Many of the images in the three sections of the collection preceding this one ("Economic Activity in South Carolina,""Transportation in South Carolina," and "South Carolina Towns and Cities") are also about the everyday lives of ordinary people: the work they have done, the places they lived, the means by which they moved back and forth between home and work, or home and play. But this section is intended to focus particularly on the people themselves. The organization of this section is a mixture of category and chronology. Because South Carolinians have taken sports seriously, the first images here are of competitive sports. These are followed by images of outdoor recreation; of ceremonies, parades and demonstrations; of the making of music and of dancing, as well as other forms of the art of entertainment; of cooking and cleaning; of creating crafts. The final group of images is one of portraits: people in groups, and people as individuals. In some cases, we know their names. In many cases, we do not. For all, their smiles, their poses, their surroundings are memorable: from the anticipation of a group of teenagers about to board a bus for a trip, to the serenity of a young Civil War wife to travel to Charleston to see her soldier husband - these are all people to whom we respond in recognition and delight.
Photo of the Laurens Football Team circa 1909 courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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"A good crop of Kudzu," grown by a Pickens County farmer, is proudly displayed in this July 1939, photo by L.W. Riley for the Department of Agriculture. Courtesy of the Clemson University Libraries.
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Classical or serious music has a long history in South Carolina. The St. Cecilia Society (still in existence today) was founded in Charleston in 1762 to bring the best concert music available to that...
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Clyde Crocker's birthday party was celebrated on an outdoor table in a back yard in Saxon Mill Village, Spartanburg, around 1910. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Football uniforms and equipment have changed a great deal during the 20th century. The helmets and nose guards of these players at Laurens High School in 1909 were made of leather. Courtesy of the...
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Freedmen on St. Helena's Island celebrated Emancipation Day, the anniversary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, as an important holiday, with parades, speeches, and solemn remembrance. This...
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Gordon Light Infantry of Fairfield County, around 1900. Courtesy of the Fairfield County Museum.
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The Wicklow Hall Plantation kitchen building, photographed in the 1930s. Kitchen buildings were not part of the main house on a plantation, but were built at a small distance, both to reduce the risk...
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The Works Progress Administration taught African-American and white women to make quilts through homemaker classes. Here, a group of South Carolina women work on quilting (sewing together the layers...
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This group of Confederate Army veterans met often for reunions in Greenville in the early 1900s. Courtesy of the Greenville County Historical Society.
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After Reconstruction ended, there gradually emerged in South Carolina, as in other parts of the South, a romanticization of the "old South" and the glories of the Confederacy--a period many chose to...
