Time Period: The Antebellum South (1816 - 1860)

Scottish Literature Digital Projects

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 …


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South Carolina Artifact Documentation Project

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 …


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South Carolina and the Civil War

A collection of photographs, manuscripts, books, and maps from the Civil War era from the University of South Carolina Libraries with essays from Dr. Thomas J. Brown and Dr. Dorothy Pratt. This collection will continue to have materials added to it.


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Small-Whaley Family Papers, 1796-1994

The Diary of a Voyage to China, 1850-1851, the private diary of Captain Thomas Small, reveals the intense loneliness of command and details the longing he feels for the wife and newborn son he left behind. He comments on marriage, child-rearing, and religion, and frequently expresses his desire to find employment “ashore” to better provide …


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University of South Carolina Buildings and Grounds

These images, dating from the 1920s to the 1950s, document the evolution of the University’s physical structures.


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Thomas Jones Davies Bible Records, 1830-1865

The Bible and its inserts, owned by Thomas Jones Davies, contain vital statistics of enslaved African Americans living on Davies’ plantations located throughout Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The plantations mentioned in the records include: Malvern and Gardner’s Swamp, of Beech Island, SC; Swamp Place, near Hamburg, SC; Cherry Hill and Waldburg of Burke County, …


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Thomas J. Tobias papers, 1790-1970

The Thomas J. Tobias Papers contain six diaries written by three members of the same family, in the mid-19th century. The Joseph Lyons diary (1833-1834), written when he was between the ages of 19-21, contains Lyons’ ruminations on his future career, his beliefs on state’s rights, some poetry, and his thoughts on his Jewish faith. Joseph Lyons’ …


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William Gilmore Simms Digital Edition

Welcome to one of the largest single author collections on the web, the William Gilmore Simms Digital Edition. Writing from Charleston and Barnwell District, South Carolina, as well as on trips across the South and to the North, he did more than anyone to frame white southern self-identity, nationalism, and historical consciousness. He also did …


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William Drayton Rutherford Papers

This collection of one hundred fifty-three manuscripts begins in 1858 when Rutherford was courting Sallie Fair, the daughter of Simeon Fair, of Newberry, S.C. The courtship of William (“Drate”) Rutherford and Sallie Fair was interrupted in 1861 by secession and war.


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Wilkinson-Keith Family Papers

The Wilkinson-Keith Family Papers consist of correspondence and other documents among the Wilkinson, Keith, Siegling, Haskell, and Marshall families and their friends dating from 1785 to 1920. The bulk of the correspondence dates from 1820 to 1890, a large portion of which chronicles Willis Keith’s experiences as a Confederate soldier in 1862-1863. Antebellum correspondence discusses …


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