Series II: Commission Business Records
Scope and Contents note
Among the business records are both bound and unbound items including committee minutes, reports of the treasurer, an accounting of large donations, cash flow documentation and records of supplies received and purchased. Together, they describe of the inner workings of the Commission and its specific activities.
Box 3, Folder 14, Executive Committee Minutes, contains drafts of meeting minutes and other items for potential publication. There are a few letters that relate to meeting times and attendance. Much of the material is informal, some written on scraps of paper. Newspaper clippings are attached to a few of the draft minutes. A more formal representation of committee minutes may be found in the bound volume, Minutes of the Executive and Standing Committees of the Famine Relief Commission 1867.
A series of reports from the Commissions treasurer, James M. Brown, outline income and expenses between March 18 and May 15, 1867. Other items include a report of contributions from other entities, a list of corn purchases, several distribution reports, and two reports from the Department of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, dated September 1866 and enumerating the numbers of refugees and freedmen in South Carolina (Box 3, Folder 15). Financial information is also contained in most of the bound volumes.
Among the miscellaneous items (Box 3, Folder 16) are several appeals one to the citizens of Providence (May 22, 1897) and one, in draft form, asking the clergy of the United States to assist the cause with a general collection to be made on April 14th, the anniversary of Lincolns assassination.
There are two almost identical volumes listing donors of $250 or more. One has an incorrect title (Subscriptions to the Southern Famine Famine Commission) and is missing two entries. The other (Subscriptions to the Southern Famine Relief Commission) appears to be the more accurate. The volume titled Supplies Purchased for Distribution by the Southern Famine Relief Commission includes a copy of the Final Report of the Treasurer, September 4, 1867 a complete description of the Commissions financial status as its activities came to a close.