HISTORY: Praise houses
S.C. Encyclopedia | “Praise houses” (sometimes called “prayer houses”) functioned on antebellum South Carolina plantations as both the epitome of slave culture and symbols of resistance to...
View ArticleHISTORY: Football in South Carolina
S.C. Encyclopedia | South Carolinians have been playing football since the late nineteenth century. The sport was first played in the Northeast, and in the decades after the Civil War it spread south...
View ArticleHISTORY: Esau Jenkins
S.C. Encyclopedia | Born on July 3, 1910, on Johns Island, Jenkins was the only child of Peter Jenkins and Eva Campbell. He was forced to end his formal education in the fourth grade to help supplement...
View ArticleHISTORY: Bernice Robinson (1914-1994)
S.C. Encyclopedia | Educator and civil rights activist Bernice Violanthe Robinson was born in Charleston on February 7, 1914. Her father was a bricklayer, plasterer, and tile setter, which made the...
View ArticleHISTORY: Hurricanes
S.C. Encyclopedia | The term “hurricane” comes from the West Indian word “huracan,” which means “big wind” and is used to describe severe tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico,...
View ArticleHISTORY: South Caroliniana Library
S.C. Encyclopedia | The South Caroliniana Library building was completed in 1840 as the central library building for South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina). It was the first...
View ArticleHISTORY: Joseph Alston, governor
Scion of one of the great rice planting families of Georgetown District, Joseph Alston was born ca. 1778, the son of William “King Billy” Alston and Mary Ashe. Educated by private tutors, Alston...
View ArticleHISTORY: Edgefield pottery
S.C. Encyclopedia | The term “Edgefield pottery” is used to identify alkaline-glazed stoneware first produced in Edgefield District in the 1810s. Edgefield pottery blends the cultural traditions of...
View ArticleHISTORY: “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, governor, U.S. senator
S.C. Encyclopedia | Benjamin Ryan Tillman was born in Edgefield District on August 11, 1847, to Benjamin and Sophia Tillman. The family was wealthy in land and slaves, and Ben Tillman was educated in...
View ArticleHISTORY: Sunset Lodge
S.C. Encyclopedia | An internationally known brothel, the Sunset Lodge, founded about 1936, was located in a white frame house adorned by neon on U.S. Highway 17 originally three miles south of...
View ArticleHISTORY: Reconstruction in South Carolina
S.C. Encyclopedia | The final defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 brought an important and difficult problem for the federal government: how were the defeated states to be brought back into the Union?...
View ArticleHISTORY: South Carolina’s judicial system
S.C. Encyclopedia | The purpose of any state judicial system is to resolve civil disputes among residents and to determine the guilt or innocence of persons accused of crimes and infractions. Article V...
View ArticleHISTORY: Operation Lost Trust
Operation Lost Trust was arguably South Carolina’s largest and longest-running political scandal. Including the investigation, trials, and retrials, the Operation Lost Trust saga extended from 1989 to...
View ArticleHISTORY: S.C. General Assembly since 1868
S.C. Encyclopedia | The [South Carolina] constitutional convention in 1868 was composed of 76 black and 38 white delegates. Population alone became the basis for representation and the vote was...
View ArticleHISTORY: Hoppin’ john
S.C. Encyclopedia | Hoppin’ John is a pilaf made with beans and rice. The recipe came directly to America from West Africa and is typical of the one-pot cooking of the South Carolina Lowcountry. As the...
View ArticleHISTORY: John C. Calhoun
S.C. Encyclopedia | John Caldwell Calhoun was born in Abbeville District on March 18, 1782, the third son of Patrick Calhoun, an upcountry planter and former legislator, and Martha Caldwell. A prodigy,...
View ArticleHISTORY: Asparagus
S.C. Encyclopedia | Asparagus was an important cash crop in South Carolina from the 1910s until the mid-1930s. Commercial asparagus production began in response to the “cotton problem.” With cotton...
View ArticleHISTORY: Frederick B. Dent
S.C. Encyclopedia | Born in Cape May, New Jersey, on August 17, 1922, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, Frederick Baily Dent is the son of Magruder Dent and Edith Baily. He married the late Mildred...
View ArticleHISTORY: Home rule
S.C. Encyclopedia | The Local Government Act of 1975, otherwise known as the Home Rule Act of 1975, was passed by the South Carolina General Assembly to implement the revised Article VIII of the state...
View ArticleMY TURN: League focuses on ethics reform, redistricting, judges
By Julie Hussey and JoAnne Day, special to Statehouse Report | The central focus of the League of Women Voters nationally and in South Carolina is “making democracy work.” We are especially concerned...
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