Literature

Bristow’s natural storytelling ability, neatly devised and detailed plots, sharply drawn characters, telling eye for landscape and its detail, use of common sense, gift for dramatic effect, and emotional sincerity were the characteristics of her work that critics and reviewers singled out for praise. Margaret Wallace spoke of her “solid and versatile talent as a novelist.” The critic Susan Quinn Berneis claimed that Bristow’s greatest skill was reserved for “the unfolding of American history as displayed around the lives of the people who created it.” And Eugene Armfield remarked that she belonged “among those Southern novelists who [were] trying to interpret the South and its past in critical terms.”

In all volumes edited by Bruccoli, readers can expect to find interesting, critical details in the preface and notes; sometimes the editor offers his own insight into the art of writing and the abiding value of literary effort.

Burroughs’s work, often compared to that of New England poet Henry David Thoreau, was collected in Best American Essays in 1987 and 1989. In 1989 he was awarded the Pushcart Prize for nature essays. His collection Billy Watson’s Croker Sack appeared in 1991, followed by a paperback edition in 1992. That same year his book Horry and the Waccamaw was published, and it was later reprinted in 1998 with the title The River Home: A Return to the Carolina Low Country.

Burton is perhaps best-known for his monograph on President Abraham Lincoln. In The Age of Lincoln, Burton identifies Lincoln’s “southernness” as key to his affirmation of freedom and liberty for all.

In 1927 Susan Butler opened a free library and reading room in Dart Hall, using her father’s books, folding chairs, and two tables. The reading room was open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Dart served as librarian and operated the room with donations and at her own expense until the Charleston Free Library established the Dart Hall Branch in 1931. The Charleston County Free Library and its branches received money from the Rosenwald Fund and the Carnegie Foundation, while the Dart family rented the building to the county for one dollar a year. The Dart Hall Branch opened to the African American public with 3,600 books.

Among her numerous novels, Byars won the most critical acclaim for The Summer of the Swans (1970), the story of a young girl named Sara and her experiences with her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie. This book won many honors, including the John Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. In total, Byars has written more than fifty books, including The Night Swimmers (1980), Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), and Keeper of the Doves (2002).

Over his lifetime Byrnes held many public positions, coming closer than any other South Carolinian in the twentieth century to obtaining the national political influence wielded by John C. Calhoun in the nineteenth century. Byrnes left a series of political legacies in South Carolina, the nation, and the world. His advocacy of highway and New Deal legislation provided numerous material benefits to South Carolinians. His services to President Roosevelt had a major impact on the national economy during World War II. His role as secretary of state was instrumental in defining postwar foreign policy. In the 1950s and 1960s Byrnes’s support of Republican presidential candidates was a key factor in the party’s revitalization in the South.

Cash’s masterpiece and only book, The Mind of the South, appeared in February 1941 to wide critical praise. An instant classic that has not been out of print since its initial publication, the work sought to dispel myths about the “Old South” by tracing the pervasive influence of racism on southern history and culture.

Among the collections of the Charleston Library Society are rare books, pamphlets, a manuscript collection, and the society’s records. The most significant collection is the society’s newspaper files, which contain the world’s largest and most complete collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century Charleston newspapers.

Through words, melodies, pictures, and even a dance step, the idea of Charleston was broadcast across the nation.

No other southern writer of her era possessed the combination of literary cultivation, psychological perception, opportunity to observe closely the upper echelons of the Confederacy, and a willingness to write candidly about people, events, and issues—including slavery.

Considering herself a Charlestonian, she visited the state in 1977 with her husband, with whom she wrote A Sea Island Song, a musical and dramatic tribute to the Gullah culture of the Sea Islands.

Abbie Christensen was a progressive force for women’s rights, black and white education, racial tolerance, and social welfare in South Carolina from the 1890s until her death.

Because of the richness of her diary entries, she left a legacy of South Carolina upcountry history that is useful on several levels: not only does it document local, state, and regional history, but it also serves as a valuable record of Victorian female domesticity and a rare peek into a snippet of southern feminine life, from the mundane to the grand, over the course of twenty-four years.

Georgia Alden Cleveland kept a detailed dairy from 1890 to 1914 in which she chronicled life as an upper-class, married, southern white female.

In addition to writing novels, Coker reviewed books and published satirical poems in various newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. For some four decades she was deeply engaged in other efforts that defined her era’s literary and cultural life in South Carolina and the region.

A consummate storyteller, Conroy in his novels relates tales of family conflict, fathers and father figures, racism, and coming of age, all against the consistent backdrop of the South Carolina lowcountry.

Through tireless self-promotion, Coogler and his poetry garnered the attention of readers and reviewers from across the nation, who found his work entertaining if not aesthetic. Facetious reviews and parodies of his work found their way into dozens of newspapers and other periodicals.

Working in affiliation with the Associated Press, United Press International, and Religious News Service, she initiated weekly religious news-interview programs in several cities and wrote hundreds of scripts for radio and television spots.

Dabbs was also one of the South’s principal twentieth-century Christian churchmen and theologians, although he never claimed this distinction for himself. He certainly was the chief lay theologian of his denomination, the Presbyterian Church of the United States.