The South Carolina Historical Marker Program, established in 1936, has approved the installation of more than 1,700 interpretive plaques, each highlighting how places both grand and unassuming have played important roles in the history of the Palmetto State. These roadside markers identify and interpret places valuable for understanding South Carolina's past, including sites of consequential events and buildings, structures, or other resources significant for their design or their association with institutions or individuals prominent in local, state, or national history. This volume includes a concise history of the South Carolina Historical Marker Program and an overview of the marker application process. For those interested in specific historic periods or themes, the volume features condensed lists of markers associated with broader topics such as the American Revolution, African American history, women's history, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. While the program is administered by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, most markers are proposed by local organizations that serve as a marker's official sponsor, paying its cost and assuming responsibility for its upkeep. In that sense, this inventory is a record not just of places and subjects that the state has deemed worthy of acknowledgment, but of those that South Carolinians themselves have worked to enshrine.

This book was written to aid families with ancestors from Laurens County, South Carolina, to jumpstart their genealogical research. Although the focus is on sources of particular relevance to African Americans, the book also contains information relevant to slave-holding families. Also, the background information at the beginning of each section will be of general interest to those families from South Carolina who are researching their African ancestors. In addition to practical advice born from the authors genealogical research and formal studies, the book includes information and compilations regarding the following topics: Free Persons of Color in Antebellum Laurens Slaves in Will Transcripts (17821860) Legislative Papers (17821866) Comptroller General Tax Return Books (18661868) 1869 SC State Population Census 1860 US Census Slave Schedule and Matching African American Surnames in the 1870 US Census Excerpts of Freedmen Bureau Records Grave Markers at Five African American Churches

John McFall was born in 1878-the year after the disputed South Carolina gubernatorial election that marked the end of Reconstruction in South Carolina. He died in 1954-two months after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case handed down on May 17, 1954. This volume contains Dr. McFall's complete and never before published manuscript, in which he eloquently reports on events between those milestones.

An adventure tale of archaeological research, discovery, and preservation in the South Carolina upcountry. For years Tommy Charles searched South Carolina's upcountry for examples of ancient rock art carvings and paintings, efforts conducted on behalf of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA). As SCIAA's collections coordinator, Charles amassed considerable field experience in both prehistoric and historic archaeology and had firsthand involvement in cataloging sixty-four sites of South Carolina rock art. Charles chronicles his adventures in exploration and preservation in Discovering South Carolina's Rock Art. Although Native American rock art is common in the western United States and even at many sites east of the Mississippi, it was believed to be almost nonexistent in South Carolina until the 1980s, when several randomly discovered petroglyphs were reported in the upstate. These discoveries set in motion the first organized endeavor to identify and document these ancient examples of human expression in South Carolina. Over the ensuing years, and assisted by a host of volunteers and avocational collectors, Charles scoured the Piedmont and mountains of South Carolina in search of additional rock art. Frustrated by the inability to find these elusive artifacts, many of which are eroded almost beyond visibility, Charles began employing methods still considered unorthodox by current scientific standards for archaeological research to assist with his search and documentation. Survey efforts led to the discovery of rock art created by Native Americans and Europeans. Of particular interest are the many circle-and-line petroglyphs the survey found in South Carolina. Seeking a reason for this repetitive symbol, Charles's investigation into these finds led to the discovery that similar motifs had been identified along the Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to New York, as well as in the American Southwest and Western Europe. This engrossing account of the search for South Carolina's rock art brings awareness to the precarious state of these artifacts, threatened not only by natural attrition but also by human activities. Charles argues that, if left unprotected, rock art is ultimately doomed to exist only in our historical records.