South Carolina from A to Z

“C” is for Civil Rights Act (1964). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 addressed all spheres of public life--social, political, and economic. It guaranteed all American citizens access to public facilities, accommodations, and schools that received federal money, as well as ensuring their ability to vote in federal elections and to be employed on a nondiscriminatory basis. The act proved to be important...

“B” is for Board of Public Works. The national trend toward improving waterways and other public facilities led South Carolina to create the Board of Public Works in December 1819. The board hired William Jay to develop stock plans (to save money) for new courthouses and jails. In 1820 Robert Mills replaced Jay. Mills revised plans for buildings under construction and developed plans of his own. M...

“B” is for BMW. The German upscale automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) originated in 1916 as an aviation-engine manufacturing company. The company expanded to produce motorcycles and automobiles in the 1920s. In 1994 BMW opened its first complete automobile manufacturing line outside Germany in Greer, South Carolina. The Spartanburg County location won out over 250 other localities around the...

“B” is for Bluffton Movement (1844). On July 31, 1844, under a large oak (the Secession Oak) in Bluffton SC, the first organized political movement with the express goal of South Carolina's independent secession from the United States was born. The “Bluffton Movement” as it became known, was a call to secession if the South was not guaranteed its rights to slavery, a lower tariff, and states’ righ...

“B” is for Bluffton (Beaufort County; 2020 population 28,230). Bluffton originated as a summer resort from antebellum plantation owners of Saint Luke’s Parish in Beaufort District. Located on the twenty-foot high bluffs of the May River and facing the cool, southerly winds, it was an ideal summer refuge. The town, known first simply as May River and later as Kirk's Bluff, was officially named Bluf...

“B” is for Blues. A powerful form of secular African American musical and cultural expression, blues developed in the South around the turn of the twentieth century, a product of the large plantations and railroad, mining, and logging camps where Black workers congregated. With thickly idiomatic, metaphorically charged lyrics, early blues songs confronted everyday life with humor and resilience bu...

“W” is for Winnsboro (Fairfield County; 2020 population 3,130). Winnsboro, the seat of Fairfield County, lies in the Piedmont on a ridge between the Broad and Wateree Rivers. Incorporated in 1832 and named for the Revolutionary War hero Richard Winn, the town became a religious and educational center. The county courthouse was redesigned by Robert Mills. Another striking architectural feature of W...

“S” is for Simpsonville (Greenville County; 2020 population 25,272). Incorporated in 1901, Simpsonville began many decades earlier as a crossroads hamlet where the old Stage Road intersected a former Cherokee trail. In 1838 the farmer Peter Simpson arrived and established a blacksmithing operation. As his services grew in popularity, the crossroads became known as Simpsonville. For much of the twe...

“S” is for Simons and Lapham. The Charleston architectural firm of Simons and Lapham was formed in 1920 by Albert Simons (1890-1980) and Samuel Lapham (1892 to 1972). Simons studied at the College of Charleston, the University of Pennsylvania and in Paris. Lapham graduated from the College of Charleston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the 1920s Simons and Lapham were busy with co...

“S” is for Simons, Katherine Drayton Mayrant (1890-1969). Poet, novelist, playwright, historian. Born in Charleston Simmons was interested in literary pursuits since her early childhood The first of her three books of poetry appeared in 1912 and she was a charter member of the poetry Society of South Carolina. Simons later created a national reputation for herself in the field of fiction. Her seri...

“S” is for Simms, William Gilmore (1806-1870). Poet, historian, novelist. Born in Charleston, Simms was a voracious reader and an acute observer. In 1832 he traveled to New York where he met a group of young writers and critics and their publishers. He returned to Charleston determined to make a living as a professional writer. During the next three years he wrote three novels, including The Yemas...

“R “is for Rosemond, James R. (1820 to 1902). Clergyman. Rosemond was born an enslaved person. He eventually was sold to a Greenville planter and lived with a family of White Methodists under whose influence he was baptized in 1844. The following year he was appointed a class leader in the Greenville Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1854 he was licensed to preach. Emancipated after the Civil...

“P’ is for Pocotaligo, Battle of (October 22, 1862). In the fall of 1862, the Union commander of the Department of the South planned an operation to break the railroad connections between Charleston and Savannah near the towns of Pocotaligo and Coosawhahatchie. If the railroad were cut and a base of operations established, then Federal Forces could move overland against Charleston or Savannah. On...

