compositions. Part 3 . Library of Congress. . 256 . Google Books.
  14. Web site: Museum . College of Charleston . November 22, 1910 . Bulletin of the College of Charleston Museum . The College . Google Books.
  15. April 1942 . Notes and Reviews . The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine . 43 . 2 . 129 . Internet Archive.
  16. News: July 7, 1918 . Woman's Committee Council of Defense Happenings for Week . The Greenville News . 9 . Newspapers.com.
  17. News: November 21, 1915 . Chairman for Charleston . The Tennessean . 3 . Newspapers.com.
  18. Leiding . Harriette K. . May 1914 . Charleston Gardens . Art and Progress . 5 . 7 . 259-263.
  19. Leiding . Harriette K. . April 1926 . Inscriptions from the Church Yard at Wiltown Bluff . South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine . 27 . 2 . 104-106 . Internet Archive.
  20. News: July 17, 1952 . Herman G. Leiding . The Columbia Record . 3 . Newspapers.com.
  21. News: March 21, 1948 . Mrs. Harriette Leiding of Charleston . Florence Morning News . 17 . Newspapers.com.

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