South Carolina Books

This book is a delightful humurous realistic read giving insight to aging gracefully. My mother lived in a community living situation which she loved and this book brings back so many memories of things that happened to her. I would like to thank Effie for giving us insight as to how living can have meaning and purpose where ever we are. As my momma said, "Bloom where you are planted." Vivian Sitton

Over What Hill ? is another very entertaining short novel by Effie Leland Wilder. It touches your heart and then makes you laugh. The book is written as a diary in which Hattie shares the her thoughts and the events that happen at FairAcres retirement center. The point of view of an eighty something with a sense of humor is refreshing. If you have to choose between this book and Out to Pasture (But Not Over the Hill) then buy Out to Pasture. This book is the sequel.

I've cussed the inaccuracies in this book more times than is printable. Benner claims to have canoed every single foot of every single river listed in the book, but it's pretty obvious by the listing of some very glaring errors that he hasn't.Stll, if you intend to canoe or kayak eastern NC flatwater rivers, you'll need this book. It is 95%-98% accurate, but those 2%-5% errors are doozies. Use it as I think it was intended, as a guide, not as gospel, and you'll be okay.My copy has long been my canoeing logbook, too. After every trip, I sit down with my canoeing partner of that trip and fill the book with notes of interesting things seen and make corrections of errors listed in the book, writing in the book itself. That way, when I do another trip with another bowman, I don't have to depend on memory to highlight important things to come about the given flatwater NC river.

Just the value of the listings of put-in's and take-out's exceed the price of the book. All the distances and many help facts are bonus. Anyone paddling Eastern NC would be foolish not to own this book.

John C. Calhoun was without question one of the most intelligent Statesman ever produced by the Republic of South Carolina, or this country. His understanding of Constitutional construction, along with human nature, is astounding.

ntry he became thidol of aristocratic Charleston, S. C. A nationalist who became a secessionist, vice-president, secy. of war, senator, spokesman for the lower South who agonized over the future of his beloved country. This edition of the Papers of John C. Calhoun belong on the shelf of every se4rious historian and political scientist. Indeed anyone who has an interest in the country's past will find them valuable.

The Stroessner era, as much as most of the 20th century Paraguayan history, has been highly distorted. As a consequence, over two generations of Paraguayans lacked of real information on General Stroessner regime and on those that preceded the General's one. I was born under Stroessner and was almost 18 years old when he was overthrown. I remember being taught in high school the accomplishments of General Stroessner, how good he was and what a peaceful Paraguay had become thanks to his effectiveness and infallibility as a leader. I still remember seeing, as a child, enormous plaques hanged all over the country reading "Stroessner, peace and progress". I don't remember, though, being told the high price the country and its inhabitants had to pay for living in Stroessner`s peace or knowing real facts about his government.

Undoubtedly, Professor Lewis with this magnificent book helps fill out the gap I was referring to. Also he contributes to show us Paraguayans, from a very objective perspective, the reversal of the reality we've been taught and that was far from accurate. Even though this book was finished long before the Stroessner regime ended, it is one of the best analyses ever written on this period of the Paraguayan history.

Paul Lewis wrote this book in 1980, almost a decade before Stroessner was overthrown after 35 years of rule, the longest in the Western Hemisphere and fourth longest in the world. Lewis devotes a large portion of the book to the history of Paraguay, which is fascinating, and he also explains the politics in Paraguay and how dictatorships have ruled the country almost since independence, continuing on to an explanation as to how Gen. Alfredo Stroessner took over in 1954, and has held power through 1980. Paul Lewis also writes about the transformation of the Paraguayan economy, and how surprisingly there was economic improvement due to the conservative policies of Stroessner, and heavy foreign aid. He also explains Paraguayan culture, and why the country is still heavily isolated from the rest of the world.

This is the only book to explain Stroessner's Paraguay in detail. It is unfortunate, because Stroessner is still one of the few major world leaders without a biography. I would like to see Professor Lewis do a follow up on his fine book, perhaps a full biography of the man who shaped Paraguay for over three decades. Nevertheless, Paraguay Under Stroessner is a excellent and exhaustively researched book, and should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Paraguayan history.

The southern states east of the Mississippi were in a territory that was for a long time under Spanish or Indian jurisdiction. By law, only persons issued passports were allowed to enter the southeastern territories, and so the passport records have the largest body of data relating to the pioneers to the Southeastern United States.

