View All Colonial Period (1670 - 1764) Items in Discovery
The University of South Carolina Press and the University of South Carolina Libraries are pleased to announce the launch of AccessAble Books. Titles published under this joint imprint are selected from the diverse collections of the Thomas Cooper Library and the South Caroliniana Library as a means to republish important out-of-print volumes of scholarship and […]
The John and Mary Osman Braun and Hogenberg Collection contains a variety of maps from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, primarily from the Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Cities of the World) by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg. The Civitates is considered one of the first modern atlases and it captures an exciting glimpse into the past through the […]
Broadsides is a virtual collection of posters from many different collections at the South Caroliniana Library.
Charles Fraser (1782-1860) was a lifelong resident of Charleston, South Carolina and a renowned artist known primarily for his miniatures of fellow Charlestonians. Starting in 1798, before delving full time into his art, Fraser studied law under John Julius Pringle, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and others, and was admitted to the bar in 1806. This Book […]
The collection of artifacts pertaining tot he Craft and Crum families of the Lowcountry includes a myriad of materials; photo albums, letters, account books, and land deeds. The Craft Family Photo Album includes images of Craft family members, famous abolitionists, and other family friends, many of international historical significance. Also included in the collection are legal […]
The images in this collection have been created from a portfolio of book and manuscript leaves that was compiled and sold by The Society of Foliophiles in 1964. The collection was released in an edition of 20 sets that each contained 135 examples, and was titled “The History of the Written Word.” By using actual […]
This collection contains diaries, travelogues, ledgers, correspondence, inventories, plats, sketches, architectural drawings of Charles Drayton III and others, relating mainly to affairs at Drayton Hall and other family plantations. Collection also includes artwork, reflections on eighteenth century literature, deeds, newspaper clippings and photographs.
The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Real Estate Indentures Collection features images of rare and original handwritten documents that tell the history of Georgetown County. The collection includes real estate indentures, land grants, survey maps, conveyance of land, titles, mortgages and agreements from the early residents including the Brockingtons, the Fords, the Heywards, the Porchers, the […]
Public domain books printed in the 16th-19th centuries including numerous titles written by Thomas Jefferson and Early English books. Browse by Topic Jeffersonian Americana Library of English Literature
This collection includes the Revolutionary War papers of John Paul Grimke and his son John Faucheraud Grimke, with materials regarding the latter as intendant (mayor) of Charleston. The papers of his son Thomas Smith Grimke document temperance, politics and education and also contain an autograph collection. With papers of Thomas’s siblings Frederick Grimke, abolitionists Sarah […]
The Historical Commission of South Carolina pamphlet collection is comprised of 45 artificially bound volumes of separately published South Carolina imprints from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Topics covered include: agriculture, Civil War regimental histories, education and schools, geology, industry, medicine, Native American tribes, nature, nullification, the Revolutionary War, the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), and […]
The papers of colonial governor James Glen (1701-1777), who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1738 to 1756, include official government documents, papers concerning relations with Native American Indians, business papers relating to his ownership of a South Carolina rice plantation, and correspondence between Glen and South Carolina planter, John Drayton (1713-1779).
This collection primarily consists of over two hundred eighteenth and nineteenth century plats pertaining to properties in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina. Plats include the parish of St. Thomas & St. Denis, St. Andrew’s Parish, Prince Frederick, St. Stephen’s Parish, St. Luke’s Parish, St. Peter’s Parish, St. John’s Parish, St. Bartholomew’s Parish, St. Paul’s […]
In collaboration with a pilot group of South Carolina teachers, USC Libraries has made these primary resources available online with the SC Social Studies Standards.
