Enoch Walter Sikes Presidential Records, Correspondence 1925-1931
Collection
Identifier: Series-0001
This series contains the correspondence files of Enoch Walter Sikes. Also found within the files are minutes of directors meetings, annual reports, departmental reports and budgets, employment agreements, photographs of some employees, and partial lists of cadets.
Frequent correspondents include Clemson College Officials: H. W. Barre, director of research; F. H. H.Calhoun, director of teaching; W. W. Long, director of the extension service; H. M. Stackhouse, professor and secretary of the Board of Fertilizer Control; trustees W. A. Barnett, R. M. Cooper, J. E. Wannamaker, and Senator Alan Johnstone; college and university presidents such as D. M. Douglas, University of South Carolina; W. D. Hooper, University of Georgia ; Spright Dowell, Alabama Polytechnic Institute; and W. J. McGlothlin, Furman University.
Topics of the letters concern college affairs, for example, faculty housing, budget requests, fraternities, the construction of the physical education center, creation of the ceramic engineering department, hazing of cadets, and the Clemson-Furman football game. Also included are the affairs of public and community interests such as memorial services for Walter M. Riggs, adult education, fertilizer quality, petition for a golf course, beautification of South Carolina highways, and the South Carolina Forestry Commission.
Copies of letters made by the thermofax photocopy method, and letters written on a newsprint of highly acidic stock, have been replaced with photocopies printed on archival quality bond.
Enoch Walter Sikes was born May 19, 1868 in Union County, North Carolina, the son of John C. and Jane Austin Sikes. After receiving his early education in the field schools of North Carolina, he graduated in 1891 from Wake Forest College with a Master of Arts degree in History. In 1894 he continued the study of history at Johns Hopkins University under Henry Adams and Woodrow Wilson. At Johns Hopkins, Sikes wrote his Doctoral dissertation entitled “The Transition of North Carolina from Colony to Commonwealth” and received the Ph.D. degree in 1897. Sikes returned to Wake Forest in 1897 to teach history and political science, and in 1900 married the daughter of the president of the college, Ruth Wingate. From their marriage two children, Ruth Janet and Walter, were born.
In addition to the responsibilities of professor and father, Sikes served as a state Senator in the North Carolina legislature from 1910-11, and as Dean of Wake Forest during his last year at that institution. In 1916 Sikes accepted the presidency of Coker College at Hartsville, South Carolina, a post he kept until July 1925 when the Board of Trustees at Clemson College elected him as President. At Clemson, Sikes recommended many reforms, among them creation of a department of arts and sciences. He also served in leadership positions of civic and religious organizations, for example, Rotary, Kiwanis, and the South Carolina Baptist Convention. He retired in July 1940, died six months later, 9 January 1941, and was buried at Cemetery Hill in Clemson. The author of several books, Sikes also lectured on a variety of topics.
2 Cubic Feet (7 boxes, 15 photographs, 1 oversize item)
English
This series is arranged chronologically.
The records were maintained in the office of E. W. Sikes before transferred to the library.
Fifteen photographs have been separated from this series and are now included in Clemson University Photographs, Series 100. They include the following:
Four photographs of individuals which were attached to biographical information sheets: Bernard B. Beatty, October 1948; Theodore Cooper, August 1928; Clarence H. Lomas, May 1928; Carl Walker Reeves, June 1928.
Ten photographs of the Poultry plant at Clemson in 1929
One photograph of a weaving room, location not noted, 1928.
Processed in June of 1987 by Dennis S. Taylor, University Archivist, and Rebecca Grice, student assistant.
Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository