Perkins became the first female cabinet member, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, at the rock bottom of the Great Depression. She came with a “To Do List” – workman’s compensation, unemployment insurance, old age and health insurance; a minimum wage, a maximum work week, and the abolition of child labor. When she left office 12 years … Read more
Talk about a hiking challenge! How about a 500 mile wilderness trek, without food, fire, or weapons, in early winter and while wearing a summer dress? Captured by a Shawnee war party in the French and Indian War and taken more than 450 miles from her home to what is now Cincinnati, Mary Ingles escaped … Read more
Rachel Carson is depicted just after the publication of Silent Spring and 18 months before she dies of breast cancer. Warning of dangers of pesticides and pollution, Silent Spring races to the top of the bestseller list, and Rachel Carson is attacked on all sides by the chemical industry. Proclaimed founder of the Environmental Movement, she is still maligned … Read more
Julia Peterkin was a white woman who wrote about Gullah people living on her family’s plantation out of a desire to honor and preserve their culture. She was shunned by white Southerners for “betraying her race” but became accepted by Harlem Renaissance writers, such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois. Regardless of criticism, she continued … Read more
In 1863, both women were in South Carolina’s Lowcountry—Barton provided supplies and medical care for Union and Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Fort Waggoner with Massachusetts’s 54th Regiment. Tubman, a formerly enslaved woman, ran reconnaissance and led Union forces up the Combahee River to free more than 700 enslaved persons. This presentation recognizes two … Read more
Willie Earle, an African American, was accused of killing Thomas Watson Brown, a cab driver from Greenville, SC. Thirty-one white men (mostly cab drivers – all white) drove from Greenville in the middle of the night to take Earle out of the Pickens County Jail. They then beat him, burned him, and shot him in … Read more
“Writers of the world, if you’ve got a story, I want to hear it. I promise it will follow me to my last breath.”—Pat Conroy Although beloved writer Pat Conroy (1945-2016) served as a classroom educator for little more than three years, he remained a teacher and mentor to his fellow writers throughout his lifetime. … Read more
“Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.”—Pat Conroy The author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Water Is Wide, author and educator Pat Conroy (1945–2016) is synonymous with the lowcountry. Explore Conroy’s lifelong commitment to education and self-improvement through stories of three of … Read more
“The poets of the world occupy a place of high honor in my city of books.”—Pat Conroy Best known as a beloved novelist and memoirist, internationally acclaimed author Pat Conroy (1945-2016) began his writing life wanting to be a poet. Over time, Conroy transitioned successfully to prose, incorporating the lyrical and descriptive elements he most … Read more
