Midlands

The segregation of black voters into the “Black” Seventh, as it came to be known, had the desired effect. The Democrats did not even field a candidate in that district in 1882, and a white Republican, Edmund Mackey, won the election. In 1886, however, Democrats began to contest the seat. The former slave and Republican George Washington Murray won in 1896 but lost in the following election. He was the last African American to represent South Carolina in Congress for nearly a century.

In addition to political coverage, the Lighthouse and Informer covered literary and sports news, while its network of correspondents across the state covered the breadth and depth of Black life in South Carolina.

Adams’s books and stories about the African American residents of lower Richland County brought him both regional and national attention as an author who was able to present the black dialect with great precision, and also as a white author who unhesitatingly portrayed the hardships of racial prejudice in the 1920s and 1930s.

She embraced community activism with the same zeal she had demonstrated in teaching, continuing to show former students and others that supporting and improving one’s community is essential for progress and success

Adams represented Richland District in the S.C. House of Representatives from 1836 to 1849 and in the S.C. Senate from 1850 to 1853. On December 11, 1854, the General Assembly elected Adams governor.

In 1896 Adams entered the junior class at South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina), after graduating from Leesville College in 1892. She was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in 1898, the first woman to graduate from South Carolina College.

Aiken owes its existence to the South Carolina Railroad, its personality to its erstwhile “winter colony” of wealthy northern sports enthusiasts, and its economic vitality and relatively cosmopolitan spirit to the U.S. government’s massive Savannah River Site nuclear weapons facility.

Bounded on the west by the Savannah River, Aiken County lies at the western end of the state’s Sandhills region, whose poor soils necessitated the development of alternatives to farming. These nonagricultural alternatives defined much of the county’s history.

The Aiken Standard traces its origins to the short lived Aiken Press, which ran from 1867 to 1868, with the noted botanist Henry William Ravenel serving as its first editor.

A staunch Democrat, from 1864 to 1866 Aiken represented Abbeville District in the S.C. House of Representatives. During Reconstruction, the link he had earlier made between southernism and agrarianism grew stronger.

In 1828 Aiken and others received a charter from the General Assembly authorizing the creation of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company (SCC&RR). Aiken, the railroad’s largest investor, was soon chosen as president of the company.

Following her graduation in 1894 from the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1891, Allan returned to Charleston and participated in the first sitting of the South Carolina Medical Board, the only woman to do so.

As it has for generations, the family run milling company continues to produce cornmeal, mixes, feed, and breeders in addition to Adluh Flour.

The productive presidency of David Henry Sims, an Oberlin graduate and a future AME Church bishop, developed Allen University into a full fledged seat of learning.

In 1915 John Gary Anderson began converting his buggy factory to the production of automobiles, and he soon promised Rock Hill that he would turn the town into the “Detroit of the South.”

Atwater gained his reputation as a shrewd yet negative campaigner willing to use almost any tactic to get his candidate elected.

Catawba women have made pottery for hundreds of years, and archaeologists credit them with sustaining the tribe through this traditional pottery, which is the oldest art form still produced in South Carolina.

Babcock’s writings continued their popularity years after his death. A reviewer from the New York Times once compared his writing to “a rare old Bourbon you want to make last as long as possible.”

In 1891 Babcock became superintendent of the South Carolina State Lunatic Asylum in Columbia, its first to have been trained in psychiatry. Babcock arrived eager to modernize and improve the institution.

During her accomplished career as a children’s librarian with the New York Public Library, Baker received the first Dutton-Macrae Award in 1953 for advanced study of library work with children. In 1980 Baker joined the University of South Carolina (USC) and became “Storyteller-in-Residence.” This position was created for Baker, and her goals were to teach others how to create enthusiasm in children about stories and reading.