South Caroliniana Library

10/28/2026

With a building as old as ours, ghostly tales are bound to pop up. Throw in the fact that we have the only known grave on campus in our front yard and the stories tell themselves! We certainly do have school spirit. 😉👻

Check out this story about some hauntings and frights from across campus, including some in our own Library!

https://www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2026/10/haunted-usc-halloween-campus-ghost-stories.php?utm_campaign=uscnews&utm_medium=email&utm_source=usctoday
University of South Carolina Libraries

Ghostly lore and historic places go hand in hand. And with a history that dates back to 1801, USC has spooky stories aplenty. In search of Halloween hair-raisers, we asked the USC community to share their scariest campus paranormal encounters.

10/27/2026

Want to dive deeper into the life of the tour guides at Historic Columbia? Check out our Oral History Collection featuring docents of the Museum of the Reconstruction Era, formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson Family Home. The docents, many with backgrounds in history and museums, shared their experiences and perspectives as tour guides.

https://digital.library.sc.edu/exhibits/woodrowwilson/

10/26/2026

We had a great night of discussion with Dr. Gallagher last week during his talk, "Disorder here rages": Sickness, Slavery, and Resistance in Revolutionary South Carolina.

Dr. Gallagher discussed the history of illness and its relation to the enslaved workers in Charleston during the Revolutionary War. He highlighted multiple documents and collections from the South Caroliniana Library that he utilized during his research!

10/22/2026

https://uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/214218

Come work with us! The South Caroliniana Library is hiring a Visual Materials Archivist. Reporting to the Head of Processing, this position will oversee the processing and conservation of visual materials across University Libraries collections.

Learn more about the position and apply at the link above. This opportunity is available to those who are legally eligible to work in the United States at the point of application.

10/20/2026

College campuses began moving classes online in March, 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) gained a strong foothold in the United States. In May, Andrea L’Hommedieu taught an online 3-week service learning course for UofSC’s Honors College to document the perspectives and experiences of those impacted in a variety of ways by the current global pandemic, using oral history skills to tell the stories.

The ten students in the class each chose one person to interview. Those interviews make up the COVID-19 Oral History Class Collection. Sowmya was a PhD student at USC during the pandemic, researching and making face shields. She was one of a dozen people interviewed to better understand the real-time impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

10/20/2026

https://tinyurl.com/OurColumbiaRSR

Throughout the 1920s, talented photographer Richard Samuel Roberts captured Black Columbians as they wanted to be remembered. Now, over 5,000 of Roberts' glass plate negatives have been digitized and are freely available to the public for the first time. Join University of South Carolina Libraries, the University of South Carolina Center for Civil Rights History & Research, and the University South Caroliniana Society for a panel discussion about Roberts, his remarkable photos, which have received significant national attention, and their lasting legacy. Get an up-close and personal look at some of the glass plate negatives and how they went from the crawlspace of the family home to being individually scanned and preserved.

We will hear from:

- Dr. Bobby Donaldson, Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research

- Phil Dunn, Professor of Art Emeritus at USC and Co-Editor of "A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts, 1920 - 1936"

- Judge Michelle Manigault Hurley, descendent of family members featured in the photos

- Dr. Dianne Johnson-Feelings, Inaugural Patricia Moore-Pastides Distinguished Chair & author of "All Around Town: The Photographs of Richard Samuel Roberts"

- Rachel Young, Center for Civil Rights History and Research Public Historian who worked on identifications during digitization

Copies of "A True Likeness" will be available for purchase. This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Please RSVP at the link for tickets.

10/19/2026

South Carolina Political Collections supports the study of contemporary government and society, primarily after World War II, by collecting and making available archival materials documenting South Carolina government and political activities at the local, state and national levels. The mission of South Carolina Political Collections is to document the wholistic history of modern politics in South Carolina.

Our curators and archivists inventory material as it comes in and always enjoy finding interesting and fun realia like this Coke bottle from the recently acquired papers of Congresswoman Nancy Mace.

10/15/2026

The South Carolina State Fair begins today! Take a glimpse into what the opening day looked like 100 years ago in 1926.

This program for the fifty-seventh annual State Fair includes schedules for each day's activities and contests, as well as ads for local businesses and sponsors. The various days coincided with certain themes including Children's Day, Veteran's Day, Athletic Day, and Agricultural Day.

Every day at 6pm the price of tickets dropped to 25 cents. What events catch your eye?

10/14/2026

Did you ever wonder how the came to be located where it is today?

A postcard in our collection details a notice of a meeting for the
State Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina. Needing room for expansion by 1911, the officials who planned the SC State Fair called a meeting for 10 August 1911 to discuss options for relocation from the northern border of Columbia (on Elmwood at Gadsden) to the southern edge of town.

Members of the Society gathered at the Council Chamber of the City of Columbia in order to take "such action as may be necessary to borrow such... money... to make bonds... and to secure the payment... by giving a mortgage... covering the tract of land of said Society, containing one hundred acres... near the southern limits of the City of Columbia."

The image below is from the Library of Congress and details a bird's eye view of the location of the fairgrounds in the city of Columbia in 1872.