Dorothy W. Potter spent eight years doing research in the records of the War Department, the State Department, the archives of the individual states, as well as records of the Spanish and the British in West Florida. So she has assembled a complete collection of the passports and travel documents issued to individuals and families going to the Mississippi Valley area from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Never again can genealogists complain that research in the Old South is hampered by lack of a comprehensive source book, for in this one outstanding reference work there is now a huge and invaluable body of source material at their disposal. No wonder this book was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Tennessee Historical Commission!

"...This is one of the finest reference books we have ever seen."--Winston De Ville, Alexandria (LA) Daily Town Talk

"...Mrs. Potter has made a major contribution to genealogical research in the southern states."--Charles F. Bryan, Jr., Tennessee Historical Quarterly

"May I take a moment of your time to tell you how impressed I am with your Passports of Southeastern Pioneers. It is a model work of genealogical scholarship...."--Letter to the author from Elizabeth Shown Mills

This book was well writing, with many unknown facts on the movement of American families caming to the Southern states. It is a shame that it is out of print.

Golf Architect Richard Mandell's seminal work, Pinehurst ~ Home of American Golf (The Evolution of a Legend) recently won the prestigious International Network of Golf Book of the Year Award. "Richard created a beautiful book full of incredible information and photographs about one of golf's most historical places," declared Mike Jamison, Executive Director of ING. "This is a must read for those whose eyes mist when they think of Sandhills golf." What makes this accomplishment even more impressive is that Mr. Mandell started his own publishing company, T. Eliot Press, in order to properly tell the story. "The publishers I spoke to about this book never really gave it the respect that a complete history of Pinehurst should have," points out Mandell. "A grand vision for this book had to match the grand subject matter. We're talking about Pinehurst."
The International Network of Golf is an eighteen-year old non-profit, media-based networking organization whose mission is to enhance and promote communication and education in golf. For fifteen years, the International Network of Golf has strove to annually recognize the best in media. ING winners and outstanding achievers are determined by an independent panel of three judges in each category. Each judge uses a point system with several criteria overseen by a voluntary category chairperson.
Mr. Mandell's book was a finalist for both Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award and the USGA's Herbert Warren Wind Book Award as well. "I never imagined the critical success of the book when I started it back in 2003," says Mandell. "For my first effort in the publishing arena, I'm very proud and thankful that I could contribute to the world of golf by preserving a history that could easily have been lost."
Described as "A nice stroll through history" by one of the judges, Pinehurst ~ Home of American Golf (The Evolution of a Legend), is a detailed account of the evolution of the playing fields of Sandhills golf and how it affected golf in America. "To me, the history of the area from an architecture and development standpoint is the real story and an education for anyone who loves the history of golf" says Mandell.

For those that love the The Sandhills of North Carolina, this is a must have for any golf history buff's library! It is an exhaustive and thorough history of the Sandhills region. It has tons of pictures (many of them full-color) and diagrams. It is full of all types of surprising details - so I would advise you to actually read it rather than make it just a coffee-table book. This is huge, heavy book and worth the price once you get it in hand.

Dale Rosengarten spent hundreds of hours working on a marvelous exhibit. If you were fortunate enough to have seen the exhibit in Charleston, New York, Columbia or Charlotte, I know you'll agree that it was superb and this book will keep your memory fresh. If you didn't have the chance to see the exhibit and you're interested in the history of Jews in America then this is the book from an exhibit that has sparked a new era of interest by historians to rediscover southern Jewish life from the mid 18th century to the present.

At important times in early American history, the largest and most important Jewish Community was in Charleston, South Carolina. Unlike many parts of the world where Jews were then treated as a dispised or distrusted minority, relegated to the fringes of community life, these Jews (like their neighbors in Georgia) were an integral and valued element in the colony form its earliest time. The were truly "a portion of the people." Here Jews blended in and prospered and Judaism flourished. The first Jew was elected to a legislature in modern times in the Revolutionary War period there. Jews fought along side their fellow citizens as colonists, in the Revolutionary War, and in the Civil War. A number of nationally prominent Jewish figures (including one of the first two Jewish Senators, the first Jew nominated to the US Supreme Court, prominent business men and cabinet officials) trace their heritage to this part of the South.
And the authors tell of the cradle of Reform Judaism in Charleston where the first prayer book and hymnal were written. The reforms that were to make Reform Judaism the largest denomination, such as services in English, an important role for women, and full integration into the community, were established there. Beth Elohim, the oldest synagogue in continuous use in America, is located here.
The authors have put together a good set of photographs of people and places and interesting text on this little known chapter of American and Jewish history.