“P” is for plantations. In the seventeenth century the term “plantation,” which formerly referred to any colonial outpost, evolved to refer specifically to large agricultural estates whose land was farmed by a sizable number of workers, usually enslaved persons, for export crops. Englishmen initially created plantation societies in the West Indies, and in the 1670s South Carolina became a northern...

“D” is for Dorn, William Jennings Bryan (1906-2005). Congressman. A native of Greenwood, Dorn was elected to the S. C. House of Representatives in 1938 and two years later to the S.C. Senate. He resigned his seat to join the armed forces during World War II. In 1946 he won his first election to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Third Congressional District. In 1950 Dorn was re-elected to...

“C” is for Chattooga River. The Chattooga River begins as springs and rivulets near Cashiers in the North Carolina mountains. It flows a narrow, twisting mostly southwestwardly route before joining the Tallulah River in Lake Tugaloo. For most of its forty miles, the Chattooga forms the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. The river’s watershed includes approximately 278 square miles. The 1...

“C” is for the Charleston Riot [1876]. As the crucial local, state, and national elections of 1876 approached, tensions between the races in South Carolina reached a boiling point. In Charleston black Republicans were especially incensed by Democratic attempts to induce blacks to vote Democratic. On September 6th, after a Democratic rally, a group of Republicans pursued the participants. A white D...

“C” is for Charleston Renaissance (ca. 1915-1940). The Charleston Renaissance was a multifaceted cultural renewal that took place in the years between World Wars I and II. Artists, musicians, writers, historians, and preservationists, individually and in groups, fueled a revival that shaped the city’s destiny. The Charleston Renaissance benefited from a large number of books, many illustrated with...

“B” is for Bishopville (Lee County; 2020 population 2,994). In 1790 Bishopville, Lee County’s seat, began as a small settlement, Singleton’s Crossroads. In the early nineteenth century the village was renamed Bishopville. The Seaboard Air Line Railroad extended its main line from McBee to Bishopville in 1887, and the town was incorporated the following year. Aside from its role as the seat of Lee...

“P” is for Pinckney, Josephine Lyons Scott (1895-1957). Poet, novelist, civic leader. A native Charlestonian, Pinckney played a key role in the literary revival that swept through the South after World War. She was one of the founders of the Poetry Society of South Carolina and was involved with a number of local cultural institutions such as the Carolina Art Association, the Dock Street Theatre,...

“P” is for Pinckney, Henry Laurens (1794-1863). Legislator, congressman, editor. A graduate of the South Carolina College, Pinckney was elected by St. Phillip’s and St. Michael’s Parishes to the S.C. House of Representatives where he served from 1816-1828, including two terms as Speaker. As editor of the Charleston Mercury (1822-1832), Pinckney made the newspaper one of the most influential states...

“M” is for Miles, William Porcher (1822-1899). Educator, congressman. A native of Walterboro, Miles graduated from the College of Charleston and later taught mathematics there. In 1855 he was elected mayor of Charleston and reformed the city’s corrupt police department. Although he did not own enslaved persons, Miles considered it a right under the Constitution for others to own them. In 1857 he w...

“M” is for Milburn, Frank Pierce (1868-1926). Architect. A native of Kentucky, Milburn was one of the new South’s most successful and prolific architects. In 1899 he received the commission to complete the South Carolina State House and moved to Columbia. By adding a neoclassical dome and porticos to the building he placed the finishing touches on a project that had dragged on for half a century....

“M” is for Mignot, Louis Rémy (1831-1870). Painter. Mignot was born in Charleston. At the age of seventeen he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts at the Hague. In 1854 he returned to the United States and became actively involved in the New York Art World. In the manner of the Hudson River school painters, he went on sketching forays in the Catskill Mountains. He specialized in landscape painting...

“H” is for Hopsewee Plantation (Georgetown County). Hopsewee Plantation was the birthplace and boyhood home of Thomas Lynch, Jr, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It is located about thirteen miles south of Georgetown at the point where U.S. Highway 17 crosses the north branch of the Santee River. This was also the site of the main colonial thoroughfare running north and South, the” Kin...