Walter Edgar's Journal

This week, we will be talking with Dr. Judith Bainbridge about her book, A Short History of Greenville (2024, USC Press). The book is a concise and engaging history that traces Greenville, SC's development from backcountry settlement to one of America's best small citiesIn our conversation with Judith we will concentrate the growth Greenville's textile industry and its demise, the economic decline...

In his new book, The Miraculous Art of Jazz, Benjamin Franklin V, Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of South Carolina, has gathered reviews of hundreds of recordings written over his 40-year career as a jazz writer. In our conversation his love for jazz and blues shines through. And the reviews he has collected in his book are as vital and important as ever – for list...

This week, we will be talking with J. Drew Lanham, about his new book, Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves (2024, Hub City Press). The book is a sensuous collection of Drew's signature mix of poetry and prose, a lush journey into wildness and Black being. Drew Lanham notices nature through seasonal shifts, societal unrest, and deeply personal reflection and traces a path from bitter history to pr...

This week on the Journal we will be talking with Alan Pell Crawford about his book, This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America's Revolutionary War in the South (2024, Alfred A. Knopf). In his book Alan tells the story of three-plus years in the Revolutionary war, and of the fierce battles fought in the South that made up the central theater of military operations in the latter years of the Wa...

For centuries residents of Charleston, SC, have made many attempts, both public and private, to manipulate the landscape of the low-lying peninsula on which Charleston sits, surrounded by wetlands, to maximize drainage, and thus buildable land and to facilitate sanitation. In her book, Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina (2020, US...

This week we will be talking with Diane Vecchio about her book, Peddlers, Merchants, and Manufacturers: How Jewish Entrepreneurs Built Economy and Community in Upcountry South Carolina (2024, USC Press).In the book, Diane examines the diverse economic experiences of Jews who settled in Upcountry (now called Upstate) South Carolina. Like other parts of the so-called New South, the Upcountry was a c...

Margaret Seidler thought she knew her family’s history. Then, a genealogical search on-line led her to connect with a cousin who, unlike Margaret, was Black. Determined to find as much as she could about her lineage, Margaret soon came face to face with more than just an expanded family tree. And what she found led her to devote years to historical research and many difficult conversations about t...

In 1976, the Cowpens, SC, Bicentennial Committee decided that the next town festival would be called the Mighty Moo Festival in honor of former crewmen of the USS Cowpens WWII aircraft carrier. Over the years since, many veterans who served on the ship during the war have attended the festival along with their families. Today, the town continues to celebrate the service of the carrier each father'...

This week we're talking with Joseph McGill and Herb Frazier, authors of Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery (2023, Hachette).Since founding the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010, Joseph McGill has been spending the night in slave dwellings throughout the South, but also the in North and in the West, where people are often surprised to learn that such structures exist...

This week we'll be talking with Richard Hatcher, author of the book, Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War. Construction of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor began after British forces captured and occupied Washington during the War of 1812 via a naval attack. The fort was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter occurred, sparking the American Civil War. In writing Th...

This week, we'll be talking with author Kevin Duffus about his book, The 1768 Charleston Lighthouse : Finding the Light in the Fog of History. Charleston’s first lighthouse was established on Middle Bay Island in 1768. The history of the lighthouse, however, has been lost in a fog of misinformation. Kevin Duffus conducted extensive research for his book and has been able to reconstruct the history...

In his book, The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration, David Nicholson tells the story of his great-grandparents, Casper George Garrett and his wife, Anna Maria, and their family. A multigenerational story of hope and resilience, The Garretts of Columbia is an American history of Black struggle, sacrifice, and achievement - a family history as...

On the Journal this week we will be talking with Robert James Fichter about his book, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776.Fitcher says that despite the so-called Boston Tea Party in 1773, two large shipments of tea from the East India Company survived and were ultimately drunk in North America. Their survival shaped the politics of the years ahead, impeded efforts to reimburse th...

This week we talk with Claudia Smith Brinson about her new book, Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams (2023, USC Press). Claudia's rich research, interviews, and prose, offer a firsthand account of South Carolina's fight for civil rights and tells the story of Cecil Williams's life behind the camera. The book also features eighty of William’s photographs. Cecil Willia...

In this episode, we'll talk with Prof. Kevin Kokomoor about his book, La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories. Spanish sailors discovering the edges of a new continent, greedy, violent conquistadors quickly moving in to find riches, and Catholic missionaries on their search for religious converts: these forces of Spanish colonialism in Florida helped spark British...

This week we have a fun conversation with author George Singleton about his new book Asides: Occasional Essays on Dogs, Food, Restaurants, Bars, Hangovers, Jobs, Music, Family Trees, Robbery, Relationships, Being Brought Up Questionably, Et Cetera. It's a collection of fascinating and curious essays, in which Singleton explains how he came to be a writer (he blames barbecue), why he still writes h...

Founded in 1749, Charleston, South Carolina's (KKBE) is one of the oldest congregations in America, and is known as the birthplace of American Reform Judaism. Their sanctuary is the oldest in continuous use for Jewish worship in America. The congregation's president, Naomi Gorstein, and Harlan Greene, historian, join us to trace the history of Jewish life in Charleston, which goes right back to th...

This week we'll be talking with Kathryn Smith, author of Methodists & Moonshiners: Another Prohibition Expedition Through the South…with Cocktail Recipes (2023, Evening Post Books). In her follow-up to 2021's Baptists and Bootleggers, Kathryn once again hit the road - this time following George Washington 1791 trail through the South to Augusta. She digs into the history of the towns along the way...

Greenville, South Carolina, has become an attractive destination, frequently included in lists of the "Best Small Cities" in America. But, the city's growth and renewal started over 100 years ago, during a remarkable period of progress during which World War I acted as a powerful catalyst. In her book, “Our Country First, Then Greenville" - A New South City during the Progressive Era and World War...

This episode we'll be talking with Christina Rae Butler about Charleston, SC: an equine-powered city - from colonial times to the 20th century - in which horses and mules pervaded all aspects of urban life. And we’ll learn about the people who made their living with these animals—from drivers, grooms, and carriage makers, to farriers, veterinarians, and trainers. Christine is the author of Charles...

On this edition of The Journal, Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey tell some of the stories and recipes from their book, Kugels & Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina (2023, USC Press). In the book, Lyssa and Rachel celebrate the unique and diverse food history of Jewish South Carolina. They have gathered stories and recipes from diverse Jewish sour...

This week we will talk with Dr. Bernard Powers about the establishment of the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC. Bernie powers is professor emeritus of history at the College of Charleston and is director of the college’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston. He is also on the Board of Directors of the International African American Museum. Bernie is in a unique posi...

Our guest this week, Steve Procko, tells us the true story of nine Union prisoners-of-war who escaped from a Confederate prison in Columbia, South Carolina, in November 1864, and traveled north in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who...

In 1722, Mark Catesby stepped ashore in Charles Town in the Carolina colony. Over the next four years, this young naturalist made history as he explored America’s natural wonders, collecting and drawing plants and animals which had never been seen back in the Old World. Nine years later Catesby produced his magnificent and groundbreaking book, The Natural History of Carolina, the first-ever illust...

In her book, The Spingarn Brothers: White Privilege, Jewish Heritage, and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2023, Johns Hopkins University), Katherine Reynolds Chaddock tells a story that many today might see as unlikely: two Jewish brothers in New York, privileged in some ways but considered “the other” by many in society, find common cause with African Americans suffering from racial discriminat...