The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to the American Revolution in South Carolina details the people, places, and struggles that defined the region's prominent role in the path to American liberty from British authority. Nearly 140 battles of the American Revolution were fought in South Carolina, more than in any other colony. As America's first civil war, the revolution pitted Loyalists against partisans and patriots in the fierce combat that established the legacies of figures such as Francis Marion, Nathanael Greene, Peter Horry, Henry and John Laurens, Daniel Morgan, and Andrew Jackson. In addition to profiling these leaders, this guide also chronicles the major combat operations, including the battles of Ninety Six, Cowpens, Camden, Kings Mountain, and Charleston Harbor. Also documented are the vital contributions of African Americans and Native Americans in the struggle and the roles of Revolutionary War heroines such as Kate Barry, Emily Geiger, Rebecca Brewton Motte, and Dorcas Nelson Richardson. The origins of the South Carolina state flag and seal in the war are detailed as well in this treasure trove of fascinating information for students and historians of the American Revolution.

With nearly 2,000 entries and 520 illustrations, this comprehensive reference surveys the history and culture of the Palmetto State from A to Z, mountains to coast, and prehistory to the present.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers expands the range of writers included in the landmark South Carolina Encyclopedia. This guide updates the entries on writers featured in the original encyclopedia and augments that list substantially with dozens of new essays on additional authors from the late eighteenth century to the present who have contributed to the Palmetto State's distinctive literary heritage. Each profile in this concise reference includes essential biographical facts and critical assessments to place the featured writers in the larger context of South Carolina's literary tradition. The guide comprises 128 entries written by more than sixty-nine literary scholars, and it also highlights the sixty-nine writers inducted thus far into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, which serves as the state's literary hall of fame. Rich in natural beauty and historic complexity, South Carolina has long been a source of inspiration for writers. The talented novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, journalists, historians, and other writers featured here represent the countless individuals who have shared tales and lore of South Carolina. The guide includes a foreword by George Singleton, author of two novels, four short story collections and one nonfiction book, and a 2010 inductee of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to the Governors of South Carolina documents the lives and careers of the 111 white men and one Indian American woman who have held the Palmetto State's highest office from 1669 to the present. This digital South Carolina edition expands the listings from the print encyclopedia to include entries on appointed as well as elected governors and to update the biographies of more recent holders of the office. From the first proprietary governor, William Sayle, to current governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina's chief executives have wielded the authority to define the preservation and progress of the state through its complex and storied past, with each leaving his or her mark on the dynamic legacy of the governor's office.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to the Counties of South Carolina documents the defining aspects of the forty-six counties that make up the state, from mountains to coast. Updated to include data from the 2010 census, these entries detail the historical, economic, political, and cultural character inherent in each location, noting major population centers, enterprises, and attractions. The guide also includes an appendix of entries on the state's original parishes and districts existing prior to alignment into the current counties. An introductory overview essay outlines the history and function of county development and authority in South Carolina. The resulting volume provides a concise guide to the state at the county level, from Abbeville to York.

Paul Revere's midnight ride; the Battles at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill; and the people and places associated with the early days of the American Revolution hold a special place in America's collective memory. Often lost in this narrative is the pivotal role that South Carolina played in the Revolutionary conflict, especially when the war moved south after 1780. Drawing upon the entries in the award-winning South Carolina Encyclopedia, this volume shines a light on the central role South Carolina played in the story of American independence. During the war, more than 200 battles and skirmishes were fought in South Carolina, more than any other state. The battles of Ninety Six, Cowpens, Charleston Harbor, among others, helped to shape the course of the war and are detailed here. It also includes well-known leaders and lesser-known figures who contributed to the course of American history. As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, this volume serves as a reminder of the trials and sacrifice that were required to make a new nation.

