Sources for The Connie Maxwell Story
Some of you who are regular readers of this blog may be interested in the sources being used for "The Connie Maxwell Story" documentary. I am very much indebted to a number of great sources, without which I would not have even attempted this project. This isn't meant to be a complete list by any means. I will create one for the credits of the film and will include on the blog as well as I complete the documentary.
The book, "Hope and Healing: The First Hundred Years of Connie Maxwell History" by Dr. Alan Keith-Lucas, is probably the most heavily used source for the documentary up through the time of Dr. Heyward Prince. This book was published in 1991 and, as the title suggests, covers the children's home's first century. Dr. Keith-Lucas, a social worker and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill known for his work and research into residential childcare, was actually engaged in researching this book when I joined the staff of Connie Maxwell in 1987 and I had the chance to meet him. For the book, he scoured the board minutes and other documentation of Connie Maxwell as well as the writings of Dr. Atha T. Jamison, the childcare pioneer who led Connie Maxwell from for 46 years.
Dr. Jamison's work, especially his book, "Forty Years of Connie Maxwell History," published in 1932 also greatly informs the first part of the documentary. Various newspaper stories, articles about the early history of orphanages, and South Carolina Baptist Convention minutes accessed through the Special Collections and Archives at the James B. Duke Library at Furman University have also helped to fill in gaps.
Most of the photographs used in the documentary have come from the archives of Connie Maxwell Childrens' Home and I owe special appreciation to Communications Director Miller Murphy and alumnus Mack Baltzegar for their help in collecting these. Some of the artwork from Baltzegar's book, "Connie Maxwell: A Pictorial History" also appears in the film.
Beyond that, I am also very grateful to many people, including former Connie Maxwell presidents Jimmy McAdams and Ben Davis, current president Randy Harling, and several alumni and Connie Maxwell staff members who have granted on-camera interviews. I have not yet released materials featuring these interviews but will likely do so as I continue to make progress on this project.
As I said earlier, this is not a complete list of sources and if I haven't mentioned a particular source in this post, it's certainly not because I don't appreciate the help. I certainly do more than you can know.
