South Carolina Books

In reading about Southern history, I kept coming across the name of Moses Waddel and his Willington Academy. A narrow-minded fire and brimstone preacher, Waddel launched a galaxy of brilliant antebellum Southern leaders using educational methods shrewdly calculated to foster self reliance and intense self motivation. I wonder if our kids today have the same opportunity that backwoods South Carolinians did in 1804. Very readable book with plenty of well researched detail, that fairly deals with both the successes and faults of this influential if not great man.

A very good book of poems. Lovely stuff about Turkey.

Thought this was a great book and learned a great deal of how the city and county of Greenville came about. I plan to make Greenville, South Carolina my next home when I retire.

Now in an updated second edition, A Guide to North Carolina's Wineries profiles 64 different North Carolina wineries along with wine lists, directions, contact information, schedules, and fee information. Black-and-white photographs as well as descriptive histories of the wineries convey the conviction and dedication of the winemakers who run them. An easy-to-use, enthusiastically recommended guide for wine lovers residing in on traveling to the North Carolina area.

This book is exactly what its title suggests: It's a survey of HISTORIC architecture in eastern North Carolina, one of the richest concentrations of colonial, federal, and early Romantic architecture in the country. Eastern North Carolina is a feast for anyone who enjoys small coastal towns packed with historic churches and houses, small regional cities that aspired to metropoli but failed and are now preserved gems of early 20th century urban architecture, and rural plantations off the beaten path just waiting for that late afternoon thunderstorm. This book, along with its two equally good companion volumes covering the Piedmont and West, is a joy to simply browse for a quick daydream or a resource to pour over as part of a larger research project. They're really that good.

In the world of architectural surveys, the variation in standards can be frustrating. Some are generally excellent, complete and (relatively) objective, while some are grossly incomplete or out of date. Some are packed with structures that have otherwise been demolished or destroyed (what's the point?). Some are so overstuffed with editorial political correctness and arcane archi-speak that they can't be enjoyed for the art itself. Also, some like to use what I call "iconoclastic postdating." That's the process by which an expert tells you the gorgeous old plantation house you thought was built in 1785 was REALLY built mostly after World War 2. It allows that expert to express the fact that he or she knows far more than you (and the general public) about such matters. If you've ever seen Antiques Roadshow, you know what I mean.

This guide, miraculously, resists ALL of these flaws. It is of the highest scholarly and editorial quality. There are no significant omissions to reveal the author's political or aesthetic bias. The summaries are concise and well researched. The coverage is truly exhaustive. The photographs are largely functional rather than artistic, but are well chosen to reveal the structures in entirety.

If you're a fan of architectural surveys, these are among the very best and every bit as good as Oxford's BUILDINGS OF AMERICA series. If you're a fan of rural and small-town historical architecture, these books are representative of the genre. Buy all three and you can carry historic North Carolina around with you in your briefcase or backpack.

"Gullah Branches West African Roots" is the candid memoir of Ronald Daise and his journey of discovering with respect to his personal discovery of familial and cultural connections with West Africa through on-site sojourns to Ghana and Sierra Leone. In this unusual autobiography, Daise uses poetry, prose, creative non-fiction, songs, photographs, all artfully and successfully combined to involve the reader with an engaging and informative journey to a man's cultural and historical roots. Also very highly recommended reading is Ronald Daise's early memoir "Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage" (Sandlapper Publishing, 1986). It should also be noted that a portion of the proceeds from the sales of the first printing of "Gullah Branches West African Roots" will be donated to Charleston's developing International African American Museum.

This is the story of a family feud in Edgefield Co., SC in the early 40s. Dorn does an outstanding job recreating a time and place where roads were unpaved, electrification just arrived, and acts of vengeance still expected . You can almost see the country store and feel the heat and the dust. There are a series of shootings and a shoot-out with the sheriff. The only weak part is the section in which Dorn substitutes abridged trial transcripts for his own telling of the tale.This book merits attention and readers.

This is one of my all time favorite books. From the writer of the movie, "A League of Their Own", Sarah Gilbert is witty, heartwarming, and funny as hell. A southern, ex- beauty queen, recently divorcee, comes to her mother's house with her own daughter. The relationships are very realistic, every female can empathize with these characters, laughing the whole way. I promise you'll never forget this book.

Leslie A. Schwalm's text revolves around enslaved African American women on South Carolina low country rice plantations. Her focus is their transition from slavery to freedom, their push to hasten the demise of slavery, their struggle to achieve and maintain autonomy over their labor, their resistance, and their plight for dignity while they battled for respect in their own households. Schwalm contends that enslaved African American women slowed plantation production and took advantage of every opportunity presented by the Civil War to secure their freedom. Enslaved African American women were expected to be productive field laborers', in fact, they lay at the very heart of South Carolina low country rice plantation labor. With the Civil War approaching, rice agriculture in the South Carolina low country depended primarily on the hands and backs of slave women. Field labor was not the only responsibility these slave women had to keep in mind, they also had to perform motherly and household duties. Domestic production and field labor, Schwalm contends, were central to a slave women's experience. The Civil War presented enslaved African American women with opportunitites to ease the grips of slavery while they contested the terrible conditions on South Carolina low country plantations. This form of resistance eventually became more aggressive. In the early months of freedom, freed women attacked overseers, looted planters houses, destroyed planters property, and draped themselves and their children in their former masters clothing as a sign of protest and changing times. With their freedom seemingly secure, former slave women turned their attention to the control of their labor. They demanded the ability to live and work as they saw fit and seperate from white supervision. They had their own concepts of freedom and were determined to labor as free people and not as slaves. The slave womens family depended upon her work as much as the rice field did. The task system of labor afforded slave! women the opportunity to devote daylight hours to domestic production. This was crucial to family development. Slave women used their "after task time" to hire themselves out, grow their own crop, fish, and make family utensils. Slaves viewed production, independent from plantation production, as a way to elevate their standard of living and exercise control over their daily life. Slave women applied these same principles in a free labor work force after emancipation. The military experience had a dramatic impact on the relationships between freedmen and women. People believed that the military experience equated to manhood. Proving their manhood through military experience was a goal for black soldiers, their advocates and and white officers. This sentiment carried over to post was relationships between free black men and women. Leslie A. Schwalm's " A Hard Fight For We" is critical for painting a more complete picture of rice plantation labor in South Carolina's low country. We see that enslaved women were depended upon heavily and they fought for their recognition.

As a transplant to Harnett County 10 years ago, I thought I knew alot about this local area. WOW, this book opened my eyes to the many hidden historical treasures that our humble land holds. A must read for locals, visitors and anyone interested in southern heritage!