Reconstruction (1866-1877)

In 1870 Greener graduated with honors, earning the distinction of being the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard.

For much of the twentieth century, the Greenville News-Piedmont Company defended the state’s established social, political, and economic order.

Putting his industrial gospel into practice, Gregg and several partners secured a charter from the South Carolina General Assembly in December 1845 to establish the Graniteville Manufacturing Company. The Graniteville factory commenced operations in 1849 and quickly became one of the most successful textile factories in the entire South.

Working as her father’s assistant and as mill bookkeeper, Gridley mastered the daily operations of management and administration. Following her father’s death in 1890, she assumed the position of mill president, the first woman mill president in South Carolina.

From 1903 to 1919, he served as president of the American Negro Academy, the leading intellectual organization for African Americans. After 1913 he devoted himself to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving until 1923 on its national board. Through 1924 he also served as president of the District of Columbia branch, becoming a key figure in the NAACP’s efforts to oppose racial discrimination at the federal level.

With familial ties to many of the lowcountry elite, the Grimké family was among the upper echelon of antebellum Charleston society. However, Sarah and Angelina rejected a privileged lifestyle rooted in a slave economy and became nationally known abolitionists no longer welcome in South Carolina.

Obstetrics and pediatrics became the cornerstone of Guignard’s fifty-year medical career. Guignard became an instrumental force in the development of adequate obstetrical facilities at Columbia Hospital. She also established a training program for black midwives.

Hagood was elected governor in 1880. Choosing to serve only one term, his administration enacted legislation that created a stronger railroad commission, reopened the Citadel, and expanded the coverage of artificial limbs for Confederate veterans.

The massacre put into perspective numerous features of post–Civil War South Carolina, including the tensions between—and the growing militancy of— local whites and African Americans.

Hammett was one of the first postwar mill presidents in South Carolina to adopt the large-scale New England model of factory production.

His election to the governor's chair in 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction in the state, and in the eyes of white South Carolinians, Hampton was more than a victorious political candidate. He was their savior.

When her husband reluctantly joined the state militia in late 1862, Emily maintained his journal in his absence. Her entries tell much about the struggles endured by Southern farm women in the midst of war.

As governor he advocated the construction of concrete highways and higher educational standards in the public schools. He was a confirmed, enthusiastic prohibitionist and was dismayed that the Eighteenth Amendment received lukewarm support in South Carolina.

In 1876 Haskell helped organize the aggressive Red Shirt campaign that brought a narrow victory for Wade Hampton in the race for governor; he was also a prominent business leader in the state for several decades.

In April 1863 she joined her husband at the newly established hospital for people of color in Beaufort where she both nursed and taught her patients, who included the wounded of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry after their assault on Fort Wagner.

He represented Marion County in the state Senate from 1868 to 1872, and as South Carolina’s secretary of state from 1872 to 1877. He was also the first black student in the history of the University of South Carolina and inaugurated the institution’s first attempt at integration.

Hayne corresponded with the best writers in the nation and in Europe and was, as one of few in the post-Reconstruction South, respected in academia as a refined poet and cultured man of letters.

Education was his top priority, particularly the encouragement of white children to take advantage of educational opportunities. Despite some success in education, most of Heyward’s progressive agenda was frustrated by state legislators.

At South Mountain (September 14, 1864) an important order addressed to Hill fell into federal hands, but he was probably not at fault. His division lost more than sixty percent of its strength at Sharpsburg (September 17, 1862), and Hill had three horses shot from under him.

Especially interested in comparative anatomy, Holbrook developed a desire to study reptiles and amphibians, and by the mid-1820s he had begun a book describing all of the known snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, and toads in the United States.