This book describes the history of Bamberg, South Carolina, with maps, photographs, and text regarding the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras; more specific chapters discuss the buildings, businesses, schools, churches, occupations and people of the 1890s. Genealogical charts and other information document the Copeland and various other families of Bamberg County, South Carolina, through […]
The McLeod Plantation Cemetery Collection contains beads found in 1996 during the construction of a fire station in James Island, South Carolina. Construction of the fire station, which was to be located between Folly Road, Country Club Drive, and Wappoo Creek, was aborted when workers unearthed unmarked graves. The human bones found were believed to […]
This collection of 17th century world maps was published and printed by the Danckerts family, and was donated as a part of the Mitchell King Library. These 31 maps cover various countries in Europe, as well as the continents of Asia, Africa, and North and South America. The maps are by various cartographers including Visscher, […]
In 2011 Robert B. Ariail donated an extraordinary collection of historical astronomy to the University of South Carolina and the South Carolina State Museum. Over the past half-century, Mr. Ariail built a collection that encompassed both historic telescopes and astronomical instruments, now at the State Museum, and more than 5,000 rare books and other published […]
The University of South Carolina libraries have been acquiring works by Scottish authors since the early nineteenth century. With the addition of the extensive G. Ross Roy Collection in 1989, South Carolina now has major research holdings across a wide range of Scottish writing. Indeed, in the words of one recent visitor, it is “the […]
Divers have been exploring the rivers and coastal waters of South Carolina since the early 1960’s when SCUBA as a sport was in its infancy. The South Carolina State Legislature first enacted an Underwater Antiquities Bill in 1968 which was intended to protect historic shipwrecks and other submerged cultural resources. In 1974 a Hobby Diver […]
This is an electronic resource from the Gregg-Graniteville Library at University of South Carolina, Aiken
The map collection of the South Caroliniana Library has always been a significant resource for geographers, historians, and genealogists. In the past two hundred years, technological changes have substantially altered the landscape of South Carolina, and the library’s map collection visually documents these transformations. The maps show airports, battlefields, cemeteries, churches, cities, highways, Native American […]
The St. Andrew’s Society is a social and benevolent organization founded in 1729 in Charleston, South Carolina. Named after the patron saint of Scotland, it is the oldest organization of its type and the progenitor for many other St. Andrews Societies in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Established to “do generous and charitable […]
One of a number of versions, the 1669 Fundamental Constitutions was a theoretical instrument of rule. These documents, attributed to the young philosopher John Locke, provided for a feudal system in the new colony, with colonial nobility carrying hereditary titles such as “cacique” and “landgrave,” and the eight proprietors forming the highest level of rule. […]
This collection contains images from the daybook of James Poyas, a Charleston merchant. Entries begin in February 1760 and end in April of 1765. James Poyas was born in 1736 to Jean Louis (anglicized to John Lewis) Poyas and Marie Jourdan. He married Elizabeth Portall in 1755, and they had one child, a daughter, Elizabeth. […]
The Thomas Family and Muller Family papers along with related personal collections housed at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina total approximately 32 linear feet. There are an additional 219 volumes of business ledgers from the Sandy Run Store and Thomas Store (Ridgeway, S.C.). All of these materials span 1702 through […]
In the late 16th century, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) established two observatories on the island of Hven, near Copenhagen. This section from Jean Blaeu’s Grande Atlas, from the French version issued in 1663, describes and illustrates Brahe’s astronomical instruments. Blaeu’shandcolored copper-plate engravings were revised from wood-cuts originally published in Brahe’s own Astronomiae Instauratiae […]
This collection gives an indication of the kinds and numbers of medical books in the hands of physicians in South Carolina and reflects the education and training of doctors during the 18th and 19th centuries.
A collection of colorful illustrations satirizing both doctor and patient, illness and treatment. Notable artists represented in the collection include Louis Crusius, M.D., James Gillray, and Louis Boilly.
Formerly owned by wealthy Charleston merchant William Ancrum (ca. 1722-1808), this single volume (171 pages, bound in vellum) contains both a letter book and financial accounts that reflect the financial impact of the American Revolution on this South Carolina businessman and planter. The letter book, 1776-1780 (169 letters), preserves communications with merchants in Camden, S.C., […]
