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Reverend Sarah H. Smith (1884-1937) was a Baptist preacher who came to Columbia early in the 20th century from Savannah and organized Bethlehem Baptist Church in 1913 by going from house to house. By...
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Hilla Sheriff (1900-1988) was a leader in shaping public health policies in South Carolina. She graduated from the College of Charleston, and was one of only three women to receive a medical degree...
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John R. Schorb (1818-1908) was an early photographer in South Carolina, practicing first as a daguerreotypist, and later using wet and dry plate photographic techniques, in Winnsboro and Yorkville...
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Richard S. Roberts (1880-1936), a talented photographer, left an enduring film record of Columbia's African-American middle class community during the 1920s and 1930s. This self portrait was taken in...
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Joel Robert Poinsett (1779-1851) was the first American Minister to Mexico, serving from 1825-1830. As a result of that assignment, he introduced into the United States the poinsettia, a flower named...
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Ellen Murray (1834-1908), with two young women from the Penn School. In 1862, Ellen Murray and Laura Towne (1825-1901), members of the Port Royal Experiment, established the first school for African...
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Vardry McBee ( -1864) is known as the Father of Greenville, in spite of his living in North Carolina until 1834. In 1815, McBee purchased extensive properties in Greenville, and established flour...
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Basil Manly, Sr. (1798-1868), was the author of the resolutions leading to cleavage of the Baptist Church in 1844 into northern and southern branches. He was influential in securing the establishment...
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Charles Izard Manigault (1789-1874) was born in Charleston, but grew up in Philadelphia, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. Some planter and merchant families, like the Izards and...
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Joshua Lazarus (1796-1861) was president of the congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston from 1851-1861, and an investor whose efforts helped bring natural gas lighting to Charleston...