50 Years of South Carolina in Images & Stories Robert Clark launched his photography career in 1974. Tom Poland moved to South Carolina in 1974 to write and teach. Poland and Clark met at South Carolina Wildlife magazine and their journey in words and images began. Their seminal feature, “Tenant Homes—Testament To Hard Times,” charted … Read more
This is a lecture that addresses the history of art quilts with images and explanations that take quilts off beds and onto walls and as sculptural artworks.
In 1983, while working as a scholar-in-residence for the Tennessee Committee for the Humanities, Dr. Williams had the opportunity to travel around the mountains with Richard Chase, the famous Jack Tale collector. During that time, he discussed Chase’s dialect renditions of the Jack Tales along with a number of old English fairy tales which Chase discovered … Read more
This presentation focuses on Oral History and its value to a community. Dr. Williams will share stories from two projects which he directed: the Appalachian Oral History Project and the Great Smoky Mountains Project. In the late 1970s Dr. Williams was one of the campus directors for an oral history project which covered four states … Read more
The South has a rich tradition of folk literature that draws upon oral tradition and colorful language for its substance. Legends, folk history, songs, foodways, customs, and unique dialects permeate the ghost stories of South Carolina and other Southern states. Dr. Williams draws upon the numerous collections of ghost stories and scary tales to create … Read more
The Folklore and oral traditions from the mill villages are rapidly changing as the they go the way of the coal camps in the mountains. Storytelling itself, the connective tissue of the community, has been drastically affected by this change. Dr. Williams has collected stories from mill workers in the Upstate, and he weaves a … Read more
An entertaining storyteller, Dr. Williams portrays the characters from folk tales collected from Appalachian migrants in Cincinnati, Ohio. He highlights the migrants’ deep-seated sense of place as he recreates characters in Appalachian dialect. Especially moving is his version of Cinderella as a poor girl living up a hollar in the Kentucky mountains whose painted fingernails … Read more
This lecture looks at the interesting concept of history vs. memory using the microhistory of one man’s legacy. Silas Butts was a moonshiner in Oconee County who also ran a grist mill and an unofficial orphanage. But people remember him differently- either as a great man or a horrible man. How can one person have … Read more
This lecture is based on one of South Carolina’s premiere folk legends. John blends his powerful storytelling and traditional musical talents to share the interesting life-story of one of South Carolina’s famous and elusive turn-of-the-century African Americans. Through captivating performances, John weaves the history and folklore of the life of George Mullins. Fowler tells two … Read more
