South Carolina Books

"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!

What an excellent easy enjoyable reading that expands the lifetime of the author and her family growing up in the south and moving north. If you were born in the south, you'll enjoy remembering some of the things in your childhood that you may have forgotten and others that will jog your memory. This is a must read for anyone and especially people that value the meaning of "family".

What a wonderful book by Galen Reuther! She has written the book I have always wanted to write. The archival pictures are a treat and speak thousands of words. Born and raised in Hendersonville I was pleasantly surprised to see a picture of our father Charles M. Elliott - page 17 2nd row far right - as a member of the Bearcats in 1930. Family members were not aware of the picture. Was even more surprised to see a picture of myself on page 90 in the first Hendersonville Little Theatre production of Bus Stop. I played the role of the bus driver. It is creatively written by a very talented lady and I thank her for a nostalgic re-visit to a place always special in my heart. Phillip Elliott

This is totally awesome! Do you want to learn about a bunch of family history and heritage? Then check out the book!!! Yay! Oh: and for the record, I'm NOT the author's daughter :D

Every visit to Charleston for me includes a walk through the historic graveyards all over the city. This book makes me want to go back and re-visit all the sites. It has so much information about the church, the gravestones (symbols, history), the people in the graves, and the carvers. I never knew to look for the carver until this book. It really is a great book for anyone who likes grave stone art/history, even if you never make it to Charleston. I checked the book out from the library and liked it so much, I had to have my own copy. Excellent!

I've spent a majority of my life not too far west of Charlotte, North Carolina, but I never really knew much about the big city itself. When I was a kid, we could never manage to get the Charlotte stations to come in perfectly clear with our antenna, but we weren't about to miss Fred Kirby & Uncle Jim, the Gospel Jubilee every Sunday morning, and - for my mother, at least - Betty Feezor's cooking show. Beyond television, I saw Charlotte as an obstacle between home and parts east of the Queen City (Charlotte was named for the wife of King George III). As an adult, I still don't know a lot about the city because Charlotte traffic can be a nightmare, leaving me perfectly happy to cruise through the city on I-85 rather than tackle its busy streets. Nowadays, of course, Charlotte is an important and well-known city, the banking capital of the South, the home of several professional sports teams, and of course the very heart of NASCAR. Clearly, the Queen City has a story to tell, even to those of us born and raised in the North Carolina Piedmont.

In this gorgeous coffee table book, Historic Photos of Charlotte, Ryan L. Sumner takes you through the progression of the city from its humble origins to its modern-day glory, using over two hundred carefully researched, vintage black and white photos (many of them never seen before by anyone but archivists). These vivid snapshots of history offer a fascinating look at the many changes Charlotte has seen over the course of its history - economically, culturally, technologically, etc. You'll see important people and places in Charlotte's history, as well as a number of perspective shots looking down various streets as they evolved over time. Informative captions help place each photograph in its proper historical context.

The book is divided into four main sections. The first one features historical photos from the late nineteenth century, when Charlotte was in its infancy. The city didn't really start booming until the years following the War Between the States, when its location made it a perfect hub for the burgeoning industrialization finally taking root in the South. With financial stalwarts like D.A. Tompkins leading the way, this central stop on the Southern Railway between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans became the center of a booming business in textile manufacturing during the second era covered in this book (roughly 1900-1920). The next historical era, 1920-1950, was one of great ups and downs. Profits from the textile industry led to the creation of large banks (and, because North Carolina was one of the few states allowing for the creation of statewide banks at that time, those that survived the Great Depression helped make Charlotte the prominent banking center that it is today). The advent of the automobile also played a huge part in the city's development. As Model T's and Model A's rolled out of Charlotte-based factories, new businesses were formed to support the nascent auto industry, and streetcars gradually yielded way to buses as the primary means of transportation. Additionally, a number of speed records were set on the 40 degree banks of the original Charlotte Speedway in the mid-1920s. The Great Depression hit Charlotte hard, but the city eventually rebounded, with New Deal programs helping to build such important infrastructure as Charlotte Memorial Hospital. Finally, the book takes a look at Charlotte after 1950.

My personal favorite picture in this collection features a class at the Charlotte Open Air School, with the kids all bundled up in winter coats, toboggans, etc. The caption informs us that this unusual school was an experimental one, intended to test the 1920s belief by some that cold air was beneficial for students. I think we can safely assume that this belief was proven wrong pretty quickly, as these poor kids look like they're freezing to death in the picture.

At over two hundred pages, Historic Photos of Charlotte opens quite a wondrous historical window into the past of this Southern jewel. The book really brings home the incredible pace at which the city has developed, adapting over time to grow stronger every year. Most Charlotteans won't even recognize many of the historical views down prominent streets of yesteryear, while many of the city's most beautiful historic buildings can be seen only here, having fallen victim to fires or wrecking balls over the intervening years. Anyone with a personal interest in Charlotte - especially those who have migrated to the Queen City during the last few decades - or any interest in Southern industrialization and history should find Historic Photos of Charlotte to be a most welcome addition to his/her library or, even more appropriately, coffee table.