The life of Susan Pringle Frost, the Mother of Historic Preservation in Charleston, is explored with perception and sensitivity by Dr. Sidney R. Bland, whom I had the honor of assisting with a small portion of his research. Her father, Dr. Francis L. Frost, a brave Confederate surgeon, spent an angonizing and wholly fruitless decade after the end of the Civil War trying to re-start rice planting on his family's rice plantations on South Carolina's North Santee River. After his failure (and none of his neighbors fared any better), he turned to several other occupations, each of which proved equally fruitless. "Miss Sue," as she was called, along with her two sisters, rose above the limitations of her aristocratic breeding and lent a shoulder to the wheel, taking outside jobs to provide the failed family with an income. Southern gentlewomen that they were, they gave all their earnings to their father, in order that he might remain the titular head of the family. Miss Sue's rise from martyr to the Lost Cause to court stenographer to Charleston's leading Suffragette to the city's first real estate agent to its pioneer historic preservationist blazed the trail for many women both in Charleston and outside the Palmetto State. Sidney Bland's unblinking yet compassionate study of Miss Sue and her era is a precious insight into the rapidly-changing face of the South in the early twentieth century. -- Richard N. Cote', author of Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteenth-century Charleston (Corinthian Books, 2001).

Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping its Future: The Life and Times of Susan Pringle Frost is a small book that packs a big punch. Weighing in at 110 pages (171 counting index, sources, and notes), this book is a fascinating account of Susan Pringle Frost and her firm hand in the creation of the preservation movement in Charleston, South Carolina. To understand this story, one must know a little history of Charleston. Once one of the richest and most beautiful cities in the country, Charleston took a devastating downturn after the Civil War. So when ravaged by fire, hurricanes and even a destructive earthquake, Charlestonians did not have the money to raze and rebuild like many others cities (including Richmond and Atlanta). Instead, they had to restore. As a result, the turn of the century saw many of Charleston's historic buildings still intact but needing lots of work.

Enter Miss Susan Pringle Frost. Born in 1873 to a very old Charleston family that became impoverished after the Civil War, Pringle Frost was a woman way ahead of her time. She was able break away from the ties that bound traditional Victorian women and to move into a more modern age. Having never married, she first went to work as a court stenographer in 1901--a time when women weren't accepted into the workplace. She eventually went into real estate and became the first woman realtor in Charleston. She was a firm believer in civil rights when it was an unpopular stand in the south. She got involved in the suffrage movement, and hitched her star to Alice Paul. The skills that she learned during the suffrage battles, she used to great effect to get the preservation movement started. She badgered public officials, she recruited followers, she begged loans from bankers, and she was the key motivator in founding the Preservation Society of Charleston--still the premier preservation society in the city. Even before the PSC was founded, she single-handedly contributed to preservation efforts by purchasing run down homes in once properous neighborhoods and restoring them at her own expense. When the city wanted to tear down the homes that make up the now famous Rainbow Row and build something modern, Miss Susan purchased six of them and saved the entire block from the wrecking ball. Without Pringle Frost, Charleston would not be the charming city that attracts millions of tourists each year. Her contributions to the city of Charleston are so very impressive and author Sidney Bland does a fine job of bringing this story to life.

Mr. Fowler has done a fantastic job of telling of a simpler time in our country. A time when God and family were more important than material things.
The book is one of those books that you can't put down once you have started reading and once you have finished you have to read again. of all the caracters in this book Aunt Laney is my favorite. Her faith in God makes her stand out.
Many of the stories that are told in the book I can remember duplicating in the 50s when I was growing up in the same area of NC. Thanks for taking me back to a simpler time and reminding me how important family is.

A RAISING UP: BRINGS BACK SIGHTS, SMELLS AND GOOD MEMORIES OF THE TOBACCO SEASONS AND THE SPARTAN LIFE ON THE FARM IN NORTH CAROLINA IN THE 1940'S AND 1950'S. TOLD WITH SIMPLICITY AND DEAD-ON INSIGHT,I WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECCOMEND THE BOOK FOR ALL AGE GROUPS.

ADC doesn't offer individual county maps In North Carolina as they do in Maryland - where I use them - but this mapbook is excellent in the specific areas for which it is intended.

As new transplants to the Triangle area, we bought this map book to keep at home and the pocket edition to keep in the car. The level of detail is impressive, and our new street was even included (which I can't say for any of the online map services). This has proven to be a valuable resource for my family as we get acclimated to the area. Highly recommended.