About
The series of photograph albums document the time that John Shaw Billings (1898-1975) and his extended family spent at the Redcliffe plantation in Aiken County, South Carolina. Known for his position as the first managing editor of Life Magazine, Billings purchased Redcliffe in 1935 from his uncle Henry Cumming Hammond (1868-1961) for $15,000. Even before the purchase, however, Billings’ family had owned the estate since its founding: former South Carolina Governor James Henry Hammond, who was also Billings’ great-granfather, built Redcliffe. There are a total of 62 photograph albums in the John Shaw Billings Papers collection, housed at the South Caroliniana Library.