Despite resistance from many who hesitated to sever ties with the United States, the idea of Southern independence gained popularity as political rhetoric intensified between slave-holding and abolitionist states during the 1850s. In December of 1860, a convention of delegates from across the state took the initiative and repealed South Carolina’s 1788 ratification of the …
The Chesnee Collection contains items documenting the history of the city of Chesnee and the surrounding area, including school yearbooks.
The Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (SRHS) Collection is a collection of photographs, documents, and images of artifacts that document the history of medical care in the Spartanburg area. A few images pre-date the founding of Spartanburg General Hospital (now Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System), but most date from 1921 to the present. The Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System …
Although founded in 1787, the courthouse village of Spartanburg was without any independent town or city government until 1831, when the little town of a few hundred residents received its official incorporation from the state government. At that point, eligible citizens within one mile of the courthouse were able to elect an Intendant and four wardens, who …
For close to a century, the textile industry was the dominant economic engine driving Spartanburg County’s growth. It built up fortunes, established new communities, changed the agricultural landscape, and brought thousands of new residents into the county. Even more significantly, the textile industry was interwoven with its employees’ lives to a degree not known before …
Funeral programs, 1957-1991 (bulk 1975-1991), collected by Bessie Norris Wofford, primarily of services in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, particularly Roebuck and Walnut Grove. Also included are a small number of programs for services for natives of South Carolina held in other states and programs for a service to license for Brother Alan W. Ferguson and …
Black history in the Spartanburg area remains obscured by the biases and scarcity of early records. By 1790, the first year with a reliable population estimate, Spartanburg County was home to 866 black slaves and 27 “free persons not white,” representing about 10% of the total population. At the time of emancipation, some 8,300 African-Americans lived in Spartanburg County, around 30% …
This selection of maps illustrates the development of Spartanburg County from an isolated settlement to a regional center as few other historical resources can. In addition to documenting areas rarely photographed, maps can be useful to researchers interested in charting the changes in land use for a given geographic area. Information included in many of …
LGBTQ Studies is a special-topics course taught periodically in the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate. In the spring of 2018, it was offered with a new component designed to introduce an element of High-Impact Practice (HIP) to the classroom through oral history collection. …
Established at USC Spartanburg in October 1998, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (CWGS) is housed in the College of Arts and Sciences and serves students, faculty, staff and community members through curricular and co-curricular programming. As part of the USC Upstate commitment to recognizing and supporting diversity efforts on campus, the Center for …