South Carolina from A to Z

“H” is for Hunter-Gault, Charlayne (b.1942). Journalist, civil rights activist.

“G” is for Gridley, Mary Putnam (1850-1939). Civic leader, businesswoman.

“C” is for Colleton, Sir John (1608-1666). Under Sir John Colleton's direction, the proprietor set out to populate Carolina with settlers from existing new world colonies, including New England, Virginia, and the Caribbean islands, especially Barbados.

“C” is for Cleveland, Georgia Alden (1851-1914). Writer, activist.

“C” is for Chapman, Martha Marshall, II (b. 1949). Musician. Classified by many as a country-music artist, Martha Marshall Chapman,II, and her style nonetheless have been difficult to categorize.

“B” is for Bonham, Milledge Luke (1813-1890). Soldier, congressman, governor.

“B” is for Bolden, Charles Frank, Jr. (1946-2017). Soldier, astronaut.

“B” is for Boineau, Charles Evans, Jr. (1923-2005). Legislator. Boineau was the first Republican to be elected to the South Carolina General Assembly in the twentieth century.

“C” is for Colhoun, John Ewing (ca.1749-1802). U.S. senator.

“C” is for College of Charleston. In 1785 the General Assembly passed an act creating a college “in or near the city of Charleston.”

“C” is for Coker’s Pedigreed Seed Company. Coker's Pedigreed Seed Company had its origins in the efforts of David R. Coker to develop and market a highly productive variety of upland cotton that yielded fiber of superior quality and length.

“C” is for Coker University. Founded in 1908 Coker is an independent liberal arts school located in Hartsville.

“B” is for a Bowles, Crandall Close (b.1947). Businesswoman.

“S” is for Smith, Nell Whitley (1929-2011). Legislator, educator, businesswoman.

“S” is for Smith, Benjamin (1717-1770). Merchant, politician, planter.

“S” is for Smith, Ellison Durant (1864-1944). In 1908 Smith stunned the political establishment by winning election to the United States Senate. He remained there for thirty-six years.

Thanks to the widespread popularity of his instrumental hit “Guitar Boogie,” Arthur Smith became one of the best known guitarists in country music.

Born in Charleston, Smith emerged as the leading artist of the Charleston Renaissance.

“H” is for Hunter, John (d. 1802). Congressman, U.S. senator.

“G” is for Grimké, Archibald Henry (1849-1930). Activist, scholar.

“C” is for Coker, David Robert (1870-1938). Businessman, plant breeder, philanthropist.

“C” is for Coker, Charles Westfield (1879-1931). Businessman, philanthropist, social reformer.

“C” is for Cofitachiqui. Cofitachiqui is the name of a sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Native American chiefdom as well as one of the principal towns of that chiefdom.

“B” is for Boyce, James Pettigru (1827-1888). Minister, educator.

In his book Grant’s Enforcer: Taking Down the Klan Guy Gugliota offers a gripping story of the early years after the Civil War and the campaign led by President Ulysses S. Grant’s attorney general Amos T. Akerman to destroy the Ku Klux Klan. Akerman, a former Georgia slaveholder and the only Southerner to serve in a Reconstruction cabinet, was the first federal lawman to propose using the Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute civil rights violations.Gugliotta uses newspapers, documents, and first-person stories, including thousands of pages of testimony under oath taken by a Congressional joint committee tasked in 1871 to study the Ku Klux Klan, a breathtaking compilation of accounts by Ku Klux targets, their attackers, local and national politicians, public officials and private citizens. The result is a vivid portrait of the Reconstruction South through the career of this surprising man.Guy joins us in conversation this week to talk about how Grant and Akerman took down the Klan.

“W “is for Woodmason, Charles (ca.1720?). Clergyman.

“W “is for Woodmason, Charles (ca.1720?). Clergyman.

“S” is for Smalls, Robert (1839-1915.) Legislator, congressman.

“R” is for Russell's Magazine (1857-1860). Russell's Magazine was the last of the southern antebellum literary magazines and arguably the best.

“P” is for Poppenheim, Mary Barnett (1866-1936) and Louisa Bouknight Poppenheim (1868-1957). Club women, social reformers.

“P “is for Pope, Thomas Harrington, Jr. (1913-1999). Attorney, legislator, historian.

“N” is for Nullification. The passage of the federal tariff law of 1828 signaled the rise of the nullification controversy in South Carolina. Led by John C. Calhoun a majority of South Carolinians eventually came to assert that a state had the right to nullify or veto federal laws and secede from the union.

“N” is for Nuclear power. The first time nuclear power was used to generate electricity in South Carolina was a small 17 megawatt experimental prototype by South Carolina Electric and Gas (and partners) at Parr from 1963 to 1967.

“C” is for Coastal plain. The coastal plain is South Carolina's largest landform region, forming two-thirds of the state and encompassing approximately 20,000 square miles.

“M” is for Morgané, Mary Elizabeth (1815-1903). Author, diarist.

“L” is for Ludwell, Phillip (1638-1723). Governor.

“H” is for Humphreys, Josephine (b.1945). Novelist.

“G” is for Gressette, Lawrence Marion (1902-1984). Legislator.

“D” is for Dutch Fork. The Dutch Fork lies in a fork between the Broad and Saluda Rivers that includes parts of the modern counties of Newberry, Lexington, and Richland.

“C” is for Cockfighting. Cockfighting is a blood sport that has existed in South Carolina from colonial times into the twenty-first century, despite the fact that it was banned by the General Assembly in 1887.

“C” is for Coastal Carolina University. Located in Horry County between Conway and Myrtle Beach, Coastal Carolina University is a public comprehensive liberal arts institution with more than 11,000 students.

“C” is for Clyburn, James Enos (b.1940). Congressman. In 2024 James Enos Clyburn won election to Congress for a seventeenth term.

“B” is for Boudo, Louis (ca. 1786-1827), and Heloise Boudo (d. 1837). Silversmiths, goldsmiths, jewelers.

“B” is for Bouchillon, Christopher Allen (1893-1968). Although largely forgotten today, Christopher Allen Bouchillon probably ranks as South Carolina’s most notable country music personality.

“B” is for Bosc, Louis Augustin Guillaume (1759-1828). Naturalist.

“B” is for Boonesborough Township. Boonesborough was one in the second wave of townships that South Carolina laid out during the mid-eighteenth century to defend her frontier from the Cherokee.

“W “is for Women's suffrage. The earliest suffrage clubs in the state were not organized until the 1890s but suffragists were beginning to receive notice.

“S” is for Slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important demographic, social, and economic events of the modern era.

“S” is for slave religion. Enslaved Africans arriving in South Carolina brought their traditional belief systems with them and until the early nineteenth century Christianity only marginally affected them and their descendants.

“S” is for slave patrols. Slave patrols were a crucial mechanism of slave control in the colonial and antebellum periods of South Carolina history.