From a home to the fierce Westo tribe to a hub of the equestrian industry, Aiken County has had a huge influence on South Carolina. And some of the structures that mark that history have disappeared. More than two hundred years ago, the Horse Creek Chickasaw Squirrel King held couty near North Augusta. The first locomotive built for public transportation, the "Best Friend" from Charleston to Hamburg, first ran in the area. The home of noted businessman Richard Flint Howe hosted both the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and students of the University of South Carolina Aiken. William Gregg and the Graniteville Mill helped shape the textile industry in the state. Author Alexia Jones Helsley details the lost history of Aiken County.

The legacy of the slave family haunts the status of black Americans in modern U.S. society. Stereotypes that first entered the popular imagination in the form of plantation lore have continued to distort the African American social identity. In What Sorrows Labour in My Parents' Breast?, Brenda Stevenson provides a long overdue concise history to help the reader understand this vitally important African American institution as it evolved and survived under the extreme opposition that the institution of slavery imposed. The themes of this work center on the multifaceted reality of loss, recovery, resilience and resistance embedded in the desire of African/African descended people to experience family life despite their enslavement. These themes look back to the critical loss that Africans, both those taken and those who remained, endured, as the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley honors in the line—“What sorrows labour in my parents’ breast?,” and look forward to the generations of slaves born through the Civil War era who struggled to realize their humanity in the recreation of family ties that tied them, through blood and emotion, to a reality beyond their legal bondage to masters and mistresses. Stevenson pays particular attention to the ways in which gender, generation, location, slave labor, the economic status of slaveholders and slave societies’ laws affected the black family in slavery.

Palmetto Profiles documents the lives and accomplishments of the inductees of the South Carolina Hall of Fame during its first forty years. As Governor John C. West predicted in his dedication speech, the Hall of Fame has indeed become a "vital and integral part of the history and culture of South Carolina." Nearly ninety citizens have been inducted since Apollo 16 astronaut Colonel Charles Duke, Jr., became the first honoree in 1973. Each year one contemporary and one deceased individual is recognized by the hall for outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and progress. To date, inductees have included political leaders and reformers, artists, writers, scientists, soldiers, clergy, educators, athletes, and others. U.S. president Andrew Jackson, authors Elizabeth Coker and Pat Conroy, jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, artists Jasper Johns and Elizabeth O'Neil Verner, Catawba King Hagler, Generals Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, civil rights leaders Mary McLeod Bethune and Reverend Benjamin E. Mays, U.S. senators J. Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings, and Nobel Prize winning physicist Charles H. Townes are just some of the representative South Carolinians memorialized in the Hall of Fame for their lasting legacies in the Palmetto State and beyond. Published on the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the South Carolina Hall of Fame and drawn from biographical entries in The South Carolina Encyclopedia, this guidebook presents concise profiles of the inductees from 1973 to 2013. Palmetto Profiles, like the Hall of Fame itself, serves as a tangible link to South Carolina's rich and complex past to the benefit of residents, visitors, and students alike. The volume also includes illustrations of all inductees and a foreword by Walter Edgar, a 2008 Hall of Fame inductee, author of South Carolina: A History, and editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia.

"From Empire to Revolution is the first biography devoted to an in-depth examination of the life and conflicted career of Sir James Wright (1716-1785). Greg Brooking uses Wright's life as a means to better understand the complex struggle for power in both colonial Georgia and the larger British Empire. James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity afforded him. He earned numerous important government posts and amassed an incredible fortune, totaling over £100,000 sterling. An English-born grandson of Chief Justice Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina following his father's appointment as that colony's chief justice. Young James served South Carolina in a number of capacities, public and ecclesiastical, prior to his admittance to London's famed Gray's Inn to study law. Most notably, he was appointed South Carolina's attorney general and colonial agent to London prior to his gubernatorial appointment in Georgia in 1761. His long imperial career delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony and offers a crucial lens on loyalism and the American Revolution that also connects a number of contexts important in recent early American and British scholarship, including imperial and Atlantic history, Indigenous borderlands, race and slavery, and popular politics"--