One of America’s foremost early twentieth-century African-American magic acts. J. Hartford Armstrong, his wife, Lille Belle Armstrong, and eventually their daughter, Ellen Armstrong, performed feats that included mind reading, slight of hand, and card tricks. This collection of 127 items includes letters, photographs, and newspaper clippings.

Papers of Bonds Conway (1763-1843), a free African-American resident of Camden (Kershaw County, S.C.). This collection of family letters, land papers, and other items documents several generations of a free family of color from the 18th through the 20th centuries in South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, east Texas, and elsewhere. Topics discussed include social relations during antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras through the early 20th century.

Forty-four letters, 1862-1863, of Union soldier Calvin Shedd, Co. A, Seventh New Hampshire Regiment, are written primarily from locations in coastal South Carolina and addressed to his wife, S. Augusta Shedd, at Enfield, N.H., and South Reading, Mass. Shedd, a first sergeant, later second lieutenant, writes intelligently and with great detail, describing events, people, and places. His letters are noteworthy for their accounts of hospital conditions, portrayed vividly in correspondence penned from U.S. Army general hospitals at Beaufort, Hilton Head, and a field hospital at Folly Island.

This collection contains letters and other materials surrounding the life of five-term U.S. congressman David Wyatt Aiken, who biographers have styled "South Carolina's Militant Agrarian." Born in 1828 in Winnsboro (Fairfield County, S.C.), Aiken served as a colonel in the Confederate Army and later went on to serve in the S.C. House of Representatives. He was a member of the Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina and served on the executive committee of the National Grange. From 1877 until 1887, he represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. He died in 1887 at his home in Cokesbury, South Carolina. The collection consists in large part of letters to his second wife Virginia Carolina Smith Aiken (1831-1900) , as well as a hand-written autobiography and other materials surrounding his life.

Forward Together is a multiple-venue project, developed by a consortium of historical and educational institutions, that focuses on the participation of South Carolina during World War I and its effects on the state. Through exhibitions, public lectures, and the development of curricula, this project gives the community a better understanding of the twentieth century’s economic, political, and social issues that are embedded in the legacy of the Great War and continue to reverberate throughout regional, national, and international communities.

This collection of one hundred ten manuscripts, thirteen manuscript volumes, and thirty-nine photographs documents the family life, business pursuits, and natural history interests of South Carolina planter, botanist, and agricultural writer Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887).

The papers of colonial governor James Glen (1701-1777), who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1738 to 1756, include official government documents, papers concerning relations with Native American Indians, business papers relating to his ownership of a South Carolina rice plantation, and correspondence between Glen and South Carolina planter, John Drayton (1713-1779).

This collection contains diaries of James Kershaw, 1791-1825, with meteorological observations, recipes, and home remedies, including advice for treatment of pimples, boils, baldness, and unwanted hair. The papers record observations, 17 September 1811, of a solar eclipse, accounts of debts paid, January-April 1812, including prices of cotton, molasses, and sugar, and typed abstracts of recipes, 1936, copied from the diaries.

Maxcy Gregg's Sporting Journal (1839-1860) describes hunting and fishing expeditions, a record of game animals taken, weather conditions and Fisher's Pond. Other entries discuss a trip to the mountains (17 July - 12 August 1843), attending "the Washingtonian lecture" in Winnsboro, South Carolina, a mention of David Johnson (1782-1855), who served as governor of South Carolina, 1846-1848, and unsuccessful efforts to convince William Waters Boyce to assume editorial duties at the South Carolinian (a newspaper of Columbia, South Carolina).

This collection contains two volumes of local history and genealogical information regarding Fairfield County, South Carolina, including families who settled in the region, as well as related lines in Charleston, Orangeburg County, Richland County, and elsewhere in South Carolina. The volumes include transcriptions of letters and account books and excerpts from other unpublished documents regarding immigrants from the United Kingdom, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other regions in North America, who settled in South Carolina. Some entries document sales or purchases of African American slaves, inheritance of real estate, military service in the American Revolution or Civil War, and related topics.

This item documents the 1923 meeting in Columbia, S.C., of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The session convened at Bethel A.M.E. Church, the impressive, masonry structure built in 1921 at the corner of Sumter and Taylor Streets. This publication is significant for its portraits and biographical sketches of African American ministers and their wives from around the United States.

This collection from the South Caroliniana Library consists primarily of the Civil War letters of Edward Laight Wells, discussing the mood in Charleston during the secession crisis in 1860, fighting with the Hampton's Legion 1864-1865, and the immediate aftermath of the war. Other letters are from Eliza Carolina Middleton Huger Smith discussing the health and welfare of her family during the war. Also included are quotations, autographs, Confederate notes, poetry, recipes, genealogical information and newspaper clippings.

This small collection of letters written by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton (1762-1816) documents concerns and developments during the months preceding the War of 1812.

This core unit of three hundred fifty items -two hundred sixty-two manuscripts, miscellaneous printed artifacts, and eighty-eight photographs- added to the papers of the late Joseph Armstrong DeLaine (1898-1974) covers chiefly the period from 1942, when he submitted his annual report as secretary of the Clarendon County Citizen[s] Committee, to 1974, when he delivered an address entitled "History leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's Decision outlawing Segregation in Public Schools."

A collection of photographs, manuscripts, books, and maps from the Civil War era. This collection will continue to have materials added to it.

Formerly owned by wealthy Charleston merchant William Ancrum (ca. 1722-1808), this single volume (171 pages, bound in vellum) contains both a letter book and financial accounts that reflect the financial impact of the American Revolution on this South Carolina businessman and planter. The letter book, 1776-1780 (169 letters), preserves communications with merchants in Camden, S.C., as well as plantation overseers, and others; the account book details Ancrum’s personal expenses, 1776-1789.

This collection of one hundred fifty-three manuscripts begins in 1858 when Rutherford was courting Sallie Fair, the daughter of Simeon Fair, of Newberry, S.C. The courtship of William ("Drate") Rutherford and Sallie Fair was interrupted in 1861 by secession and war.

The journal covers Tennent's trek though the S.C. back-country, at times in the company of William Henry Drayton and Rev. Oliver Hart in an effort to persuade Loyalist Tories to join the Patriot cause. The album contains papers documenting his life as a Presbyterian minister in the Colonies of New Jersey and Connecticut, the courtship of his wife despite the objections of her mother, and his 1772 arrival in Charleston, S.C., to serve the Independent or Congregational Church among other topics.