Forever Young: The Eleanor Burts Collection on Display Through Aug. 2

Quick Facts

By the end of the 1990s, Burts had given Winthrop more than 800 books and numerous other items pertaining to children’s books.

The exhibition can be viewed at the Pettus Archives,700 Cherry Road, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursdays and 8 a.m. to noon on Fridays.

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Burts exhibition

ROCK HILL, S.C. - Winthrop alumna Eleanor Burts was a teacher who had a life-long fascination with children’s literature.

The Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections at Winthrop is the beneficiary of Miss Burts' untiring interest and now has hundreds of children’s books and assorted memorabilia. Some of the most interesting items are on display at the archives through Aug. 2.

In 1980, Burts sent the first shipment of her wonderful collection gathered over a lifetime of passionate collecting. Over the next 18 years, she traveled widely collecting even more. By the end of the 1990s, she had given Winthrop more than 800 books and numerous other items pertaining to children’s books.

Burts [1916-1998] attended kindergarten at Winthrop Training School and later was a 1937 graduate of Winthrop earning a degree in English with a minor in French. She taught in the Parker School District in Greenville, S.C. after graduation.

In 1941, she earned a master’s degree in teacher education from Columbia Teachers College in New York. She accepted a teaching job that same year in Hawaii where she witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Dec. 7. Burts had other teaching positions before settling in Bronxville, N.Y. She later moved to a retirement home in North Carolina where she died on Sept. 18, 1998.

The Burts book exhibit contains many examples of items gathered over a lifetime of travel and collecting. There are miniature books, chapbooks (forerunners of today’s comic books), horn books, dolls, games, figurines, textiles, drawings, note cards and much more.

The exhibition can be viewed at the Pettus Archives,700 Cherry Road, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursdays and 8 a.m. to noon on Fridays.

For further information on the Burts collection or any of the Archives holdings, call 803/323-2334 or e-mail at archives@winthrop.edu.

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